******UPDATES****** Today I received an email reply from David Barth, founder and CEO of Pixii (by the way, don't expect this kind of responsiveness from the CEO of Nikon or Canon or Sony... or probably Leica, unless you are, for example, the Sultan of Brunei.) He made the following interesting points on the video: -- An option to set a custom white balance or shoot a white surface for reference is coming. -- They typically get WiFi transfer rates of up to 2.5MB/s, so the length of time it took me to transfer HD and DNG files seems unusually slow. He suspects my WiFi network. I'll need to investigate this. -- The recent 4.10.9 software update was supposed to solve the problem of blown highlights in high-contrast scenes. I'll need to investigate this too. -- Re the M-mount compatibility issue, he says they did not try to be compatible with huge-diameter, wide-aperture lenses because these lenses could not be focused accurately with the rangefinder anyway. [He also says most Leicas can't focus these lenses accurately either without a factory recalibration, which agrees with many comments I've heard from Leica users.] He notes that in some ways the Pixii lens mount is MORE compatible than those of digital Leicas: It was designed especially to handle collapsible lenses such as the Elmar and Summicron, and deep-set lenses such as the Hologon, which Leica does not recommend on their digital cameras because of the danger of scratching the shutter blades. -- The 15-day return policy (which I think is perfectly reasonable, by the way) is flexible; people can email them if they need to make a special request. -- Improved battery life will be coming next year, and existing cameras will be upgradable to the new solution. Incidentally -- to answer the question at the end of the video, I DID decide to keep the Pixii, and I'm happy to see Pixii SAS is continuing to develop the concept and is interested in users' opinions. I'll be posting another video, with more and better samples, after I've had a chance to do more shooting with the camera. Happy Pixii-ing!
Hello J.L. I am also a new buyer of Pixii. Well done for your video. Just a few small personal additions: - The native black and white mode alone deserves an article. I own an M Monochrom 1 and I have a great possibility of processing with this mode which is very different from classic sRGB file post-processing! - For me Pixii is an absolutely new project because it integrates the concept of sustainability into the deal with its CEO. You buy a solid case and in a while you will be able to change the sensor, the processor and the memory (in order to shoot faster ;-)), the batteries (as you advertise) etc. You have to understand that what you pay, if Pixii lives, is the "entry ticket" for a camera that will be technologically maintained for a long period and at a reasonable cost. Ask the buyers of the first version what they think of Pixii's policy to upgrade their box to the New Pixii! Finally Pixii is the result of an artisanal "hand-made" production and has a precision optical part (which can certainly be improved) which is very expensive to produce in Europe. This part alone justifies the price difference with the camera presented as a reference and produced industrially in low-wage areas.
Thank you for those thoughts! I agree that the monochrome mode is very interesting on its own, and hope to do more with it when I have more time. The conceptual aspects you mention are interesting to me as well. My interpretation of the Pixii's design concept is that they hope to demonstrate that a very small company can still produce an important camera in a country where workers are well-treated, by avoiding expensive proprietary parts that require heavy up-front investment. For example, instead of processing images on a costly application-specific integrated circuit (such as Sony's BIONZ or Nikon's Exspeed) it uses an off-the-shelf commercial Cortex processor; instead of needing a custom LCD display, it uses your phone! The Pixii will never sell in huge volumes, but I feel this business model could help them be sustainable for a long time!
Since making the video I've learned that I can improve battery life quite a bit by keeping Wi-Fi turned off if not needed (easy to do, just one click) and I'm not too uncomfortable rationing my shots to avoid lighting the dreaded BUSY indicator. But I agree those will be irritants for a lot of people, and it's better to know about them up front!
Hello and thank you for your reviews. How is the B&W image quality of the PIXII with it's very special internal software emulated monochrome sensor dng files ? Are these images really better then those of the RGB dng files converted to monochrome in Photoshop or any other RAW software ? Can the B&W PIXII images come close to those of a true monochrome sensor like a Leica monochrome ? (I guess the difference could only be visible at very high ISO) It would be interesting if you could compare the same image out of your PIXII, once in RGB dng converted B&W in Photoshop and another file in PIXII native B&W dng.
It's a matter of opinion and of how you work with monochrome files. First, working with RGB files converted to monochrome has one big advantage: In software such as Lightroom, you can adjust the emphasis given to each color channel. That lets you emulate traditional b&w film photography effects such as adding a red filter to bring out the clouds. Also, of course, you can change your mind later if you convert the photo to b&w and then decide you preferred it in color! If you're committed to making monochrome images, though, the special "computational monochrome" mode is a real benefit. Quick summary of how it works: all digital sensors measure only the luminance values of the scene; the color values are estimated by computation, using the known values of color filters over the sensor. Because Pixii knows exactly each filter value and how the calculation is made, it can reverse the calculation to recover the original luminance values. This means that the full bit depth of the file can be applied to the luminance values only. What I find it means in practice is that the monochrome files are more flexible: I can apply more adjustment using the curves or levels tools in Lightroom to get exactly the distribution of tones that I want in the final image. I'm working on a new video about the latest Pixii model with the new Cortex A55 processor (hint: much faster!!) and will see if I can make a comparison image as you suggest. Note, though, that normally I'd seldom make both a color and a mono image of the same subject -- most subjects lend themselves to either one or the other -- so I'm not sure how much sense such a comparison would make. Still, will give it a try if I find a suitable subject!
@@jlwilliams Yes of course, with a digital monochrome camera you have to work like with film, using color filters before the lens. My question is about image quality between the different solutions. It is well known that between say Leica Q2 and Q2 monochrom there is absolutely no difference at 100 ISO, some minor difference at 800 ISO and a absolutely huge visible difference at 3200 ISO. As the PIXII has a unique RGB sensor based monochrome B&W emulation (not a RGB RAW conversion in software), I wonder if say at 3200 ISO the image quality is rather a bit better than a converted RGB file or rather a bit worse than a true monochrome camera, what should make a big quality difference in favour of "a bit worse than true monochrome".
Nice to see it getting some love JL! David's response to M mount compatibility is bunk though. I (and many others) focus fast aperture lenses regularly. While it's not dead on all of the time, that's the nature of shooting a rangefinder. Practice makes focusing by feel practical and is one reason to work with one or few lenses. The deal killer for me is the Pixi sensor size, it crops off the interesting bits of the lenses it's made to mount; that seems kind of unforgivable. The rest of the quirks aren't much of a concern for a rangefinder; it's always been a rangefinder's case that if the limitations cause a problem, then use a different camera. Nice to see development on digital rangefinders, even if they don't appeal to me.
I still don't buy the supremacy of the Simplex (36x24mm) format, since I don't feel any obligation to help lenses live their best life -- but I concur that most of the other quirks are just quirks. Still... while I also use fast-aperture lenses regularly and don't normally have much trouble focusing them, you have to admit that it's more reliable on a camera with a longer-base rangefinder, right? That's something I learned with my R-D1... while it was POSSIBLE to use lenses such as my M-converted 50/0.95 and 100/2 Canons on it (an eyepiece magnifier helped a lot with the former, and of course an accessory viewfinder was necessary for the latter) it was a lot more PRACTICAL to stick with the range of lenses for which it was designed. Those wide-aperture lenses are always going to be happier on a long-base camera such as a Leica M, Canon 7s, or Zeiss Ikon M. Incidentally, an M-adapted Canon 100/2 actually works pretty nicely on the Pixii as long as you limit yourself to subjects no closer than 4 or 5 meters away, although accessory viewfinders are still as big a headache as ever!
Thank you for this review! I think there are a few things worth addressing vs the idea of getting a used M9 or M 240 variant. The Pixii contains a much more modern sensor, those used quite antiquated designs even when new (though they have their own charms). They are both horrible at even moderate ISOs. This APS-C sensor is way better. It will also have much better dynamic range. So while it is smaller, it really doesn’t lose anything to those cameras in image quality. The other thing is size and weight. An M 240 weighs considerably more than this Pixii. I think that’s an important consideration. The M 240 weighs as much as a lot of DSLRs (but more compact). For me this always meant that I had to use much larger and brighter lenses than I would otherwise need in order to compensate for the lax sensors especially indoors etc. This meant the whole kit was really rather heavy and bulky, but only needed because of deficiencies in the imaging. This I could work with much smaller lenses and the camera itself is as well. Making for a more pleasing experience. The rangefinder base length is also less of an issue because I don’t need crazy shallow DoF. APS-C with a 35/1.7 is perfectly fine for me, rather than having to use a chunky 50/1.2 on the M 240 to get usable images. Then focus would be a real challenge (not impossible, but not really ideal). So I think the combination of a better quality sensor but with less DoF is actually a real advantage for rangefinder cameras. I saw someone post somewhere that ‘oh no, a 21/1.8 will be 30mm on this!’… have they ever actually shot a rangefinder? You can’t frame 21mm anyway. There is also no real advantage to a 21/1.8 other than light gathering, again to make up for dodgy sensor. You can certainly get the same effect with say a 15mm lens. So who cares? People who desperately think that FF is always better in all instances I guess? Sad really. I would already have one of these if they had slightly better distribution, by local distributors and support.
I agree with a lot of those points, but I also don't want to diss people who decide the Pixii is not for them. The dealership/distribution issue that you mentioned is a big hurdle for a lot of people all by itself -- I admit I had a lot of hesitations about buying a completely non-traditional camera from a relatively unknown maker without even being able to handle it and look through it first!
The unique feature of PIXII cameras is that the company not only makes many Firmware/software upgrades, they also make hardware upgrades to you existing camera, for example increasing internal memory, or even replace the sensor by a more modern one !!!
Pretty interesting video. I definitely have picked up a lot of orphan cameras in my life, but this one feels probably like a pass. The dealbreaker for me, and it seems the CEO's courteous reach out did not address this, is the slow buffer speed when shooting. And while I wax nostalgic for my crazy ex French girlfriend, one thing age as taught me, it's better not to go there in the first place. Since you are keeping, enjoy the journey, but don't tell your friends later they didn't warn you she was trouble.
Crazy French ex-girlfriend story FTW! 😄 Re throughput: I don't think the issue is so much "buffer speed" (in the normal sense of a buffer holding data waiting to be written to a memory card, since the Pixii doesn't use external memory)... it's the speed of processing the sensor data in the first place. The Pixii uses an FPGA [field-programmable gate array] to accelerate image processing, and an FPGA can be updated at any time if improved logic becomes available... so I'm hoping this eventually may be addressed with an over-the-air update. Meanwhile, I'm trying to reconnect with my roots of using knob-wind rangefinder cameras with manually-cocked shutters to adjust to a slower pace...
Reply to Christopher Liljenstolpe: I tried to DM you about your question, but TH-cam doesn't seem to allow that anymore. Feel free to contact me via one of the links in my About tab and we can discuss. Happy Holidays!
******UPDATES******
Today I received an email reply from David Barth, founder and CEO of Pixii (by the way, don't expect this kind of responsiveness from the CEO of Nikon or Canon or Sony... or probably Leica, unless you are, for example, the Sultan of Brunei.) He made the following interesting points on the video:
-- An option to set a custom white balance or shoot a white surface for reference is coming.
-- They typically get WiFi transfer rates of up to 2.5MB/s, so the length of time it took me to transfer HD and DNG files seems unusually slow. He suspects my WiFi network. I'll need to investigate this.
-- The recent 4.10.9 software update was supposed to solve the problem of blown highlights in high-contrast scenes. I'll need to investigate this too.
-- Re the M-mount compatibility issue, he says they did not try to be compatible with huge-diameter, wide-aperture lenses because these lenses could not be focused accurately with the rangefinder anyway. [He also says most Leicas can't focus these lenses accurately either without a factory recalibration, which agrees with many comments I've heard from Leica users.] He notes that in some ways the Pixii lens mount is MORE compatible than those of digital Leicas: It was designed especially to handle collapsible lenses such as the Elmar and Summicron, and deep-set lenses such as the Hologon, which Leica does not recommend on their digital cameras because of the danger of scratching the shutter blades.
-- The 15-day return policy (which I think is perfectly reasonable, by the way) is flexible; people can email them if they need to make a special request.
-- Improved battery life will be coming next year, and existing cameras will be upgradable to the new solution.
Incidentally -- to answer the question at the end of the video, I DID decide to keep the Pixii, and I'm happy to see Pixii SAS is continuing to develop the concept and is interested in users' opinions. I'll be posting another video, with more and better samples, after I've had a chance to do more shooting with the camera. Happy Pixii-ing!
You deserve a lot more subs! Thanks for a detailed look at this quite interesting camera!
Hello J.L. I am also a new buyer of Pixii. Well done for your video. Just a few small personal additions:
- The native black and white mode alone deserves an article. I own an M Monochrom 1 and I have a great possibility of processing with this mode which is very different from classic sRGB file post-processing!
- For me Pixii is an absolutely new project because it integrates the concept of sustainability into the deal with its CEO. You buy a solid case and in a while you will be able to change the sensor, the processor and the memory (in order to shoot faster ;-)), the batteries (as you advertise) etc. You have to understand that what you pay, if Pixii lives, is the "entry ticket" for a camera that will be technologically maintained for a long period and at a reasonable cost. Ask the buyers of the first version what they think of Pixii's policy to upgrade their box to the New Pixii!
Finally Pixii is the result of an artisanal "hand-made" production and has a precision optical part (which can certainly be improved) which is very expensive to produce in Europe. This part alone justifies the price difference with the camera presented as a reference and produced industrially in low-wage areas.
Thank you for those thoughts! I agree that the monochrome mode is very interesting on its own, and hope to do more with it when I have more time.
The conceptual aspects you mention are interesting to me as well. My interpretation of the Pixii's design concept is that they hope to demonstrate that a very small company can still produce an important camera in a country where workers are well-treated, by avoiding expensive proprietary parts that require heavy up-front investment. For example, instead of processing images on a costly application-specific integrated circuit (such as Sony's BIONZ or Nikon's Exspeed) it uses an off-the-shelf commercial Cortex processor; instead of needing a custom LCD display, it uses your phone! The Pixii will never sell in huge volumes, but I feel this business model could help them be sustainable for a long time!
Thanks for the review. Those issues are a big deal breaker for me. Hopefully the next iteration Pixii makes big strides to make them more attractive
Since making the video I've learned that I can improve battery life quite a bit by keeping Wi-Fi turned off if not needed (easy to do, just one click) and I'm not too uncomfortable rationing my shots to avoid lighting the dreaded BUSY indicator. But I agree those will be irritants for a lot of people, and it's better to know about them up front!
Hello and thank you for your reviews.
How is the B&W image quality of the PIXII with it's very special internal software emulated monochrome sensor dng files ?
Are these images really better then those of the RGB dng files converted to monochrome in Photoshop or any other RAW software ?
Can the B&W PIXII images come close to those of a true monochrome sensor like a Leica monochrome ? (I guess the difference could only be visible at very high ISO)
It would be interesting if you could compare the same image out of your PIXII, once in RGB dng converted B&W in Photoshop and another file in PIXII native B&W dng.
It's a matter of opinion and of how you work with monochrome files. First, working with RGB files converted to monochrome has one big advantage: In software such as Lightroom, you can adjust the emphasis given to each color channel. That lets you emulate traditional b&w film photography effects such as adding a red filter to bring out the clouds. Also, of course, you can change your mind later if you convert the photo to b&w and then decide you preferred it in color!
If you're committed to making monochrome images, though, the special "computational monochrome" mode is a real benefit. Quick summary of how it works: all digital sensors measure only the luminance values of the scene; the color values are estimated by computation, using the known values of color filters over the sensor. Because Pixii knows exactly each filter value and how the calculation is made, it can reverse the calculation to recover the original luminance values. This means that the full bit depth of the file can be applied to the luminance values only. What I find it means in practice is that the monochrome files are more flexible: I can apply more adjustment using the curves or levels tools in Lightroom to get exactly the distribution of tones that I want in the final image.
I'm working on a new video about the latest Pixii model with the new Cortex A55 processor (hint: much faster!!) and will see if I can make a comparison image as you suggest. Note, though, that normally I'd seldom make both a color and a mono image of the same subject -- most subjects lend themselves to either one or the other -- so I'm not sure how much sense such a comparison would make. Still, will give it a try if I find a suitable subject!
@@jlwilliams Yes of course, with a digital monochrome camera you have to work like with film, using color filters before the lens.
My question is about image quality between the different solutions.
It is well known that between say Leica Q2 and Q2 monochrom there is absolutely no difference at 100 ISO, some minor difference at 800 ISO and a absolutely huge visible difference at 3200 ISO.
As the PIXII has a unique RGB sensor based monochrome B&W emulation (not a RGB RAW conversion in software), I wonder if say at 3200 ISO the image quality is rather a bit better than a converted RGB file or rather a bit worse than a true monochrome camera, what should make a big quality difference in favour of "a bit worse than true monochrome".
Nice to see it getting some love JL! David's response to M mount compatibility is bunk though. I (and many others) focus fast aperture lenses regularly. While it's not dead on all of the time, that's the nature of shooting a rangefinder. Practice makes focusing by feel practical and is one reason to work with one or few lenses. The deal killer for me is the Pixi sensor size, it crops off the interesting bits of the lenses it's made to mount; that seems kind of unforgivable. The rest of the quirks aren't much of a concern for a rangefinder; it's always been a rangefinder's case that if the limitations cause a problem, then use a different camera. Nice to see development on digital rangefinders, even if they don't appeal to me.
I still don't buy the supremacy of the Simplex (36x24mm) format, since I don't feel any obligation to help lenses live their best life -- but I concur that most of the other quirks are just quirks. Still... while I also use fast-aperture lenses regularly and don't normally have much trouble focusing them, you have to admit that it's more reliable on a camera with a longer-base rangefinder, right? That's something I learned with my R-D1... while it was POSSIBLE to use lenses such as my M-converted 50/0.95 and 100/2 Canons on it (an eyepiece magnifier helped a lot with the former, and of course an accessory viewfinder was necessary for the latter) it was a lot more PRACTICAL to stick with the range of lenses for which it was designed. Those wide-aperture lenses are always going to be happier on a long-base camera such as a Leica M, Canon 7s, or Zeiss Ikon M. Incidentally, an M-adapted Canon 100/2 actually works pretty nicely on the Pixii as long as you limit yourself to subjects no closer than 4 or 5 meters away, although accessory viewfinders are still as big a headache as ever!
Thank you for this review! I think there are a few things worth addressing vs the idea of getting a used M9 or M 240 variant. The Pixii contains a much more modern sensor, those used quite antiquated designs even when new (though they have their own charms). They are both horrible at even moderate ISOs. This APS-C sensor is way better. It will also have much better dynamic range. So while it is smaller, it really doesn’t lose anything to those cameras in image quality. The other thing is size and weight. An M 240 weighs considerably more than this Pixii. I think that’s an important consideration. The M 240 weighs as much as a lot of DSLRs (but more compact). For me this always meant that I had to use much larger and brighter lenses than I would otherwise need in order to compensate for the lax sensors especially indoors etc. This meant the whole kit was really rather heavy and bulky, but only needed because of deficiencies in the imaging. This I could work with much smaller lenses and the camera itself is as well. Making for a more pleasing experience. The rangefinder base length is also less of an issue because I don’t need crazy shallow DoF. APS-C with a 35/1.7 is perfectly fine for me, rather than having to use a chunky 50/1.2 on the M 240 to get usable images. Then focus would be a real challenge (not impossible, but not really ideal). So I think the combination of a better quality sensor but with less DoF is actually a real advantage for rangefinder cameras. I saw someone post somewhere that ‘oh no, a 21/1.8 will be 30mm on this!’… have they ever actually shot a rangefinder? You can’t frame 21mm anyway. There is also no real advantage to a 21/1.8 other than light gathering, again to make up for dodgy sensor. You can certainly get the same effect with say a 15mm lens. So who cares? People who desperately think that FF is always better in all instances I guess? Sad really. I would already have one of these if they had slightly better distribution, by local distributors and support.
I agree with a lot of those points, but I also don't want to diss people who decide the Pixii is not for them. The dealership/distribution issue that you mentioned is a big hurdle for a lot of people all by itself -- I admit I had a lot of hesitations about buying a completely non-traditional camera from a relatively unknown maker without even being able to handle it and look through it first!
Amazingly most of Leica's sensors are "made in France" at Grenoble by a Belgian company, a well kept Leica secret 😂
The unique feature of PIXII cameras is that the company not only makes many Firmware/software upgrades, they also make hardware upgrades to you existing camera, for example increasing internal memory, or even replace the sensor by a more modern one !!!
Pretty interesting video. I definitely have picked up a lot of orphan cameras in my life, but this one feels probably like a pass. The dealbreaker for me, and it seems the CEO's courteous reach out did not address this, is the slow buffer speed when shooting. And while I wax nostalgic for my crazy ex French girlfriend, one thing age as taught me, it's better not to go there in the first place. Since you are keeping, enjoy the journey, but don't tell your friends later they didn't warn you she was trouble.
Crazy French ex-girlfriend story FTW! 😄 Re throughput: I don't think the issue is so much "buffer speed" (in the normal sense of a buffer holding data waiting to be written to a memory card, since the Pixii doesn't use external memory)... it's the speed of processing the sensor data in the first place. The Pixii uses an FPGA [field-programmable gate array] to accelerate image processing, and an FPGA can be updated at any time if improved logic becomes available... so I'm hoping this eventually may be addressed with an over-the-air update. Meanwhile, I'm trying to reconnect with my roots of using knob-wind rangefinder cameras with manually-cocked shutters to adjust to a slower pace...
Reply to Christopher Liljenstolpe: I tried to DM you about your question, but TH-cam doesn't seem to allow that anymore. Feel free to contact me via one of the links in my About tab and we can discuss. Happy Holidays!
Is the battery removable?
Yes, and it's the same NP-FW50 battery used in lots of Sony A6000-series cameras, so spares are reasonably priced and easy to come by.
Get rid of it...lol..
If you want French..go to a French restaurant..
Achtung...
Lol! And one more thing... PANZERFAUST!
🇨🇵