Prices of Leicas and motor cars

[Tompas]

I'm buying both used cars and used cameras. And, yes, the cameras should be far less expensive than the cars. About 500 grams of material, carefully formed into a camera should cost a lot less than a ton or more of material, carefully formed into a vehicle.

So, I'm likely to buy Leicas only when I'm ready to buy Porsches, too. Might never happen. No problem.

 

[MC JC86]

Any EMI/EMP blast and all these nice new digital cars and cameras are all good for the scrap.
And RFF as well !

Film Vs. Digital discussions always reach their logical conclusion: Nuclear Holocaust. 😉

 

[tbm]

My car

My car

I bought a new 1995 Toyota Camry in December of 1994 and still have it. The odometer shows I have driven it only 65,000 miles and it still drives like it did the day I bought it. It has never presented any problems and, since it is so completely, delightfully reliable, I will never sell it and I will always continue to use it. I wish I could afford a Leica M9, but I still love shooting and developing film and making prints in my wonderful darkroom and I still love using my M6 TTL and my R8 with dozens of lenses for both cameras.

Good luck to Frances, Roger!

Terry Maltby

 

[MIkhail]

Many of the TV ads I've seen in the last 24 hours are for cars costing 20,000€+ ($27,000+, sometimes lots plus). I almost never watch television, so it hadn't occurred to me before, but my wife was in hospital for a caratact operation (done at 10:30 and looking good so far), so I had a lot of waiting time.

Now, a lot of these cars are going to be in the scrapyard in 10 years, especially the 'hybrids', where after a very few years, battery replacement is going to cost more than the cars are worth.

At this point, a $7000 Leica M9 looks like something of a bargain, even if it lasts only a decade (and I'd expect a lot longer). Why is this a comparison so few people draw? Don't tell me a car is something you 'have' to have and a car isn't -- the opposite has often been true for me, and for many photographers I know in cities such as London, Paris or New York.

Cheers,

R.

Dear Roger,
This is probably the most ...whats the right word... unfit comparison I have heard.
I live in Detroit, US. Car here is just as much a necessity as bread and milk on a table, there is no public transportation whatsoever. So car is the thing that my family cannot live without. True, it does not have to be BMW or Volvo, but even Ford Focus costs 15-16K.
Digital camera to begin with, a especially Leica M9, is the last thing that my family needs. More on this: none of the families of my friends or people that I know need digital Leica. SOme go to Sears for "family portrait", some are quite happy with Digital Rebel. 99% of them don't know about existance of M9 and would be quite shocked to find out the price of it.

True, if I was a photographer by profession... I still would get Canon Mark 5 with 24-70 L lens. But, if you are talking about the cost of Canon - yes, expencive, but I can write it off, and who cares if that's what put's bread on my family's table.
But a toy for the cost of 7K plus lenses? There is no financial justification, who are we kidding?! You want it and can afford- more power to you!

With respect.
Mikhail

 

[Nikon Bob]

Try taking a photo with a car, any price range will do, and then try driving a Leica, any model will do, on an 8000 km road trip. I dunno, seems like a pretty valid comparison to me.

Bob

 

[gdmcclintock]

A M9 is NOT a luxury item. It is an expensive tool of very high quality.

 

[sevo]

True, it does not have to be BMW or Volvo, but even Ford Focus costs 15-16K.

You know, 25 years ago a Mini or Panda was five to six thousand DM. By now inflation will have brought the current $ to parity with the then DM, but that still means that the perceived entry level price into a new car has risen by 200%. Arguably for much more car - but the Mini has not suddenly stopped being a suitable means of getting from here to there. And arguably there are cheaper new cars than a Ford Focus, but you'll usually have to import them to the US, and you'll be considered a alien freak for driving one.

Sevo

 

[Roger Hicks]

A M9 is NOT a luxury item. It is an expensive tool of very high quality.

This cuts to the heart of the perception of value, which was the idea of the thread.

It's not about whether you need a car or not (though quite a few people IN CITIES -- not suburbs -- don't). It's about the idea that people surprisingly often prefer an expensive car to a cheaper car and something else. The 'something else' could be almost anything.

Compare a 10,000€ Dacia and a 50,000€ luxury car (a cheap Porsche at 5x the price) in terms of ABSOLUTE cost. Sure, a 6000€ Leica costs 5x more than a 1200€ X100. The difference in one case is 40,000€, and in the other, 4,800€.

A very ordinary middle-of-the-range car costs 20,000€, but many people seem far more willing to blow an extra 10,000€ over the price of the Dacia, but not 4,800€ over the price of the X100.

Not many people seem to understand this point about spending an extra 4,800€ on a camera as against an extra 10,000€ (or indeed 40,000€) on a car. EDIT: Sevo is among those who see what I'm saying about the worship of the motor-car, and how our sense of values has been distorted.

Cheers,

R.

 

[MIkhail]

You know, 25 years ago a Mini or Panda was five to six thousand DM. By now inflation will have brought the current $ to parity with the then DM, but that still means that the perceived entry level price into a new car has risen by 200%. Arguably for much more car - but the Mini has not suddenly stopped being a suitable means of getting from here to there. And arguably there are cheaper new cars than a Ford Focus, but you'll usually have to import them to the US, and you'll be considered a alien freak for driving one.

Sevo

Funny you should mention MINI...

My MINI Cooper

 

[Sonnar Brian]

Bottom Line Up Front. Leica is selling M9's as fast as they can make them, and hired more workers to meet demand.

The Leica M9 has created jobs. Somebody is happy.

 

[charjohncarter]

I don't know what a Leica IIIf cost in 1952 but I bought mine for $50.00 in 1964, and still use it. My 1965 Ford Galaxy 500 ($1500/1967) has long been junked and the Leica finished a roll a couple of days ago.

 

[Sonnar Brian]

I miss my '72 Mustang. Long gone. I still have my Minolta Hi-Matic 9 bought in '69.

It took less room to keep and move around.

 

[sig]

I think it reflects the price of any camera if you have to compare it to a car and not other cameras to justify cost.

 

[Spyro]

Ι dont know Roger... I just bought an australian made tank for $7k. It has a few km on the meter but these cars are known to do a million km with min maintenance, ask any aussie taxi driver or cop. Considering it's about the size of your average student accomodation in London, a leica for an extra grand seems a little silly to be honest, no matter how much I love cameras and hate cars. Something to do with the sheer size, amount of materials and technology that has gone into each product.

 

[Ben Z]

I'm not getting the equation between $35000 (20K euros) cars and $7000 cameras. $7K is at the high end of cameras, not in the stratosphere with the 45MP Hasselblads but far above the "serious amateur" range. I'd equate a $35000 car (like a Lexus IS350) with a Canon 7D ($1500). I would equate a Leica M9 with an $85000 car (like Merc S-Class).

At one time perhaps the depreciation percentage on cameras was less than on cars, but digital cameras depreciate faster than cars.

True, some people live where a car is non-essential, but a camera is non-essential for everyone but professional photographers.

Most people who own cars use them daily. Most people who own cameras don't.

It boils down to personal priorities. Just as Roger considers a $7K camera a worthy expenditure but is satisfied to drive an ancient Land Rover, I'm certain you could find at least one Bugatti Veyron owner who would gag at the suggestion of spending more than $500 on a camera.

 

[nex100]

when i was making a decision to buy a car the choice was a sports car or a sedan. eventually i chose a sports car which. 5 years have gone by and i am still enjoying the drive, the rush it gives me and the smile on my face whenever i take a high speed corner around the bendy road.

it all comes down to whether you appreciate the 'value' which you perceived on the item you have bought and over the years how does that 'value' change. I think the same goes to the M9. I don't think i will change to another camera and it doesn't matter if the value of it dips after a year or two. it will comes down to how i enjoy using it everyday making it worth the price i paid for now.

so yes the m9 is like buying a sports car. enjoy it while it last. doesn't matter how much you paid for it or how much value it retains. ultimately if you appreciate it then it is worth it! if you don't buying any other camera or car is just fine.

 

[damien.murphy]

Missed this thread the first time round.

Peoples perceptions of value and what they consider affordable often amuses me. I remember ten years when restaurant culture in Ireland was not as popular as it is now, how some friends would recoil in shock upon discovering I spent approximately €100 on a nice meal for two on a Saturday night.

They just couldn't fathom how someone could afford to spend such money on something they considered a flagrant luxury. Oddly enough, they didn't see anything strange about the fact they'd spent the same if not more, on poor beer, late night fast food and a taxi home.

I had another friend who would constantly complain of being broke, although it was several years before I realised being 'broke' to him meant he simply had limited discretionary funds, after money was ploughed into savings, pensions, and other investments each month. Needless to say he could have afforded plenty of the things he proclaimed to be too poor to be able to buy, simply by re-aligning what were priorities to him.

Most people I think, divide most things into basics and luxuries. When deriding others for what they view as spending on flagrant luxuries, people often neglect to mention that the 'basics' in their world includes plentiful pints with friends and designer labels.

The most hilarious example in Ireland in the last decade, were the tween's who born of affluent parents still lived at home, and often up until their early thirties, because housing was too expensive. Needless to say, the ability to afford wardrobes of designer labels, run a brand new car, and maintain a hectic social life, seemed to be overlooked.

Needless to say, I agree with the previous comment, that for most items, many people can afford them, but have often made a choice that the requisite necessary sacrifices in order to do are not for them. Needless to say also, I am counting those who have a moderately decent job, while at the same time excluding extreme luxury items, such as multi-million euro yachts, for example.

 

[jsrockit]

Well said Damien.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Both Nex100 and Damien have got the point. It's all about how much enjoyment you get out of something, and whether you've actually costed the alternatives (Damien's beer-drinking chums). The latter also brings up the question of marginal costs; how much more A costs than B.

I suspect that quite a few people who buy new cars could save the price of a new M9 by buying a less expensive motor car, but because they 'have to have' a motor car, and because they think people will judge them according to their choice of car, and because they're borrowing the money ayway, they blow an extra $10,000 on something that will be in the scrapyard in a decade.

After all, an extra $5,000 on a car is a far smaller percentage (over a cheaper car) than an extra $5,000 on a camera, but it's still the same $5000. Thinking in percentages is the basic flaw here: think in absolute terms, of $5000, and the extra $5000 spent on an M9 (assuming you want one) is likely to bring far more pleasure than an extra $5000 spend on a slightly less boring car instead of a slightly more boring one. And let's face it: for $30,000 new, you're probably going to get a fairly boring car.

Cheers,

R.

 

[rogerzilla]

One point is that you don't also need a bag of $2000 bayonet-mount accessories to make your car work, although over its lifetime it may easily consume that much in fuel. Petrol (95 RON premium) is 1.37 GBP a litre* now over here, and on average people are probably getting through 1800 GBP worth a year. I only drive once or twice a week so it makes little difference to me, but some people in our office commute 100 miles a day.


*I won't quote it in gallons because of the UK-US gallon size difference