effect of the M8 on Leica

[rsl]

I doubt that Leica sees pros as their main market - there simply are not enough professionals with a workflow that needs a rangefinder. Yes- they will appreciate the enhancement of the marque that comes with professional users and many pro's will buy a camera to use when they ARE amateurs, outside their paying job and for fun. But the money for Leica is the accomplished hobby photographer - the original amateur- market.

Jaap,
I left out one class of amateur and lumped them in with photojournalists, but with all due respect I still stand by what I said. Yes, the camera market couldn’t even exist without amateurs. Even Cartier-Bresson was an amateur in the beginning, and he continued to see himself as an amateur all his life, even though he wasn’t. But who’s going to buy M8s? First of all, it’s going to be amateurs to whom Leica represents the romance of photojournalism and street photography as it was practiced in the last century. There are still a lot of us left but most of us are growing older. Second, it’s going to be people who see Leica lenses as the finest in the world, which they are. But a fine Nikon lens on a top-of-the-line DSLR is going to produce results just as good as a fine Leica lens on the M8, and be considerably less expensive and more flexible. Finally, there are going to be people, and I’m one of them, who love street photography and realize that on the street, nothing so far can take the place of a rangefinder. The results I get from my R-D1 aren’t as good, technically, as the results I get from my D2X, but on the street I can get results from the R-D1 I’d simply never be able to get from the D2X. I’ll buy the M8 when it stops crapping out unexpectedly, because I can see from the files you sent me that I can get much better results on the street with the M8 than I can with the R-D1. With the M8 I’ll have essentially the same quality I get from the D2X and all the street advantages and more that I have with the R-D1. Leica may not see pros as their main market, but in the long run their market is going to be pros doing photojournalism and amateurs doing street photography, even if the amateurs are moonlighting pros. I hope there are enough people like that out there to keep Leica going because I really respect what the company’s done in the past and what they’re trying to do with the M8.