Money savings plan for the M9?

[eleskin]

For those of you like me who cannot instantly whip out alot of cash all of a sudden for a new M camera, one would like to know around how much the new M9 will cost roughly when it hits the store shelves. It would give me an idea as to how much I should save now and then so I am ready to buy around 6 months after it comes out (I waited 6 months for the M8 so all the issues known with the camera could be corrected or fixed). One would think the current M8.2 price would be about right (any higher in these economic times would be very difficult for Leica. Even some people with money are holding back on donating to charity in many cases due to their losses in the market). So how many of you on this forum have been asking yourself the same question here?

 

[kully]

Not me. I saved two years for my M8, but only when I knew that it existed and I wanted one.

Saving for something that may or may not exist at some point in time is rather peculiar, no?

 

[fixbones]

Are there plans for M9 alredy?

 

[Al Kaplan]

People who have to worry about saving to buy a Leica shouldn't be buying one.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Al, that's good advice, but you probably have to be old codgers like us to figure that out. 😉

 

[kully]

People who have to worry about saving to buy a Leica shouldn't be buying one.

eh?

Pushing credit?

 

[Ben Z]

There's no harm in putting aside money for a possible future purchase. You can always opt to pass on the M9 if it's either too expensive or you don't like the features, and either use the money for something else or (if it's the cost that's the problem) wait a year or two and get a demo or a closeout if/when there's an M10. Assuming the M9 will be at least as costly as an M8.2 is reasonable I think.

 

[eleskin]

Believe me I can swing the price. It is the WIFE that I have to contend with. Yes, I know I am justified, especially since I am in the photo profession, but I like the stress free approach of funneling money here and there so i get what I want with no arguements (I keep telling her my M lenses have gone up in value since I began buying them in 1991, used by the way. Anything she has bought for her profession has gone down in value).

Bills taxes, etc, also factor in here, but I own an M8 and the way I manage my purchases works like clockwork for me (and I stay out of trouble).

 

[Al Kaplan]

Do you get upset when she buys more shoes?

 

[eleskin]

Hi Al,

Since you asked, no. I am a laid back easy going guy. She can buy what she wants (she is good with money, not spend happy). When it comes to my photo stuff though, I always put my foot down, otherwise I would lose my identity. She is a great wife, but she has not been through some of the things i have (graduate school in photo -Pratt- travel to dangerous places when younger, and an extreme passion for my work that has been described by her as an obsession "You are obsessed with cameras"). Lately we have been dealing with our 5 year old daughter, and she is a HANDFULL but a love machine. I guess I am in a mode right now in trying to get a normal routine back. The kid is now home for the summer, and is bored (I told my wife she needed a camp program to socialize and burn of energy. She said no, and now everyone is paying the price, and I was right, even my wife thinks so now. Well I drifted here. I guess if she can buy whatever, I do not have to feel bad at all. I am alot better than the other men you read about (stealing, cheating, etc).

One thing that is good. When I buy the M9, I will still use my M8 as a spare or a camera that just uses the "sweet spot" of M Lenses!

 

[Al Kaplan]

As long as things are good on the homefront then go for it. I've got great memories and photographs of my daughter Elena when she was five. When she was little she used to go everyplace with me. She got to meet President Carter, governors, congressmen, and senators, spent a day in a black beauty shop because the owner wanted some pix of a blonde haired white girl with the then fashionable Bo Derrek braids, posed in the latest kids fashions for some shopping mall newspaper insert sections, and yes, she got paid!

Even if you're just shooting for fun take her with you! If you do darkroom work let her do some too. As for "normal routine" it's always "normal". It's just that "normal" keeps changing.

 

[rwchisholm]

A better question...

A better question...

When the M9 eventually is released, will you sell the M8?

The M8, for all the much over-hyped faults, is a pretty amazing camera. The file size, the lack of the AA filter, the image quality, the CCD (instead of CMOS) sensor -- all individual camera characteristics that make the M8 unique against the cadre of offerings from other companies.

Granted, a full frame M with increased ISO capabilities would be very nice. But changing to a CMOS sensor and adding an AA filter would greatly alter the raw image -- And I hope that does not happen, as the M8, in its current form, produces razor sharp, film-like raw files that are VERY different (and I would say, in a good way) then the current files from, say, the 5D2 or D700 (I've had both).

So, what we might have here is a "classic" -- a camera that is great by chance or fortune of design (much like the original Canon 5D or 1Ds), producing fantastic files that MIGHT not be quite as good when someone tries to design it better. I hope the magic stays, or else I might just have to pick up another used M8 when all the future M9 buyers rush to sell theirs... --rob

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

eh?

Pushing credit?

Al's saying you shouldn't buy it unless you are wealthy enough to just pull out the cash and pay for it without borrowing or extensive saving. I agree. If more people bought only what they could afford, prices on this stuff would drop like a stone because almost no one would buy.

 

[thomasw_]

If more people bought only what they could afford, prices on this stuff would drop like a stone because almost no one would buy.

Hi Chris,

That's true, but there would be other nasty consequences, too; just consider massive lay offs in certain manufactoring/sales/marketing sectors. Badass crapola for the average working family. But our current credit dependency is not sustainable either. It is as though we are in a terrible vicious cycle of keeping the economy afloat, but doing so through borrowing, creating still more and more debt.

There's something to be said for not being a slave to one's own desires. It seems to me a bit of a paradox that in a land of the free, we have so many who are spiritually slaves to their own whims. Was it not Nietzsche who wrote, 'praised be a little poverty, so that a man be not a slave unto himself'? --Or something like that?

 

[Chriscrawfordphoto]

Hi Chris,

That's true, but there would be other nasty consequences, too; just consider massive lay offs in certain manufactoring/sales/marketing sectors. Badass crapola for the average working family. But our current credit dependency is not sustainable either. It is as though we are in a terrible vicious cycle of keeping the economy afloat, but doing so through borrowing, creating still more and more debt.

There's something to be said for not being a slave to one's own desires. It seems to me a bit of a paradox that in a land of the free, we have so many who are spiritually slaves to their own whims. Was it not Nietzsche who wrote, 'praised be a little poverty, so that a man be not a slave unto himself'? --Or something like that?

There's a reason that economists refer to the US Dollar as a currency that is "Backed by debt". In the past, paper money had intrinsic value because it was backed by something tangible, such as gold. Now, it has value because we have borrowed it from others to buy things and we need to earn more to pay our debts.

 

[Tuolumne]

Thomas Jefferson on Credit

Thomas Jefferson on Credit

"The maxim of buying nothing without money in our pocket to pay for it would make our country one of the happiest on earth. Experience during the war proved this; as I think every man will remember that under all the privations it obliged him to submit to during that period, he slept sounder and awakened happier than he can do now."

The dilemma is that if we followed Thomas Jefferson advice, 50% of us would be without jobs. 70% of the US economy is made up by consumer spending, much of it credit driven. On the other hand, we have the economic collapse of today because we completely ignored Jefferson's advice, too. This is the dilemma of free-market capitalism going forward.

/T

 

[Olsen]

Nobody really knows what an eventual Leica M9 will cost. But I have asked prominent dealers both here in Norway and Cathay Photo, Singapore. It is easy to predict that a M9 will be more expensive than a Canon 1Ds III or Nikon D3x. Due to the much lower over all sales volume. With today's currency relation between the US$ and € they both say that '10,000 US$' is a very likely price.

Leica has confirmed that they are indeed working with a new M-model and that they are facing some tough challanges regarding IR/UV filtering. Among others. Some say that a M9 will be ready later this year. I dont believe that. There is no suitable sensor available yet. Without a good sensor, Leica has no camera. A new M-camera with a larger and better sensor will hardly be available on the shelves before 'early 2012'.

 

[Tuolumne]

I really don't see how a $10,000 Leica rangefinder is a viable product. That is Pro price territory, and not enough pro's use Leica rangefinders any more.

/T

 

[Olsen]

10,000 US$ is € 7,120 which fall into line with the expensive glass that Leica is selling today. Sure, this is prices for professionals. To put it mildy. Here in Europe Leica has always been very expensive. This is not new to us. But due to a far stronger US$ and a strong purchasing power, Leicas has been far cheaper to Americans. That has changed.

 

[Al Kaplan]

I agree that ten grand is high, even for a pro. When the market went digital I figured that I was about sixty anyway and it didn't make much sense to learn a whole new way of doing things and make the capital investment to do it.

Right now I'm in a fairly good financial situation: the truck is paid for, the house is paid for, all my photo equipment is paid for, as is the boat and fishing tackle and my collection of art. Medicare covers medical expenses. Yeah, I do have maybe forty thousand on credit cards, which I keep bouncing around from this card to that to take advantage of the low rates of 3.99% or less, but selling one painting would cover that and then some.

...and one "kid" is an attorney, the other is a rabbi working on a second doctorate and teaching undergrads at Harvard. The ex is a medical doctor and hospital district administrator.

It's mostly the young photographers who have a difficult time making a living because too many commercial clients have a secretary with a DSLR. She takes lousy picture but they're "good enough" for a newspaper or trade journal press release, and they're "free". It's a whole different mind-set, and if the pix are lousy it's just so easy to crop or correct the color or....come home and sit at the computer for another six hours doing what used to take two in the darkroom, or even less by dropping the film at the lab.

I wouldn't feel safe going on a shoot with one camera body, and most of the time I have a third and a spare meter as well. You can correct exposure a bit, but not a broken camera, with a computer program. I grew up in an era where you weren't expected to always get a great picture, but you always had to have a useable one to hand the editor.

When I do shoot a gig these days either nobody cares that it's film, or they tell me that they prefer the look. Buy all the M8's you want. It's your decision.