How soon will you buy a M9 ?

[leicashot]

I anticipate MANY inexperienced M users to buy up quickly just to 'have it'. Their mistake will be my advantage.

 

[rxmd]

Lobb boots, Gieves suits and Bristol cars are about as far from fashionable as you can get. Most people have never even heard of them. They are indeed expensive luxuries, but they are as close to timeless as you can reasonably expect. They are also, in the eyes of those who buy them, the best you can get.

The same is true, I suggest, of an M-series Leica

No, I don't think the same is true. While I have trouble seeing Lobb produce and sell a diamond-encrusted Independence of Rhodesia Special Edition, or Bristol a Sir Arthur Harris Memorial Edition of the Blenheim, we have had the doubtful enjoyment of seeing Royal Danish Wedding and Sultan of Brunei Leicas, the latter complete with gold plating and red leather. Leica is considerably more of a banal you-want-it-we-have-it luxury goods company, much like those New York jewellers that produce heavy diamond-encrusted crosses that then dangle around the neck of US gangsta rap stars.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I anticipate MANY inexperienced M users to buy up quickly just to 'have it'. Their mistake will be my advantage.

In what way? Do you think they will soon sell it second-hand? Or what? I'm not being combative: I genuinely don't understand your post.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

No, I don't think the same is true. While I have trouble seein Lobb produce and sell a diamond-encrusted Independence of Rhodesia Special Edition, or Bristol a Sir Arthur Harris Memorial Edition of the Blenheim, we have had the doubtful enjoyment of seeing Royal Danish Wedding and Sultan of Brunei Leicas, the latter complete with gold plating and red leather. Leica is considerably more of a banal you-want-it-we-have-it luxury goods company, much like those New York jewellers that produce heavy diamond-encrusted crosses that then dangle around the neck of US gangsta rap stars.

The 'funnies' from Leica may indeed be in questionable taste, but it is not Leica's job to question the taste of their customers. The 'funnies' are a trivial (but no doubt profitable) sideline, and the vast majority, remember, do not originate with Leica: they are special orders from dealers (Year of the Rooster) or indeed individual customers (Sultan of Brunei).

What Leica actually does is makes very good cameras and lenses: the best in the eyes of those who buy them, or they would buy something else. To liken Leica buyers to gangsta rap stars, or call them 'fondlers' as another poster did, is pretty pointless.

Cheers,

R.

 

[leicashot]

In what way? Do you think they will soon sell it second-hand? Or what? I'm not being combative: I genuinely don't understand your post.

Cheers,

R.

This is becomming a common trend especially with Leica and digital combined. Many newbies to photography are excited by the prospect of owning a unique camera like a Leica M. They will try it, find that focusing a rangefinder is not for them as it doesn't focus track children or animals, and neither does it macro focus. Then the'll become jealous as their friend's EP-2/GF-2 5D mark III, D700s all shoot high def video and make them a sunday roast and do the dishes....and they will then decide to sell it. I can actually see into the future...didn't you know?

 

[swoop]

In what way? Do you think they will soon sell it second-hand? Or what? I'm not being combative: I genuinely don't understand your post.

Cheers,

R.

Same thing that happened when the M8 was released. A lot of people buy into that Leica mystique. I had an exgirlfriend that spent $700 on a Leica D-Lux 2 rather than the cheaper Panasonic option just for that little red dot. And she actually got miffed when some guy in a camera store told her "That's not a real Leica. They're made in Japan."

But a lot of people bought M8's. Because they could finally use a Leica without having to worry about film. I mean people who would never ever would have bought one before. People who think a Leica is the equivalent to a photographic magic wand went out and bought one. Just because it was digital rather than film.

I think the best example to display the welcoming of the M8 by the uninitiated masses is the used lens market. A lot of those lenses were going dirt cheap in 2005. Then 2006 rolled around and the M8 was announced and suddenly all those lenses had an extra $500 attached to them. Because their usability was extended and people were buying those old cheap v2 'crons and Canon 7 lenses to throw on their new M8's.

And then of course came the new Canon and Nikon offerings. The 1Ds Mark III's and the Nikon D3's and D700's. And those who were using M8's as toys, started selling their M8's to buy Canon and Nikon toys. And the used market got progressively cheaper and cheaper as second hand M8's were going to 3rd and 4th owners. To people who just "wanted to try it out" or weren't ready for a camera that only focused manually, had no zooming lenses whatsoever, that had no such thing as matrix metering.

I've met a lot of people who've heard of Leica but have never actually seen one. It's like some legend. And when they can afford one and pony up the cash for it and actually get one in their hands. A lot of people find out it isn't for them. And so they sell them.

 

[rxmd]

The 'funnies' from Leica may indeed be in questionable taste, but it is not Leica's job to question the taste of their customers. The 'funnies' are a trivial (but no doubt profitable) sideline, and the vast majority, remember, do not originate with Leica: they are special orders from dealers (Year of the Rooster) or indeed individual customers (Sultan of Brunei).

Of course they are, and Leica corporate policy in fact encourages such orders; the "a la carte" program was even meant to leverage this down to the individual customer. They will dutifully produce them nevertheless, show them to the world, reserve serial number spaces for them and make sure that the collectors get some, while if you were to walk into Bristol's showroom in London and tell them "Hey, can I have ten Arthur Harris memorial Blenheims", you would in all probability be told that Bristol Cars is a self-respecting company and shown the door. Or so I hope.

To liken Leica buyers to gangsta rap stars, or call them 'fondlers' as another poster did, is pretty pointless.

It would be indeed; however I have done neither. What I've done is not to liken the customers, but the makers. Of course if a company makes a public point out of catering to the more, let's say, exotic tastes of the more pomp-loving parts of its customer base, it does not mean that all its customers share the same tastes, thank God.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

Bah!....enough of this M9 nonsense!....let's get back to the cars!
....BTW, I used to have a Morris 'Oxford'....never knew where it was made!
Dave.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Bah!....enough of this M9 nonsense!....let's get back to the cars!
....BTW, I used to have a Morris 'Oxford'....never knew where it was made!
Dave.

Dear Dave,

Hindustan, of course: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustan_Ambassador

But not Bristol. And for those who confuse 'Oxford' and 'Cowley', there's probably no hope.

Cheers,

R.

 

[parsec1]

Whatever camera Leica introduce it will be 3 years behind electronicaly and cost the earth if its going to be an M9 and 12 months later an M9.2

Leica do decide what we should buy and not, as it should be, in reverse because of their unique position in the market place and a certain amount of influence persuading them to abandon their natural niche in the market to the esoteric.

They could stamp 'Mikey Mouse' special edition on some old
M2s and charge $ 20,000 each and of the 7 billion souls on this planet there would be enough 'chumps' to buy them and keep Leica in buisness.

As everybody on here seems to list their cameras, why I'm not sure.


Leicas= 5 including an original MP2 which was given to me 35 years ago pretty bashed about then because every body wanted to 'hold a pentax'
or a swinging sixties Nikon F. ( When the US news agency here in London closed and they couldn't wait to get home) they let me buy it for a $100 nobody else wanted it !!! ?

Nikons = as many as I need inc D3s D 300/700s and a plain prism black F2 for when I want to make some photographs.

Cars 3 = including an original Mercedes Gull Wing 300 SL in red for the one or two sunny days here in England until we move to Perpignan next year
Hopefully a good year for the grape

A 2009 Ford RS Focus --'Breathed upon' at Boreham about 280 /320 bhp depending on 'configuration' for general use.

2008 MGF for the missus.

Regards
Peter.

 

[jaapv]

Whatever camera Leica introduce it will be 3 years behind electronicaly and cost the earth if its going to be an M9 and 12 months later an M9.2

3 years ago there was no Maestro chip, nor a sensor with fancy IR filtering or ff-microlenses. The price will probably be 5500 Euro - not exactly over the top...

 

[Turtle]

I will buy one when I find out whether it meets my needs AND I can afford it. I can't fathom how people fork out $7K without having a clue if the camera will be a turkey. The M8 hardly had an illustrious start! I would have thought people would want to know more about the basics first and decide once some tests have been done or they have had a chance to test one themselves. Each to their own...

 

[Turtle]

I am also hoping that Leica has the sense not to increase the prices of their lenses with the introduction of the M9. I already feel insulted enough as it is and all they have done is ensure that I only buy used Leica, Zeiss, or CV of which they see no profit. The frustrating thing is, I (and many others like me) actually use the cameras & lenses for what Leica made them for, but have had enough of their outrageous price hikes (which have also driven the used market now to what new prices were 3 years ago).

C'mon Leica, rememeber the users. Remember compact lenses that may not be perfect optically, but are the best you can get for their size/performance.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Whatever camera Leica introduce it will be 3 years behind electronicaly and cost the earth if its going to be an M9 and 12 months later an M9.2

Leica do decide what we should buy and not, as it should be, in reverse because of their unique position in the market place and a certain amount of influence persuading them to abandon their natural niche in the market to the esoteric.

Dear Peter,

Three years behind WHAT electronically? All the other digital rangefinders on the market?

Cost the earth? No. Let's assume the 5500€ figure is correct. Stand it next to other luxury goods -- NOT consumer disposables or 'designer label' tat -- and that's not very much. But an awful lot of people have difficulty in understanding what luxury goods are. They are an alternative to the mass market, and may be bought for any one of several reasons.

Also, assume you use an M9 for only 5 years and that it has zero resale value at the end. It's still only 1100€ a year. Assume (more realistically in my view) you use it for 10 years and that it's still worth even 500€, and it's 500€ a year. When Leica launched the M8 they said they'd support it for 20 years and I assume the M9 will be the same.

It's all very well to say that it will be obsolete in 2 or 5 or 10 years, but what would that actually mean? That there is a 30-megapixel version, when 18 megapixels are generally agreed to be equivalent to a 35mm transparency?

Leica decide what we should buy? How? By holding a gun to our heads and forcing us? If I have disentangled your syntax correctly, do you really believe that they perversely refuse to build the cameras that people really want? Why would they do that? Sheer spite? And do you believe that there are no other camera manufacturers who would, if they could turn a profit by doing so, manufacture digital RF cameras at a lower price than Leicas?

The hysteria about 'specials' is just that: hysteria. 'Specials' don't detract for an instant from the quality of the other cameras; there are no R+D costs in producing them; and they are presumably handsomely profitable, so they help keep Leica in business.

Likewise, if people want to customize luxury goods with the à la carte programme, why are so many people so hysterical about this? I don't want red leather, but if you do, why should I stop you? Why a camera company should lose 'self respect' by building what their customers want (not your point, I know) is hard to understand: think of some of the old Maharajas' Rolls Royces of the 1920s.

Finally, remember a simple truth. You don't run the Leica company. I don't run them. Of course they pay attention to what their customers say, and even to RFF members who don't use Leicas, but understandably they will pay a lot more attention to those customers who buy new Leicas than to those who buy them second-hand because they're 'overpriced'.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Dave Wilkinson]

- to show-off - of course!....and you joined in - in great style!....well done!
Dave.

 

[rxmd]

Likewise, if people want to customize luxury goods with the à la carte programme, why are so many people so hysterical about this?

Thus asks the man who just put Bristol in capital letters about eight times to make a point

But actually it is very simple: there was the example of a few British luxury goods manufacturers who make a point out of understating their products to the extent that hardly anyone knows them. Understatement is part of the product image here. Leica, on the other hand, will make and publicly showcase anything a customer is asking for. Of course this is a perfectly fine way to do business, and Leicas are still luxury goods (gold-plated or otherwise), but they are simply not in the same category ("class", if you will). Concava (now out of business) or even Gandolfi would be better examples.

 

[Mcary]

Also, assume you use an M9 for only 5 years and that it has zero resale value at the end. It's still only 1100€ a year. Assume (more realistically in my view) you use it for 10 years and that it's still worth even 500€, and it's 500€ a year.

R.

JMO but when one purchases the M9 or in fact any digital camera they need to look at is as long term lease rather then a purchase. In other words this is something you're going to own for a finite period of time so its cost should be measure against what you might spend over that same period of time if you were shooting film.

 

[Roger Hicks]

JMO but when one purchases the M9 or in fact any digital camera they need to look at is as long term lease rather then a purchase. In other words this is something you're going to own for a finite period of time so its cost should be measure against what you might spend over that same period of time if you were shooting film.

No question! Even if I reckon that a digital Leica saves only 50-100 rolls of slide film a year, and price the slide film at only 5€ a roll, that's 250-500€ a year off the 'astronomical' cost of 500-1100€/year. If I look back on when I used to do all my illustrations for books and magazine articles on film, I think it's a good deal more.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Dante_Stella]

Later

Later

Also, assume you use an M9 for only 5 years and that it has zero resale value at the end. It's still only 1100€ a year. Assume (more realistically in my view) you use it for 10 years and that it's still worth even 500€, and it's 500€ a year. When Leica launched the M8 they said they'd support it for 20 years and I assume the M9 will be the same.

Roger, you raise the best point of them all.

You have to love the people posting in multiple topics that M8s will be worthless soon, M9s are vastly superior, M8 owners are in denial because of their "investment." Cameras are not "investments" (any more than a car is), and they are worth something to their owners for as long as they are used (witness the $25-at=a-garage-sale Minolta Autocord that I have been shooting with for 20 years...). I have observed that pretty much any pro camera depreciates at a little over $1k a year (and for most $5K pro cameras, this is entirely consistent with principles of depreciation in the U.S.) - and that's how I budget.

I bought an M8 on the assumption that it would be worth nothing at the end of 4.5 years. I've liked the results, though I really didn't like the way Leica overhyped out of the box compatibility and charged huge amounts of money to "recalibrate" Leica lenses that were supposedly M-spec. Would I keep an M8 until it was truly worth "nothing" on the market? Well, if the only thing Leica has to offer in that time frame is a bigger-sensor version of the M8, then yes, I'd wait.

1. My impression is that a lot of people who are "trash talking" don't have long-term experience with the M8. The crop factor is not a huge issue with that camera (see #2). The issue (in the view of this long-term user) is that the controls are mediocre (self timer, anyone?), the battery life is pretty poor, TTL flash operation is worst-in-industry, and there is meter- and flash-lag. What of this has changed in the M9? My suspicion is nothing - only that battery life will be greatly diminished because the DSP will have to contend with more data per picture.

2. Like a lot of M8 owners, I bought a good 28mm to sub for my 35mm lens, let my existing 35mm take over the role of a 50, and didn't care enough about wider or longer to make any adjustments there (and for as little as I do wide-angle anything, I have a Kodak 14n and a 17-35/2.8 Nikkor that are "good enough") At this point, although the M9 is well within financial reach, it would seem pretty foolish to drop a huge amount on it just to widen up some lenses.

3. There's an awful lot of optimism about the performance of existing lenses on the M9. If the M8 is any guide (and it should be, since it has the same pixel pitch more or less), people are going to be surprised how poorly legacy lenses will perform. The M8 - even taking the best part of lenses' image circles - mercilessly exposes the faults in lenses, particularly corner sharpness, vignetting, and overall collimation. As a result of this, I personally figure the cost of lens upgrades into the equation. And when you get to the point of shopping for a camera and lenses, you might as well start looking at other systems.

I anticipated that the M8 would be a "transitional" camera to get the oldsters conditioned to using digital cameras (or to buy Leica some time) - and that Leica would do a major update to the M system at the same time it figured out how to get a 24x36mm sensor to work. But what we have gotten in the M9 is another incremental improvement. It's actually something of a letdown.

Dante

 

[parsec1]

Dear Roger,
No of course not any other drfdr as there aren't any yet but the D3s and Canon Mk 3DSLRs or whatever is on the market at this time are much much better technically and produce better image quality..
Perhaps this forum is more concerned with the technical than the picture. If that is the case then I'm in the wrong place but when I entered 'Fleet Street' a Leica was the camera to carry incase everything else broke down. This was advice given by Vic Blackman to me and endorsed by other Express photographers whilst sitting around that great big table between the developing ' rooms 'and the no entry at any cost ' unionised darkrooms. In fact a bit later I brought from Express Sports photographer Stewart Robinson a M4P,winder and 35 mm summilux which he said he couldn't 'get on with' on the stairs of the Express building to the 3rd floor picture desk for 750 quid . Bet you wouldn't be able to do that now .( BTW that camera provided me with an exclusive Sunday Express byelined front page picture of Prince Charles sucking a dummy given by a woman standing a few feet away from me when HRH got out of his car and chatted to the onlookers after visiting Princess Di and newly born Prince Harry in hospital.)
Anyway I digress. Everybody used Fs or F2s later but all always carried a Leica.
Except Vic who was a Minolta fan even to the extent of getting Minolta to produce a motorised version of the SR1s virtualy for himself. I am aware that current economics would not entertain this. But a professional press photograper was at least involved in the 35mm camera designs and ran for a very long time a much admired and well read column in AP.(Not that yours is not of course) grovel grovel !
After the debacle of the M8 and it was ,IR/UV filters,poor image chip, banding issues et al leading to the introduction of the M8.2 which came after the total dissapointment of pro's who had for all of Leicas history regarded them as sacrosanct.

How many Press photographers now always carry an M8 these days just incase their Nikons die on them ?.
Secondly size. I don't really shoot 300 or 450mm 2.8s anymore and although having a 300mm 2.8 I don't really care for lugging it about the mountains of some 3rd world country or shoving my Nikon Ds large heavy and awkward body into some tribal individuals face.
I have no choice .When the consumer has no choice we are forced into compromise..not good for trade.

I would dearly love to dump the lot in favour of 3 reliable digital Leicas with a 21mm 35and a 75 /90 individually and without the size or weight of a bagfull of DSLRs.

No you will not have these says Leica because the soul of photography the Image has been replaced by the 'Ive got the latest ,biggest most obvious DSLR with the sexiest 5 to 500mm lens poking out of my belly, everybody look at me ,mentality or I've got a Leica M8 as jewellry to hang around my neck whilst strolling up the promenade with my 18 year old 'Chick'.

Whatever reasons you may want to have a 'designer' camera if thats what you want it has to work ! or there again perhaps you feel itdoes not ? I am fortunate enough to own a Breitling Chronometer a designer watch maybe but if the Hands got stuck a 5 past 3 it would still be a 'designer' watch and it would give accurate time twice a day the rest of the day it would be just so much junk on a bracelet. Thats how I feel about the Leica M8/2s, rushed into sale without proper thoughts or consideration just so that some individuals can have a red dot digi camera hanging around their neck. That is being forced into buying them by those who have no idea of the original purpose of the cameras (or even in many cases not even able to take a picture with them)and the hype that has been heaped upon them by the 'Hip and shallow" advertising market.

Very much looking forward to getting into the 'habit' of drinking more of that 'Grape Juice' stuff they produce over there
All the best
Peter.