Ben Z
Veteran
Wow, 9 pages! By the time this thread burns itself out I might actually have an M9 to comment on...but then, everyone will be talking about the M10 😀
Leica M9... Legendary vs Nothing
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yanidel
Well-known
Just received my steel one today. Legendary I don't know but it really feels like the M8 which is a great news to me. This + the use of the 35 Lux Asph wide open makes it certainly a camera for years.
Here is a first series of shots taken tonight :
http://blog.yanidel.com/2009/11/18/935/
Here is a first series of shots taken tonight :
http://blog.yanidel.com/2009/11/18/935/
squirrel$$$bandit
Veteran
I'm curious about your post-processing workflow, Yanidel...maybe you could do a thread on it sometime. Your photos have a really distinctive look.
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
Well, if relevance of a product were the only reason to sell and buy it, the whole world would look like East Berlin before the fall of the Wall🙄
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Hey ... they had those awsome female swimmers that shaved, not to mention the Trabant!
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
Lol!! But did you ever taste the food in the restaurants? 😀
Man, to me the M8 feels like a real M... so the M9 must just be that much better. You either like digital or you do not. If you like digital, the M9 will make you happy.
Steve Ash
Established
With 6 billion people on this planet Leica would be very very happy to get the dedicated interest of 0.1%. I mean 6.000.000 M7 Hermes editions would put the waiting list for the M9 to shame for sure. Don't worry about 200 Hermes editions you are not interested in but makes a very small minority happy.
Regards
Steve
martin s
Well-known
I love how the black paint version is legitimate but the Hermes one is not. What is the Leica obsession about if not fashion, especially when it comes to models like the mp?
martin
martin
Renzsu
Well-known
well, I'm halfway there saving for the M9.. who knows I might stick with it until the end, or just stick with my M6 and put the money towards a lens and a holiday.. I'm not rich, people around me might declare me crazy, but hey.. I want that M9 like no other digital camera.
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
Actually, if you don't mine and refine your own silver, render your own gelatin, mix your own emulsions, coat your own plates, synthesize your own thiosulfate, distill your own acetic acid and ascorbate, you're cheating, you big fat cheater.
isalan
Alan42
I use a 16GB card. Over 600 shots. I've never filled the card. Who cares what the count is. I'm really happy with my M9 and the way it takes full advantage of my Leica glass.
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CK Dexter Haven
Well-known
I hate the idea of "legendary." It's a camera. An expensive, well-built camera.
The photographs are what matter. Only the images can be legendary. I am impressed and sometimes awestruck by photographers who 'manage' to make amazing photographs with cheap, 'inferior' equipment. And, i'm equally disgusted by hacks who take banal pictures with 'superior' equipment. [Myself included.]
An M6 in the hands of Ralph Gibson may be part of the 'legendary' equation. In Joe Sixpack's hands, it's obscene, and far from legendary.
The photographs are what matter. Only the images can be legendary. I am impressed and sometimes awestruck by photographers who 'manage' to make amazing photographs with cheap, 'inferior' equipment. And, i'm equally disgusted by hacks who take banal pictures with 'superior' equipment. [Myself included.]
An M6 in the hands of Ralph Gibson may be part of the 'legendary' equation. In Joe Sixpack's hands, it's obscene, and far from legendary.
_mark__
Well-known
I actually think Leica have hit the nail on the head with their sensor choice in the M9, high iso noise reduction being what it is nowadays in post. I have recently modified my opinion to legendary after seeing the colour quality of the files on a reference 21 LED monitor, Prophoto RGB out of capture one 5!
L
lainer
Guest
Waiting on M9
Waiting on M9
I read all of the responses to the poll. Wow! Anyway, I'm on the list for a M9. And yeah, it is expensive. I was wondering about the M8.2. Is it a worthy contender to the M9, even if it isn't full frame? Are there quality issues still with M8.2? Like the vertical line, and others? How do you know which models had those problems? Do they go by serial numbers? Anyway, I am waiting for the M9 on a list, but I don't see it being filled any time soon. Should I just say "screw it" and get a used M8.2 and a lens an start shooting? Or will that be a compromise in quality?
Waiting on M9
I read all of the responses to the poll. Wow! Anyway, I'm on the list for a M9. And yeah, it is expensive. I was wondering about the M8.2. Is it a worthy contender to the M9, even if it isn't full frame? Are there quality issues still with M8.2? Like the vertical line, and others? How do you know which models had those problems? Do they go by serial numbers? Anyway, I am waiting for the M9 on a list, but I don't see it being filled any time soon. Should I just say "screw it" and get a used M8.2 and a lens an start shooting? Or will that be a compromise in quality?
NickTrop
Veteran
Look - I don't own a Leica M8, M9 - never will. However, I believe in the Barnak ideal of small, lightweight cameras using fast primes that don't sacrifice control. I also believe in the "Ayn Rand" philosophies regarding the silliness of all things "retro" and the notion that something is better because it is old. What this translates - to me, is that I want a digital camera that is digital from the ground up. One where I don't have to make sacrifices in control or image quality - that gives me what I get in a film camera but using modern digital sensors. Inherent to its very name, a "digital rangefinder" or a "Digital SLR" is a marriage of old and new technologies. Why? DSLRs are right out - even though they've shrun in size and prices have come down. Again, mirrors? Built around slow, large zoom lenses though I can use adapters but have to deal with a crop factor. Average spec'd primes costing hundreds? No thanks. Until all three conditions are met - the Barnack ideal realized, and something that fully exploits digital technologies (an example is the ability to capture high quality video if I want) and is from the ground up digital, and (3) a reasonable (to me) price... I have held off and have happily shot film.
Until then, I have used digitals as "speciality" cameras. One old superzoom which I still use... Superzooms exploit the size of the film plane and image stabilization and cheaply and efficiently replace the giant zoom that needs a tripod on a film camera. The other is a little point-n-shoot that I can slip into my pocket and take anywhere. For that, I sacrifice bokeh but at least some models give me a usable ISO 800 and can be used withing the "Barnack framework" for discreet natural light photos. Bokeh added later in "post" - but it's a chore and doesn't look as good as natural bokeh.
Finally, after 10 years, digitals are starting to meet the three outlined criteria to me. These are the 4/3 cameras and the soon to be release NX10 by lowly Samsung. Leica should have been the innovator here, as they were in back in the day (and before my time) with the M3. Instead, Leica became misguided in this regard... they "made rangefinders" and had to marry old with new technologies. I think this is wrong. They should have been the innovators, they should have abandoned the "rangefinder" concept and form as it has no place or relevance, really, in the digital realm, and should have created a purely from the ground up design based soley on digital technologies... But they seemed too seeped in tradition to innovate. They should have been releasing 4/3 systems with new lens mounts...etc more in line with the Barnack ideals than being makers of "retro" cameras. In a sense, however, I'm glad they weren't the ones. That red dot has too high of an "economic rent" for my wallet.
Until then, I have used digitals as "speciality" cameras. One old superzoom which I still use... Superzooms exploit the size of the film plane and image stabilization and cheaply and efficiently replace the giant zoom that needs a tripod on a film camera. The other is a little point-n-shoot that I can slip into my pocket and take anywhere. For that, I sacrifice bokeh but at least some models give me a usable ISO 800 and can be used withing the "Barnack framework" for discreet natural light photos. Bokeh added later in "post" - but it's a chore and doesn't look as good as natural bokeh.
Finally, after 10 years, digitals are starting to meet the three outlined criteria to me. These are the 4/3 cameras and the soon to be release NX10 by lowly Samsung. Leica should have been the innovator here, as they were in back in the day (and before my time) with the M3. Instead, Leica became misguided in this regard... they "made rangefinders" and had to marry old with new technologies. I think this is wrong. They should have been the innovators, they should have abandoned the "rangefinder" concept and form as it has no place or relevance, really, in the digital realm, and should have created a purely from the ground up design based soley on digital technologies... But they seemed too seeped in tradition to innovate. They should have been releasing 4/3 systems with new lens mounts...etc more in line with the Barnack ideals than being makers of "retro" cameras. In a sense, however, I'm glad they weren't the ones. That red dot has too high of an "economic rent" for my wallet.
DNG
Film Friendly
Steve M.
Veteran
It sounds like a great digital camera, if you're in the market for a $7000 digital rangefinder. I'm not.
acheyj
Well-known
We needed to know that.
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
When I hear reports of demand for the M9 out stripping supply I worry because if Leica choose to they can probably bump the price by twenty percent without changing that situation too much. If I had the money I'd buy one without hesitation for the nine grand or so they currently ask here in Oz but I'd want a D700 or similar for those occasions when I don't feel like being 'home on the range'(finder) 😀