How long do we think digital Leica M cameras will last?

[mtnbkr]

Even with optical components like those eyepiece lenses: if there's demand, they can be manufactured. Someone in Japan is making replacement elements for haze-etched elements in one of the Canon LTM lenses.

Got some info about that? Who, what, how, where? I'm interested because I like Canon's LTM lenses and it would be good to have that in my back pocket if I needed it.

Chris

 

[Freakscene]

Got some info about that? Who, what, how, where? I'm interested because I like Canon's LTM lenses and it would be good to have that in my back pocket if I needed it.
Chris

It’s Kanto camera:

Repair & Restoration

 

[mtnbkr]

It’s Kanto camera:

Repair & Restoration

Thanks! Hopefully I'll never need their services, but I've got them bookmarked just in case.

Chris

 

[Phil_F_NM]

I bought my factory refurbished M8 then sent it off for warranty repair and pixel mapping within a couple months. I bought my M9 new then turned around and sent it off for a sensor remap and new shutter within a week. So, MTBF = < 1 month in my experience. In the nearly two years that I owned both of those cameras, roughly 60% of that time they were at Leica for repair. This is just my experience and my opinion, but they were in the top three worst gear decisions I ever made, right along with the Contax AX.
Who knows how long Leica may be able to take care of their digital offerings.
Phil

 

[38Deardorff]

I bought my factory refurbished M8 then sent it off for warranty repair and pixel mapping within a couple months. I bought my M9 new then turned around and sent it off for a sensor remap and new shutter within a week. So, MTBF = < 1 month in my experience. In the nearly two years that I owned both of those cameras, roughly 60% of that time they were at Leica for repair. This is just my experience and my opinion, but they were in the top three worst gear decisions I ever made, right along with the Contax AX.
Who knows how long Leica may be able to take care of their digital offerings.
Phil

Thanks for the reminder. All good reasons why some people avoided buying them (anticipated a rush to market without in depth testing)...or thought they were poor value for big money......
By contrast look at the products of Leica's competitors or their own much maligned M5..... which still keeps on ticking....50 yrs later.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Some 16 year old digital cameras keep on going. Leicas, not sure, I own only a 70+ year old Barnack, almost as old as me and it's still doing okay - as I am, but when something inside me fails it won't be a camera repair shop job.

I had a Canon 450D kit, my first digital - a gift in 2008 or 2009 from my SO, who bought it dirty-cheaply from a work colleague who didn't care for it. I recall he paid AUD $1300 for the (two lens) kit. I bought it for half that, and I thought I had a real bargain.

I soon learned otherwise. For everyday snaps it was adequate, but I didn't like the colors, I had to do too much post processing to get those right for me. Ditto the mid-tones. White cat fur came out blue or green and no amount of in-camera adjusting ever fixed this. Friends who had similar Canons all complained of the same problems, so mine weren't unique.

To my dismay I found I was getting better results with a dead-meter Nikkormat and a Weston Master. Quite a sobering revelation when everybody and their cat had a digisomethingorother.

The crunch came when a stock photo buyer I sent a shipload of D450 images to (at the client's request), rejected them all, saying the colors and the mid-tones were "unsuitable" for reproduction.

Many I know love Canons and do good photography with them. So maybe I just had a crap shooter. Anyway, I sold the thing at a loss and bought the D90 which we still have. Never regretted this decision.

That D90 now has 130,000 clicks on it and is still going. Last week we were gifted another D90, with a whoppingly low 4,000 on its snapmeter. So we are now set up for at least nine lives (thanks, cats!).

It takes all kinds to make a village, so the old saying goes. Ditto to make a camera. For me Nikon is that camera (with Fuji a close second).

Looks like some particular sensors might be bad or color calibration. My М-Е 220 is not as good after sensor change by Leica.

 

[OmegaB600]

too many people expect a sensor replacement to be exactly perfect... doesnt work that way sadly.

However no one can deny the original M3 is a great piece of gear. I love mine, dont use it much but i loves it...

 

[former member]

Thanks! Hopefully I'll never need their services, but I've got them bookmarked just in case.

Chris

I bought the Kanto rebuilt Canon 50/1.2 that was for sale here on RFF. I also have a perfect-glass early production Canon 50/1.2, after going through several others. The Kanto repaired lens has the edge, higher contrast and sharper. Better than new.

 

[boojum]

I bought the Kanto rebuilt Canon 50/1.2 that was for sale here on RFF. I also have a perfect-glass early production Canon 50/1.2, after going through several others. The Kanto repaired lens has the edge, higher contrast and sharper. Better than new.

That's the kind of information worth knowing.

 

[Archiver]

I’ve said this here before too, a lot, so sorry if this sounds like a scratched record, but: when cameras became digital, part of the imaging chain that used to be single use (the recording medium) went from single use to being integral with the camera when cameras shifted from using film to having a digital sensor. They are not the same as they used to be. The camera is now partly single use/disposable. So get one and then go use it up. If you shoot 100,000 frames in a digital M - 10,000 frames a year is only the equivalent of about 5 rolls of film a week - you are way ahead of where you would be using a film camera, particularly if you develop film yourself and you value your time at all. Use it for 10 years, regard it as ‘used up’ and get another one. You could never go re-use your developed film.

In Rajasthan in 2023 I shot 3,000 frames in 3.5 days. Find things that work for you and go crazy. That’s what these machines are for. If you take <2,500 frames a year, buy an MP or MA and use it until film is no longer available.

I just wanted to add that a digital M is essentially free to shoot after purchase, hard drives notwithstanding. A film M has ongoing costs of film, development, scanning and printing, which can be considerably expensive if one shoots a lot.

And even if one accounts for hard drive expenses: as of 2025, I can buy a 16TB enterprise level refurbished drive for about $400 AUD. Sixteen terabytes. That's enough to hold my 22 years of digital photography, plus a second 16TB drive to store the raw files separately. One local lab devs for $18 and scans for $15, meaning $33 per roll + roll cost of around $20 for Fuji 36 colour negative. That's at least $53 per roll, meaning for $800 I could buy, dev and scan only 14 rolls or less!

A secondhand M240 is about $3800 AUD, and a secondhand M6 is about $4000-5500. A secondhand M10 is around $6500-7500, while a secondhand MP is about $7200. In terms of quantitative output, a digital M is far, far better value than a film M. This doesn't necessarily dissuade me from wanting another film M, I just have to factor in the additional costs of rolls/dev/scan.

Let's conveniently ignore batteries, though. 😅

 

[Rob-F]

An aside ... Wondering about whether you'll outlive your camera (or whether it will outlive you) at age 40 seems just a little amusing to those like me who have turned past the 70 mark and are now worrying about whether I'll live long enough to get the value I'd like to get out of my M10-R and M10-M through use! 😉 I've given up wondering about that stuff, and just use the darn things now. LOL!

G

Good point! I'm about to turn 85, and I plan to use all my film Leicas and Nikons this fall. My M9 already gets enough use. Thinking of an M10, though. If I don't get my money's worth before I'm gone, whose problem is that?

 

[Dogman]

Once upon a time, it was a dark and stormy night for electronic camera gear. We seasoned photographers knew it. Our manual focus, mechanical bodies and real metal and glass lenses would always work and those new electronic gadgets--auto exposure cameras and autofocus lenses--were doomed to failure. Always. They were unreliable. Until they weren't.

Then something strange happened. Those electronic gadgets started performing well. Those Canon cameras of which one photojournalist I ran into at a Bowl Game commented, "Wouldn't have a camera with all that shit on the back that will always break"...didn't. Didn't break, that is. And. lo and behold, the frequent adjustments we needed for our Nikon F and Canon F1 bodies were a thing of the past. Electronic shutters didn't need to be adjusted until they really went bonkers. Which they didn't very often. Photographers started using electronic cameras and AF lenses in the rain. They took them to jungles. Deserts. War zones. They beat the bejeezus out of them daily and they still worked.

Then things went digital. Digital got decent. Then it got good. Reliable cameras were still reliable and nobody talked much about reliability anymore. Build quality was a passing comment in a camera review that most people scanned right over because it was a given. Most don't read reviews anyway. Cameras were built well. Drop in a battery, push in a card, set it up and go out and shoot pictures. No film to process. Wow. Prints? Who wants prints? Museums? Everything is online now. Post your photos, upload them to the editors, save them in the Cloud (que the holy angel choir).

The whole point of this brief history of photography is just to point out one thing. The important part of photography is the picture. Whether it's in a frame on the wall or in the Cloud (que the holy angel choir again)...it's the picture that's the whole purpose. And these days getting the picture has never been so simple. We have great tools. All we need to do is use them. How long do I think a digital Leica will last? I dunno. As long as it takes to take the pictures I wanna take I guess. That's good enough for me.



(By the way, I don't own a digital Leica. I muddle through with lesser stuff.)




.....................................

 

[lmans]

I don't comment much on this forum...more a lurker but..... is the issue more not how long the Leica will last mechanically, but more along the lines of how long does your particular Leica remain in favor or your attention given GAS ......

If you are like me and enjoy film...(Two Barnacks).... than I just keep what I have and keep shooting the same Model 11. Film might imply an attitude of imperfection 'needs' from my photography. But in the digital world of Leica (or any other brand), chances are you like perfection in your photography and with any older digital camera, you soon find yourself wanting the newer one, to cap off your perfectional mentality.

Although admittedly there are folks out there who are totally content with just shooting a M8 or even an older M6 etc....many have their eye on the new. Hence....no matter how good teh current model is still working, the future still demands the latest and greatest.

 

[Archiver]

I don't comment much on this forum...more a lurker but..... is the issue more not how long the Leica will last mechanically, but more along the lines of how long does your particular Leica remain in favor or your attention given GAS ......

If you are like me and enjoy film...(Two Barnacks).... than I just keep what I have and keep shooting the same Model 11. Film might imply an attitude of imperfection 'needs' from my photography. But in the digital world of Leica (or any other brand), chances are you like perfection in your photography and with any older digital camera, you soon find yourself wanting the newer one, to cap off your perfectional mentality.

Although admittedly there are folks out there who are totally content with just shooting a M8 or even an older M6 etc....many have their eye on the new. Hence....no matter how good teh current model is still working, the future still demands the latest and greatest.

Today, I was shooting an event with my S1, SL2S and M9. The SL2S was bought this year as an autofocus/video capable replacement and alternative to my M9. But I had the M9 with me anyway, and I marveled that I have continued to use this camera regularly for 15 years. I wouldn't say it's long in the tooth, but it has limitations that I've learned to ameliorate. And it's still one of the most physically enjoyable and satisfying cameras to shoot, apart from a film M.

My Canon 30D is 18-19 years old, my Canon 5D Mark II is 16 years old, and both are still going. Folks out there are still shooting with 20+ year old DSLR's. This is my rambling way of saying that digital cameras are capable of a desirable longevity, and I wouldn't worry too much about how long they will last. The thought of a M10-P or M10-R still floats around, but this is just GAS encouraged by online bleatings by YouTubers who make their crust from engagement. I've got what I need for the forseeable future.

 

[Freakscene]

Today, I was shooting an event with my S1, SL2S and M9. The SL2S was bought this year as an autofocus/video capable replacement and alternative to my M9. But I had the M9 with me anyway, and I marveled that I have continued to use this camera regularly for 15 years. I wouldn't say it's long in the tooth, but it has limitations that I've learned to ameliorate. And it's still one of the most physically enjoyable and satisfying cameras to shoot, apart from a film M.

My Canon 30D is 18-19 years old, my Canon 5D Mark II is 16 years old, and both are still going. Folks out there are still shooting with 20+ year old DSLR's. This is my rambling way of saying that digital cameras are capable of a desirable longevity, and I wouldn't worry too much about how long they will last. The thought of a M10-P or M10-R still floats around, but this is just GAS encouraged by online bleatings by YouTubers who make their crust from engagement. I've got what I need for the forseeable future.

My 2006 Leica DMR still works, although I passed it on in 2020. Repacked batteries gave it a second life and with the cellphone kits for batteries, a spare DMR and a backup R9 for parts, those cameras should be good for a really long time. Actually the limiting factor long term might be suitable SD cards.

 

[JeffS7444]

IME, if a person is sufficiently determined to keep old electronic devices alive, they'll find a way: I've restored notoriously unreliable Apple Mac Portables and Classics to perfect operating condition. And I've got some experience in refurbishing products with built-in lithium batteries, where replacements aren't available from the manufacturer.

But I did not buy these new and stash them away for decades, I mostly acquired them as old junk, at junk prices. OTOH, I no longer own a first-generation iPhone or iPod, because collectors were willing to pay steep prices, and who was I to deny them?