davidriver
Member
Great point here. Pricing of luxury product is certainly different from consumer products. However, when macroeconomic environment changes, the sales and hence the price would be affected. Leica is currently going toward a niche market with high-end buyers. Once this group becomes more price-sensitive, Leica might not survive with the current strategy, unless they want to become a company like Alpa.
Dave
Dave
Tuolumne
Veteran
jky
Well-known
Yeah, we both agree on this - it is overpriced in my opinion. Zeiss/Voitlander/Cosina proved that a rf can be had at a much friendlier price point.... but i'm only talking about film. Unfortunately, aside from the RD1, there's no other drf out there...
Morris
-
You can't trust the opinion of a man when he has an "agenda".
He clearly wants you to buy new.
shenkerian
Established
So now you've equated "picture making HW and SW" to "imaging systems" to sensor, processor, and firmware. Nice equivocation.
To your original term, I'd call the shutter part of the "picture making HW."
Tuolumne
Veteran
Really? So, the files are different in the M8 and M8.2 because of the shutter noise? Don't be silly. No one claims that. You're the one who is equivocating.
/T
davidriver
Member
I purchased both a used M8 in like new condition and a used R-D1, and I stayed with the R-D1. The key point here is that most of us do not have a huge amount of free cash and would like to have a digital body for M lenses. For half the price of a used M8, R-D1 serves this purpose very well, with areas better than the M8. If spending an additional $1500 is not an issue for you, however, M8 might be a good choice with better image quality. $6500 for a new M8.2? No way for me even if I could afford it. Leica is no longer the Leica they used to be, and their products are not up to the standard they used to hold, and their customer service sucks, and their products are all over-priced. That is just my opinion after quite extensive experience with Leica cameras and lenses.
JohnTF
Veteran
Perhaps we can better ponder if the market will support the product at the new price?
My friend Igor will sell his M8 and feels they should have offered a more reasonable "fix" to the framing. By changing it in the new model, they are addressing a problem of their design, and he and I would have been well served had they offered what we consider a more reasonably priced swap of the finder. He is convinced Leica is being run by people who are out to finish it off either by design or incompetence.
I have gotten more used to the M8 with firmware upgrade, but not entirely, and will move along status quo until I desire the upgrade enough to shell out for it, or just live with it. If not, I can put film in my other Leicas and scan the results. I have enough variables to work on for now.
Neither Igor nor I are "dentists with cameras", and choosing Leica for me has been a bit of a wheel and deal process where I have come across stuff among the stuff I did not want, and sold off the duplicate bits, often gotten the bits I kept serviced through long developed associations at reasonable prices. I had an Olympus serviced by the factory service center in Prague for $16 and they apologized for charging so much, so gave it a complete CLA and six month warranty. Ah, the good old days, when we were not so old?
Takes longer than my Dentist, but the M8 I have is the first new Leica body I have bought since I bought a CL from the shop where I used to "work", well, I put in time, never took a check, and quit still owing them.
I own all the M's except the M5, and most of the LTM, but it has been a gradual process, I saved the second mortgage for dumber investments.
From what I have read in Roger's columns, he has been patient and fortunate enough to accumulate some rather exotic and desirable to him, kit, often at reasonable cost, and I see no reason to assume others have not done so likewise.
During my early years at the shop, there was a much more distinct bimodal distribution of expensive equipment as it was much harder for an average person to buy quality new.
At that time, we were among the very few "horse trading" operations. There was only one price elsewhere, whatever the manufacturer said, and there were fair trade laws essentially fixing prices on expensive things.
Leica, Linhof, Hasselblad, and Rollei were often "doctor's" and "executive's" trophy cameras, or the much smaller domain of serious pros. We would sometimes get them back ten years later, in the original box with the original receipt, and always needing a CLA.
If you examine the current price of Leica relative to say a contemporary month's pay, especially with some horse trading involved, and the fact that there are now fifty years of used M mount glass out there somewhere, it is much more of a probability that an average person who wants one can wrangle one.
"Pro-sumer" was not a word of the 60's, try to figure how many cameras people buy and replace on a regular basis now.
A used Rollei, Graflex, or a Pentax Spotmatic or H1a and perhaps one or two additional lenses were for the rest of us, if lucky. Amateurs used instamatics.
So, for those still awake, the new list price seems high, have no idea how much better the street price of a demo or slightly used one will be, but I would be far more likely to live with what I have or get it modified.
If I were shooting serious pro work with time constraints, I would consider the S2, is it a niche camera, they all are.
Roger, are you having yours modified? Do you think the market will support Leica's latest and greatest, or is this even a serious question, i.e. will they just keep doing Leica stuff?
John
My friend Igor will sell his M8 and feels they should have offered a more reasonable "fix" to the framing. By changing it in the new model, they are addressing a problem of their design, and he and I would have been well served had they offered what we consider a more reasonably priced swap of the finder. He is convinced Leica is being run by people who are out to finish it off either by design or incompetence.
I have gotten more used to the M8 with firmware upgrade, but not entirely, and will move along status quo until I desire the upgrade enough to shell out for it, or just live with it. If not, I can put film in my other Leicas and scan the results. I have enough variables to work on for now.
Neither Igor nor I are "dentists with cameras", and choosing Leica for me has been a bit of a wheel and deal process where I have come across stuff among the stuff I did not want, and sold off the duplicate bits, often gotten the bits I kept serviced through long developed associations at reasonable prices. I had an Olympus serviced by the factory service center in Prague for $16 and they apologized for charging so much, so gave it a complete CLA and six month warranty. Ah, the good old days, when we were not so old?
Takes longer than my Dentist, but the M8 I have is the first new Leica body I have bought since I bought a CL from the shop where I used to "work", well, I put in time, never took a check, and quit still owing them.
I own all the M's except the M5, and most of the LTM, but it has been a gradual process, I saved the second mortgage for dumber investments.
From what I have read in Roger's columns, he has been patient and fortunate enough to accumulate some rather exotic and desirable to him, kit, often at reasonable cost, and I see no reason to assume others have not done so likewise.
During my early years at the shop, there was a much more distinct bimodal distribution of expensive equipment as it was much harder for an average person to buy quality new.
At that time, we were among the very few "horse trading" operations. There was only one price elsewhere, whatever the manufacturer said, and there were fair trade laws essentially fixing prices on expensive things.
Leica, Linhof, Hasselblad, and Rollei were often "doctor's" and "executive's" trophy cameras, or the much smaller domain of serious pros. We would sometimes get them back ten years later, in the original box with the original receipt, and always needing a CLA.
If you examine the current price of Leica relative to say a contemporary month's pay, especially with some horse trading involved, and the fact that there are now fifty years of used M mount glass out there somewhere, it is much more of a probability that an average person who wants one can wrangle one.
"Pro-sumer" was not a word of the 60's, try to figure how many cameras people buy and replace on a regular basis now.
A used Rollei, Graflex, or a Pentax Spotmatic or H1a and perhaps one or two additional lenses were for the rest of us, if lucky. Amateurs used instamatics.
So, for those still awake, the new list price seems high, have no idea how much better the street price of a demo or slightly used one will be, but I would be far more likely to live with what I have or get it modified.
If I were shooting serious pro work with time constraints, I would consider the S2, is it a niche camera, they all are.
Roger, are you having yours modified? Do you think the market will support Leica's latest and greatest, or is this even a serious question, i.e. will they just keep doing Leica stuff?
John
Tuolumne
Veteran
I too stick with my R-D1, although I have been tempted by the M8 on occasion. I shoot alot of theater photography, so high ISO performance is important to me. When I read that the M8 is very noisy above ISO 640 it certainly gives me pause. I no longer bother to denoise my ISO 1600 RD-1 shots. If not underexposed, they are very clean. In thinking about the M8/M8.2 question I may have talked myself into buying another R-D1. They can still be had new for around $2100 from Japan.
/T
shenkerian
Established
And now you've demonstrated straw man - good for you.
I believe the shutter is part of the hardware that makes a picture and therefore qualifies as part of the "picture making HW." Whether it affects the image quality is a separate question, and not one you raised in your original question.
Less pedantically, I think "picture making HW and SW" can also reasonably include functional features - i.e., those that actually affect how the picture gets made. If you meant something narrower than that, you should've been more precise.
Tuolumne
Veteran
Shenk,
I'm not hear to score points in a debate or parse my prose so closely that every possible ambiguity is removed for the simple minded, so you're welcome to your opinion on my posts. Next.
/T
I'm not hear to score points in a debate or parse my prose so closely that every possible ambiguity is removed for the simple minded, so you're welcome to your opinion on my posts. Next.
/T
Bill Blackwell
Leica M Shooter
Used, excellent condition M8s can now be had for around $3,500 or less. Given the fact that the M8 and M8.2 have exactly the same picture making HW and SW, is the M8.2 worth almost 2x its predecessor? What say you?
/T
IMHO, this is not a fair comparison! One could buy a 2-year old Mercedes Benz C350 for $25,000, but a new one costs $40,000.
A NEW M8 was $5,495 vs. a NEW M8.2 at $6,295 (that's a difference of $800, or 14.5%). Given the cost of the upgrades, it is probably worth it.
Since I purchased my M8 under Leica's refurb program, I will likely do the same with the M8.2 once the opportunity presents itself.
shenkerian
Established
And, finally, ad hominem - the last refuge.
Don't worry, I'm done with you. You'd already demonstrated your original intent for this thread before I entered - I just didn't like Roger getting beaten up for calling you on it.
davidriver
Member
IMHO, it is never wrong to go with the best lenses, especially if they can be had at low prices in second hand markets, but it is risky to go with the newest and best digital bodies, unless you do not care about losing 50% value in 2 years and another 25% in another 2 years. I always use digital bodies that have already been on the market for a couple of years, not necessarily second-hand, and then upgrade every 1-2 years to the next product. This way, I incur very small amount of loss when I resell the equipment. There are people who do not care about losing $3000 in two years, but I believe that most users of this forum do not belong to that group.
Dave
Dave
Last edited:
Tuolumne
Veteran
Shenk,
Just hit "ignore" and go away.
/T
Just hit "ignore" and go away.
/T
kevin m
Veteran
No, the last refuge is the one you inhabit: The internet-only delusion that one is speaking to a sympathetic studio audience, and the "applause" sign is always lit.
Ronald M
Veteran
Buy the original and send it for the upgrade to 8.2. A new warrantee will be issued.
Tom Niblick
Well-known
Ultimately, this is a question we will be answering with our wallets. Personally, no. It will be a D3 and a new laptop this year. Maybe when we have a 18 mb full frame, quiet M9 for less than $7,000... but this camera is just not enough to make me want to trade my M8. I'll live with the noise and the frame lines.
Tom
Tom
Gabriel M.A.
My Red Dot Glows For You
Yeah. These sort of threads say more about the poster than the actual product they're discussing.
kevin m
Veteran
Swing and a miss.