Could the M8 become a "classic?"

[Paul Jenkin]

Clearly capable, as with all cameras, of producing stunning photos. However, despite the Leica name (which might help retain some residual value), I don't see any digital cameras becoming true "classic" - yet. Some broke new ground but, in my opinion, I don't see anyone drooling after any of the current crop of digital gear.

 

[DavidKKHansen]

The M8 is still today serviceable by Leica. The LCD screen is the component that cannot be replaced due to lack of parts.

Serviceable, yes. Repairable, no.

If the metering fails on the M5, you can still use it as a mechanical camera. If the LCD fails on the M8, it becomes near impossible to use properly.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

Thanks Keith! You said it better than I could. Now on to the difference between classic and collectible.

Ditto on this. I think that the reality of digital cameras is that they are consumer electronic commodities rather than masterpieces of physical engineering. Oh. no doubt Leica would like to evoke its days of master physical engineering in its design -- and no doubt it takes some technical wizardry to pull off an M8 -- but I think the category has changed out from under them. Poloroid Land camera anyone?

 

[jarski]

having all the "characteristics" that M8 did, I think it has all the possibilities of becoming a digital camera classic 🙂

 

[froyd]

In my mind the Rd1 and the M8 are both classics, but as others have stated above, a digi classic (like a Fuji F30 compact or an Ricoh GR) are diffrent beasts from film classics like a Pentax K1000 or Nikon F

 

[ray*j*gun]

In my mind the Rd1 and the M8 are both classics, but as others have stated above, a digi classic (like a Fuji F30 compact or an Ricoh GR) are diffrent beasts from film classics like a Pentax K1000 or Nikon F

Agree 100% digi's are different animals from say my M2 but with-in the concept the difference between my D610 and M8u feels well classic.

 

[Huss]

Serviceable, yes. Repairable, no.

If the metering fails on the M5, you can still use it as a mechanical camera. If the LCD fails on the M8, it becomes near impossible to use properly.

I had the meter recently repaired on my M5 by Sherry Krauter.

 

[Huss]

It's another M5, though doesn't deserve such treatment.

The M5 still is the most accurate metering body Leica has ever made.
The built in spot meter, with the most complete VF exposure information that none others have matched, including my M240.
It also has better film rewinding, and the shutter speed dial that overlaps the front of the body so you can turn it with one finger with the camera to the eye.
The M5 was arguably the most advanced mechanical film RF ever made, and still is.
The M8 was outdated at the time of its release, and could not use the Leica lenses as intended due to crop factor.

One was/is state of the art, and still repairable. The other is the M8.

 

[Lss]

Serviceable, yes. Repairable, no.

If the metering fails on the M5, you can still use it as a mechanical camera. If the LCD fails on the M8, it becomes near impossible to use properly.

The point is the camera is serviceable/repairable by Leica as long as it is not the LCD that fails. The LCD cannot be replaced, as they apparently ran out of spare parts.

The camera and LCD screen may very well be repairable beyond that, just not by Leica. (As far as I know no other party has expressed interest or capability in repairing them.)

 

[Freakscene]

Give me links, refs. I'll believe it when I see it. There's just too much fanboyist myths attached to Leica that it's hard to cut the BS from the truth.

Take a look at:
Vogel, W. 1994. Glass Chemistry. Springer-Verlag Berlin and Heidelberg GmbH & Co. K; 2nd revised edition ISBN 3-540-57572-3

Annealing times in this order were not common but not unheard of and a lot of glass manufacturing research went into decreasing annealing times from the 60s-80s.

Marty

 

[Ronald M]

A camera has to be top of the game in it`s time to become classic. It is not.

I like mine and use it, but use the M9 more.

M8 colors are not the best even with the UV/IR filters.

It excels at infrared photography with proper filtration. It is far superior to any other unconverted digital camera because of its design deficiency.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

There are a lot of comments in this thread about how analog gear is repairable basically forever, but not digital. I wonder about this a bit. As we move farther and farther down the digital road, I would think that we are going to see more and more repair people that are versed ONLY in digital repair. I'm not sure I buy this idea that digital gear is destined for the scrap heap after a handful of years of operation. I'm quite confident that by the time my Fuji digital gear needs help, there'll be repair shops that specialize in repairing them... from the motherboard to the LCD. 🙂

 

[V-12]

For the M8 to become a classic it will firstly have to get so cheap it can be found in garage sales and flea markets. People interested in cameras will then buy it as a curiosity, start discussions on camera forums about the qualities of old digital cameras, then comes the 'arty bollocks' speak about 'unique imaging' and 'camera signature', and from then on it only needs one person to say it's a classic and the prices jump and it's a home run.

This scenario is well understood in the classic car world. Cars that were crap in their day and simply survive by some fluke of ownership become classic's just for existing, when in reality they should have been scrapped years ago. I'm not saying the M8 was/is crap in it's day, but equally it isn't the most obvious choice to consider a future classic, there are a lot of flawed Leica's to go on the list above it, and they all still have to show their worth to become classic's. So far I have six different types, each waiting for me to start describing it as a 'classic' on the internet, and that will be sometime just before I want to sell it 😉

V

 

[JP Owens]

For all digital cameras, limited numbers of the various chips and processors were made for them. When they are gone, the camera is unrepairable. Making one off chips is not practical. Machining a one off gear, while it may be expensive, is.

I'm pretty much all in with digital cameras and have no desire to return to analog. But, I can see how few of these digital cameras will still be in use 20 years from now. More likely, in 20 years, nothing resembling current cameras will be in use.

In fact, I doubt that photography, as we practice it now, will even exist in 20 years and that our cherished tools for shooting photos will hold no interest other than as historical artifacts. YMMV.

 

[Benjamin Marks]

There are a lot of comments in this thread about how analog gear is repairable basically forever, but not digital. I wonder about this a bit. As we move farther and farther down the digital road, I would think that we are going to see more and more repair people that are versed ONLY in digital repair. I'm not sure I buy this idea that digital gear is destined for the scrap heap after a handful of years of operation. I'm quite confident that by the time my Fuji digital gear needs help, there'll be repair shops that specialize in repairing them... from the motherboard to the LCD. 🙂

You are right of course. But some quibbles: Digital is not "reparable," in the sense of an independent repair shop fabricating a replacement IC board. What your repair guy or gal does is swap out a bad electronic component with a functional electronic component. Those components are specialty chips and cards and when they are gone, they are gone. In my M3, a competent machinist can fabricate any gear that is stripped in the the thing. In any event, it is not the death of these chips you should worry about, it is the death and dearth of the ridiculous array of proprietary batteries, the "progress" from one proprietary form of TIFF file to another and the lack of meaningfully useful software interfaces to interpret the ones and zeros that these wunderkameras spit out.

Anybody remember the STN format? It was the proprietary compression file structure invented/championed by Genuine Fractals (now Perfect Resize). Here is what Perfect Resize says:

"
What will happen to the .stn file format?

Posted on September 5, 2013

The STiNG file support is provided in Perfect Resize 7.5 for opening exsiting .STN files for legacy users. STiNG is no longer a recommended format and this is the last release of Perfect Resize to support it. It is recommended that existing .STN files are converted to a modern format, like JPG2000, which maintains the wavelet compression but is more compatible and is an industry standard. STiNG files are not readable by Adobe® Lightroom® or Apple® Aperture® or natively in the Perfect Photo Suite. The only way to open STiNG files is via Adobe® Photoshop® if Perfect Resize 7.5 or earlier is installed."

Hear that? That's the sound of a file format going >PLOP< into the sea of digital history. And that is what will happen eventually to every proprietary RAW format that there is.

Electronic consumer products don't become "classic" they become "landfill."

 

[willie_901]

There are a (relatively) large number of M/LTM lenses in the world. People enjoy using these lenses.

I don't see how the M8 becomes a classic icon of photography. I no longer think a sensor with less than a 24 X 36 mm surface area is a disadvantage. The fact that LCD failure will kill the camera is a liability, but if there were profits to be made (sufficient customer interest), a third-party could implement a solution

I believe the issue is Leica's long, history of film-body engineering/mechanical excellence does not translate to excellence in analog electronics (sensor) and digital technologies (what happens after the shutter closes).

Electronics doesn't have an expiration date. I still have two of the Apple's earliest laptops (PowerBook 165C and 540C), they still work... nobody cares.

Technology has an expiration data. Those Powerbooks are obsolete.

In an improbable scenario where Leica ceases to manufacture M-mount digital cameras, other companies would make money selling bodies for the lenses.

The authentic classics are the lenses.

 

[VisualDarkness]

There are a lot of comments in this thread about how analog gear is repairable basically forever, but not digital. I wonder about this a bit. As we move farther and farther down the digital road, I would think that we are going to see more and more repair people that are versed ONLY in digital repair. I'm not sure I buy this idea that digital gear is destined for the scrap heap after a handful of years of operation. I'm quite confident that by the time my Fuji digital gear needs help, there'll be repair shops that specialize in repairing them... from the motherboard to the LCD. 🙂

Well, it all depends on which part brakes. Often capacitor go bad and they are most often possible to switch out but as soon as a more advanced component is gone it's most likely gone "forever", or atleast until manufacturing is possible at home.

 

[jaapv]

Well, allegedly there are one or two persons willing to attempt to repair a DMR. With which degree -or lack of- success I do not know.

 

[jaapv]

You are right of course. But some quibbles: Digital is not "reparable," in the sense of an independent repair shop fabricating a replacement IC board. What your repair guy or gal does is swap out a bad electronic component with a functional electronic component. Those components are specialty chips and cards and when they are gone, they are gone. In my M3, a competent machinist can fabricate any gear that is stripped in the the thing. In any event, it is not the death of these chips you should worry about, it is the death and dearth of the ridiculous array of proprietary batteries, the "progress" from one proprietary form of TIFF file to another and the lack of meaningfully useful software interfaces to interpret the ones and zeros that these wunderkameras spit out.

Anybody remember the STN format? It was the proprietary compression file structure invented/championed by Genuine Fractals (now Perfect Resize). Here is what Perfect Resize says:

"
What will happen to the .stn file format?

Posted on September 5, 2013

The STiNG file support is provided in Perfect Resize 7.5 for opening exsiting .STN files for legacy users. STiNG is no longer a recommended format and this is the last release of Perfect Resize to support it. It is recommended that existing .STN files are converted to a modern format, like JPG2000, which maintains the wavelet compression but is more compatible and is an industry standard. STiNG files are not readable by Adobe® Lightroom® or Apple® Aperture® or natively in the Perfect Photo Suite. The only way to open STiNG files is via Adobe® Photoshop® if Perfect Resize 7.5 or earlier is installed."

Hear that? That's the sound of a file format going >PLOP< into the sea of digital history. And that is what will happen eventually to every proprietary RAW format that there is.

Electronic consumer products don't become "classic" they become "landfill."

Batteries are not a problem. reconditioning them, often with newer technology is quite routine.

As for file formats, DNG as used by Leica is an open source format that is meant to be readable at all times, even if it may need a conversion program to a newer system in the future -and Adobe's DNG converter will often make unusable TIFF-like formats perfectly readable DNGs.
JPG - well, the history of the world is stored in zettabytes of JPEGs, it is hard to imagine them ever be allowed to become unreadable.

The support of the theory of conversion programs popping up is visible in the .stn file problem, independent software developers see a market for conversion tools:
http://www.solvusoft.com/en/file-extensions/file-extension-stn/

 

[Dektol Dan]

Collectible Electronics?

Collectible Electronics?

Electronics doesn't have an expiration date. I still have two of the Apple's earliest laptops (PowerBook 165C and 540C), they still work... nobody cares.

Technology has an expiration data. Those Powerbooks are obsolete.

Here is my 550c. I bought it from a retired Apple engineer.
It was $5,500 when new, one of the first to have a track pad, TFT screen and Power PC processor (I have the original CPU with a co- processor). Most notably it is WIFI (a first), one of only 200.

I works almost as new. Here it is running Photoshop 2.

Is it worth anything? Will a working M8 be worth anything in 20 years? If it works, and you have a computer to view the images from it, hell yes!!!!

Don't get me wrong, I have working examples of Apple's Quicktake cameras that need an early lap top, will they be worth anything? You tell me.