Show me some well worn black chrome Leica M bodies

[kshapero]

From what I understand Black Chrome bodies have nickel plating underneath before you get to the brass.So what do these black chrome bodies look like as they wear. (Silver chrome do not apply)🙄

 

[hap]

I have a black chrome M5.....not a scratch or mark on it. have no idea how the finish applied.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

What do they look like? They look like hell! Give me black paint.

 

[maddoc]

I can almost rub the black chrome off my M7. It looks different from worn black paint, like a dirty metal surface.

 

[gavinlg]

My m4-2 is pretty nicely worn. Personally, I like worn black chrome more than worn black paint.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Not sure how they made different M cameras in black chrome, but my M6 TTL is black chrome over zinc, so when it wears, it just goes dull grey.

Best,
-Tim

 

[Shac]

This might provide some entertainment and also information
https://www.photo.net/discuss/thread...k-paint.72534/

 

[Retro-Grouch]

Years from now, and thousands of posts later, this thread will still be going and generating impassioned responses. At the end of the day, I love the look of BP and think BC is ugly as sin. Nevertheless, my two M6's are black chrome, since they were the nicest ones available at the best price (both purchased used but mint). They work beautifully, and I love them, and don't much care about the finish. But if I were to purchase a new Leica, it would be chrome, despite my love of BP. Shooting outdoors in the desert sun, I find that black cameras get significantly hotter; practicality would trump aesthetics. No new Leicas in my future, though.

 

[Jonathan R]

In case the OP (or anyone else) is still interested, there are pictures on Instagram from @cameraobscuragb of what it looks like when the black is entirely removed, e.g. https://www.instagram.com/p/CVkqjhVI...um=share_sheet

 

[boojum]

I have mine to take photos with, not to display. Do we really, really care about how a paint wears off a camera? Maybe I am nuts but I see it is trivial and inconsequential. I am always amazed about some of the Leica owner obsessions. If all you want is for display there are sale display cameras with no guts. Burnish the edges and put them up on a shelf and you will never ever have to worry about shutter count or batteriy supplies. Otherwise drag the damned thing out and take some photos. Even a mediocre photo is better than none. The law of averages says you will get some good ones and it is a learning process. That Dane is right when he says, "Always wear a camera." I do not consider myself a good photographer but I almost always have a Leica or the Sony A7M III with me. I cannot take a photo with wishes, or abraded paint surfaces. Sheesh.

 

[Travis L.]

Not sure if this meets the definition of well worn, but 20 years as my primary camera have left my M6 with a few character marks.

 

[Retro-Grouch]

I have mine to take photos with, not to display. Do we really, really care about how a paint wears off a camera? Maybe I am nuts but I see it is trivial and inconsequential. I am always amazed about some of the Leica owner obsessions. If all you want is for display there are sale display cameras with no guts. Burnish the edges and put them up on a shelf and you will never ever have to worry about shutter count or batteriy supplies. Otherwise drag the damned thing out and take some photos. Even a mediocre photo is better than none. The law of averages says you will get some good ones and it is a learning process. That Dane is right when he says, "Always wear a camera." I do not consider myself a good photographer but I almost always have a Leica or the Sony A7M III with me. I cannot take a photo with wishes, or abraded paint surfaces. Sheesh.

Have you ever purchased a new car and deliberated over the color? Well, there you go! While I'm fully in agreement that a camera is primarily a tool to take pictures, why shouldn't one take aesthetic pleasure in it's appearance? This all feels like the the obsession classic British sportscar enthusiasts have with their cars being BRG (British Racing Green) and looking down their noses at a classic that's any other color. FWIW, I had my "69 Triumph Spitfire painted bright canary yellow, because that's the color I liked.

 

[boojum]

Have you ever purchased a new car and deliberated over the color? Well, there you go! While I'm fully in agreement that a camera is primarily a tool to take pictures, why shouldn't one take aesthetic pleasure in it's appearance? This all feels like the the obsession classic British sportscar enthusiasts have with their cars being BRG (British Racing Green) and looking down their noses at a classic that's any other color. FWIW, I had my "69 Triumph Spitfire painted bright canary yellow, because that's the color I liked.

Answer to first question: no.

I hope my life never gets so empty that I must amuse myself by looking a cameras. I have a few cars, one an orange '87 2CV. I drive it. I do not ogle it. Likewise the other two.

 

[xasthur]

jeez dude. anyways, a well used and dirty camera, leica or not is always nice to look at. A new camera is pleasant, but then it has a certain charm when it's all used and beat up. Same thing with the Subaru cars imo. they look way better when they are dirty and look like they rode through mud and then a desert.

 

[flvU3Dp]

Some interesting responses in this thread. Anyway, I think I might be in the minority who find the "brassing" on chrome nice to look at. Maybe it's just the well-used camera look that I love regardless of what metal is used.

I just bought a brand new M-A in black chrome and look forward to beating the living crap out of it over the course of the next few years (figuratively speaking of course). Look forward to it aging gracefully.

 

[Yokosuka Mike]

If you want to see a camera that has been severely abused… down and out, tattered and torn, treated like kaka, needs a bath in a good disinfectant, crying to be euthanized. Go to the display room at Yodobashi Camera in Yokohama. Most any Yodobashi Camera store for that matter of fact. I saw a Nikon Df on the display floor in Shinjuku’s Yodobashi Camera store crying to be put to death. Any camera relegated to showroom duty where hands on handling is authorized is the kiss of death for those cameras. If you want to see what your camera will look like after years of use and abuse, just visit a Yodobashi Camera store a few weeks after a new camera has been put on the display shelf. It’s sad, it’s cruel, only the metal parts survive.
🙂
Mike

 

[Fjäll]

This M6 was up for sale a couple of years ago. Probably the most beat black chrome Leica I've seen.