Buying a Leica: How long did you dream about it?

[former member]

> The best part of dreams is to never allow them come true

Had the Nikon SP and S3-2000 both out yesterday. And I so rarely disagree with Oscar.

The best part of dreaming is to be careful of what you dream for, then work to make it a reality.

Not to detract from my Leica's. Just I never "dreamed" about owning one. The first was a Leica IIIf with an Elmar that I got in a $50 brown-paper grab bag at a professional camera shop. You should have seen the look on the sales team's face as they turned to the store manager and yelled "You put a Leica in there??!!" Picked up an M3 years later from the same shop, had it CLA'd to viewfinder perfection.

Just get the MP. Don't wait years to run across it in a grab-bag.

 

[jaapv]

Heh. I'll be the devil's advocate here. I have never dreamed of a Leica. They are nicely made cameras, but for me, their flaws outwiegh their advantages. Then, now, and as far into the future as I can imagine, I want a camera that I can grab on my way out the door. Any day, any time of day, any reasin...
William

😕 I always grab a Leica on my way out of the door. I would say they are as grabbable as any other RF-camera. 😛.
I've owned Leica camera's since 1972. I bought and sold a number of other brands in between, but Leica turned out to be the constant factor in the long run. Somehow it seems that the ergonomics fit my wishes best. But to buy them as an Icon? It appeals- but it seems a bit silly.On the other hand: A gentleman should have style..... 😀

 

[tkluck]

Used a Leica years ago in college. Worked for the college still photo department. Action photos of losing sports teams and pointless protests
A while ago I ecorcised another demon and bought a Minox (actualy three of them, but that's a different 12 step program...)
Took me a while to figure why the Minox felt familar as soon as I picked it up. Fiddled with a Leica in a shop the other day and that was it: Maybe I'm nuts, but they "feel" (fondle?) alike.
Accidently got the German camera bug out of my system with a minimum of damage. Now I can go back to taking pictures. When I not slitting 8mm film or replacing light seals.

 

[boilerdoc2]

Watched an M7 sit lonely for ~ 2years at my local camera shop.. All the while Leica raised the prices twice (~$1200). Bought a Zeiss Ikon but found that when I put my 75 Lux on that it defaulted to the 50 rangefinder lines! At that point I decided to quit wishing and suck it up. Returned the ZI and a BUNCH of other stuff and got it. Still honeymooning with my new black M7 with Leicavit (came with it)!

 

[Memnon]

Never actually dreamed of one... one just "fell into my lap" over 10 years ago and I decided to keep it. I still have that one (M3) and went through quit some leicas since. Personally, while Leica not being my "main" camera I go for the ones without batteries or anything electronical. I have the M6TTL (hoping to trade soon) but don't use it, I prefer my M4 or the M3. The M4 is mint and beautiful, the m2 is, well looks like a wreck but does the job.

 

[furcafe]

I've always liked RFs (mainly for their small size, ease of focus, & lack of mirror blackout), but never cared 1 way or the other about Leicas. I only knew that they were German & expensive (redundant I suppose). So when I started shooting "real" (i.e., not point & shoot) cameras almost exactly 6 years ago, I started out @ opposite ends of the RF automation scale w/a Zeiss Ikon Contax IIa & Kyocera Contax G2. I still love & use those systems, but they both fell short for me in the "available darkness" shooting dept. where I take a good percentage of my pix, the IIa because of its tinted VF & the G2 for its lack of fast lenses. So when I looked for a system RF that had both a bright VF/RF & fast glass, Leica seemed to be the logical choice (the Bessas & Hexar RF hadn't come out yet & I didn't know anything about the later Canon & Nikon RFs). I justified the cost (& still do) by simply looking @ how much I pay for film, developing, & other photo "consumables." [When that doesn't work, I just compare everything I spend on photography to what some of my friends, relatives, & acquaintances spend on their hobbies (cars, boats, golf, etc.). 😛 ]

 

[Bertram2]

J Perfect. It is the most perfect and beautiful object I have ever seen.

Oh, oh, seems you have missed some other important "THINGS" in life ! 😛

To answer your question I have never dreamt of a camera. When I decided to buy a rangefinder in 2002 I went downtown to my dealer who had a new (demo) M6 on the shelf since about 5 months, together with a 90, 2,8/50 and 35 cron, a bargain for $ 4200 in those days, the M6 TTL had come out yet.

Money did not play a role, I just had finished luckily a big IT deal which I had fighted for really hard, since a year or so, and a $5000 budget should be a kind of self reward . I knew I would not have this opportunity soon again, if ever at all.

I shot a roll with the M6 and let it develop and print in the shop and then went to another store 20 mls away and tried out a Bessa R set, 25, 50 and 75 also with a roll of Superia 100 neg film.

Watching the results, I decided to take the Voigtländer set, together with a Gossen Starlitlite and a Manfrotto monopod for about $2300 .

The M6 HAD pleased me a lot, I liked the impression of precision and sturdyness,
but for me it simply wasn't worth the money on top and I did not like the the Elmar and the 90 anyway., too slow the first, too long the latter.

Easy decision, I never felt regrets and the wish to change to the M Leica later.
Added the rest of $1900 to my travel budget for my return to Crete , after 23 years again visiting the place with my wife, had been our first trip together at all in 1979, now in 2002 a second honeymoon in the mediteranean spring.
The rest of the Leica money made it really luxurious, you better believe it ! 😀

The Bessa still serves me well, superb lenses, got a L sister since two years, a perfect little street camera with the 25 mounted.

And I still do not dream about any camera, if at all I dream about taking pics which blow my hair back.

My dreams are different, the cheap ones look like a Shelby Cobra with a big block,
the real dreams more like a 300SL Gull Wing. At the time it looks as if these dreams will stay dream for the rest of my life . So what, dreams are for dreaming..
and life must be lived.
bertram

 

[suckerpunch]

when I first got into photography in middle school, I could barely afford a yashica slr from the thrift store. As everyone else does, I accumulated gear and lenses and took all kinds of photos. Through the years I was able to narrow the focus of what I enjoyed photographing. I got rid of a lot of gear. I had been lusting after a leica since I started taking pictures, but after 20 years I came to a point in my life where I had an opportunity to reward myself for my years of hard work. I purchased a leica knowing it was exactly the kind of camera that would enable me to take the pictures I want to take. It was light, small, very portable, and it's a damn beautiful thing to look at and use. Not a day goes by that I do not have it under my jacket. And it will be the last camera I will ever own. Yes, it's merely a camera, and there are many very very nice capable ones out there. Whichever, one you lust after, reward yourself. You can be practical tomorrow.

 

[Rico]

...
The best part of dreams is to never allow them come true

I never allowed my Cameron Diaz dream to come true. In hindsight, that was a mistake. 🙂

 

[Bertram2]

I guess that boils down to the higher the expectations the easier it is to be disappointed.
Nikon Bob

Important point, Bob. If you are a person who decides simply to believe that your expectation = reality you won't have such probs. But if you are a more realistic character, who tries to see things as they are, you get easily diappointed by expectations too high.
To me this often happens with travel: , While I plan the trip I feel so very enthusiastic but when I see the real place...., aarrghh, so terrible different !
In former times no prob, we put the tent back into the Beetle again and went 500mls further south.
Today, having invested 5000 bucks, it all looks VERY different ! You get sour.

Travel light, expect nothing, be happy with your good experiences and do not believe in any THINGS !! Things are misleading. My 2 cents, and therefore my signature, stolen from Sartre.

Best,
Bertram

 

[Honu-Hugger]

I've been following this thread with a certain amount of incredulous bewilderment since day one: come on now, really -- dreaming of a camera? For years? Just go buy the damned thing and get it out of your system. I would hope that after doing so you would experience some serious disappointment in that it did not fulfill all the "fantasy" that was expected. For crying out loud here, we're talking about a damned camera -- if a camera , or any other "object" for that matter, actually makes your life measurably better then you have my true compassion; psychological therapy might really be your next best investment. Throughout the duration of this thread I have been constantly reminded of William Shatner addressing a Star Trek convention on SNL years ago, where he tells the attendees to move out of their parents basements and get a life. Cameras are nice, but very insignificant in the larger scheme of things. Afterall, they're not motorcycles 😀.

 

[Doug]

"Dream" may be a bit of romantic hyperbole, Doug, for most respondents. I take it as "how long was it after you decided you wanted a Leica that you actually got one", in other words. 🙂

 

[Magus]

Post deleted by posters request

 

[former member]

If you can afford it, buy one and get it out of your system.

If you can't afford it now, then work towards it. Either extra hours, Ebay selling, or cutting something out of the normal sink of expendable income.

In my case, the first Nikon SP came with Ebay selling. "Profit taking" on about a year of selling. So if "dream" is what it takes to set a goal and work toward it, fine. That is what dreams are for. At least you did not come to tha fast conclusion "that is what credit cards are for".

 

[Bertram2]

"Dream" may be a bit of romantic hyperbole, Doug, for most respondents. I take it as "how long was it after you decided you wanted a Leica that you actually got one", in other words. 🙂

Doug,

This was what he said:

Just like some wait and wait for that one true love, I'm DYING to have a Leica MP: ... It is the most perfect and beautiful object I have ever seen


Huh, there is even some kinda erotic groundtone in this prayer , right ? 😀
And that is why I would agree to Honu_Huggers POV and kind of comment.
If it wasn't meant this way , o.k., but here we can deal only with what was WRITTEN. Unfortunately letters don't sound 😉

bertram

 

[former member]

I placed my "dream" of getting a Nikon SP up there with my Dream '57 T-Bird. Both made in 1957, like me. The car can wait until Nikki is grown and off to college. Then I can retire, and Nina and I can visit her anytime we want taking the T-Bird with the SP sitting between us.

I am gettin' a mental image here, and it is my happy place. Roof off and loaded with Kodachrome 25. Doin' 70 on route 66 and wind blowin through my grey hair.

 

[Bertram2]

Honu-Hugger, keep in mind that if one is an accomplished violinist who has transcended the limitations of his run-of-the-mill instrument, one may indeed "dream" of a certain Stradivarius or Guarneri which one has heard and of which one has realised that possessing it will give one the wings one had hitherto lacked. ,

If one is a great violinist the Guarini indeed will make your play still more perfect, it brings out your craft and art perfectly. The same can a Leica do with the work of a great photographer, it makes it look (in a technical sense) as it earns to look.
But the more perfect the tool is the more perfect the artist must be to profit from its potential.

A perfect tool never is an inspiration ! This imagination utter delusion and will always lead to bad disappointmets. It is rather a challenge, a test for your abilities first of all.
So a mediocre violinist , buyin a Stradivari, and hoping this instrument will let grow the wings of a superior artist on his back, what is he ? Still a mediocre violinist, best case, and each time he plays his Guarini the audience will notice that he isn't able to play it as it must be played. Maybe those who have no clue either will find his play great because he plays the Guarini and from a Guarini cannot come anything bad in their understanding, but those who are competent enuff will laugh about him.

bertram

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

Me with an MP one day next week, on the same day Cartier-Bresson or Brassai with a Fuji disposable. Whose images would be best?

 

[Magus]

Post deleted by posters request

 

[jaapv]

Bertram I don't agree . Of course the mediocre artist will not be able to play the Stradivarius to its full potential. But why should he? He plays it for his own pleasure and the beautiful sound it will give, even in his mediocre hands or even in his imagination. And who are we to laugh at him? Isn't satisfaction a personal experience? The only thing we should decry would be if he pretended to be the equal of a Menuhin. I don't think many Leica owners feel they are the equal of a Cartier-Bresson because of their camera,in fact I feel slightly offended at the implication of such primitive and naive thoughts, but I do think that they do derive a lot of innocent pleasure from a great tool.