Only 6 M8's for sale on Ebay! What gives?

[f16sunshine]

It's the same theory as purchasing a car. With Warranty $50k... 2 years old without warranty $25K. Pay for the repairs up front with a warranty or as they come. Simple math to me. I could die before the thing breaks. Why be invested in the repair when my nieces could spend that money. Morbid but whatever it's still a logical way to view purchases. I have two lightly used M8's for what one cost new. I could add another and be right at that new M9 price point (with warranty of course 🙂 ). These speculation threads are always the silliest stuff around here. I include myself in that of course. 😀

 

[deirdre]

I like watching people speculate with little data. Fun stuff!

I have some tea leaves handy if you'd like some wilder speculation.

 

[Brian Legge]

Perhaps the greater number could also be attributed to an initial glut of cameras, as early adopters moved on the M9 or next big thing? At that point, the people sticking with them may be likely to continue to hold on to them resulting in less cameras on the market after an initial surge.

Edit: Then again, we'd need historical data about how many were for sale on average in the past, etc. I have no idea if 6 is an unusual number or not.

 

[Keith]

Not forgetting that at least two of those six will be heavily disguised Zorkis! 😀

 

[MCTuomey]

I like watching people speculate with little data. Fun stuff!

+1 and why I deleted my prior posts. I can't believe it. I really need to get out and exercise my shutter finger.

 

[RichC]

I know three people personally (as opposed to on the web) who own M8s, including myself. None of us has any plans to sell our M8s at present because:

• There isn't much choice if you want a digital rangefinder (dRF), and the M8 is still the second-best dRF.

• The best dRF - the M9 - is #^%@&* expensive!

• The M9 is not a huge improvement over the M8, especially if you're happy with crop factor digital cameras (plenty of people are - the APS format is not going away). Two of us have decided that the M9 is not a worthwhile upgrade and are waiting to see what new features the M10 brings.

• The M8 takes photos that are still technically as good or better than most dSLRs, and not far behind the best. In short, the M8 will always take very good photos: why replace it unless you have particular needs (e.g. preference for full frame, higher resolution than 10 MP)?

• The M8 cost shed loads (I had to sell my motorbike to afford it!) - some of us who bought it new are unwilling to sell it at a huge loss. I've heard that some M9 owners are keeping their M8 as a second camera. That's what I'm going to do when I buy my next camera - as pointed out, the M8 will always take excellent photos. And it's useful to have two cameras.

• If the M8 breaks, it can be repaired. Leica has publicly stated that it will continue to service and repair the M8 for many years. Most repairs will probably be cheaper than buying a new camera capable of matching its image quality or features (e.g. manual controls). (I sold my Epson R-D1 partly because I worried that it might be impossible to fix in a few years.)

Now, extrapolating from myself and two friends is hardly statistically viable, but I have a suspicion that a fair few M8 owners think the same way...

 

[eleskin]

M8 vs. M9 very close!

M8 vs. M9 very close!

I have tested the M9 3 times and I come to the same conclusion. My M8 is very close if not the same in quality. I tested on "17x22" epson exhibition fiber. Higher iso and more pixels are nice, but I do not crop and I have fast lenses. I have tested M8 files with Ailen Skin Blowup and asked myself why do I really need more megapixels? I am not planning to sell my M8 any time soon. I bought a second one as a backup instead of an M9.
Maybe there are many like me that have made this realization as well, hence so few used M8's for sale.


For my, vastly improved high iso in the M10 would be way way more important than more megapixels. I hope Leica realizes this!

 

[Ming Rider]

My theory is that the M8 will become a dwindling commodity quite quickly. As good as the camera is it's horribly expensive to repair when something relatively major calls it quits and depending where you live sending it off to Solms for repair would be a depressing prospect and could potentially match the price of a decent DSLR.

There seems to be several options for repairing the Epson at an acceptable price but that certainly won't be the case with the M8 IMO ... consequently a fair few of them are destined to become very attractive paper weights.

If you bought an M8 for between $2000.00 and $2500.00 and six months down the track it had a failure that was going to cost $1000.00 upwards to repair would you bother ... I don't think I would? The whole time I had my M8 this scenario was never far from my thoughts every time I used the camera ... Oz is a long way from anyone who can repair a digital M!

Good point but you wouldn't scrap your car because it needed a grands worth of repairs? Unless of course, you'd already spent a fortune on it? 😀 Take classic cars. Enthusiasts spend £10000000'sssss restoring them. 100's times more than the original purchase price and get 100000's of miles out of them.

I suppose this is an effect of our throwaway society. In the past, most items were repaired and would continue to work and stay with you for years. Now, things just get thrown away or even sold at a huge loss just because something new comes along.

You can add me as another who will not be selling their M8, EVER. I made that mistake before :bang:

 

[RichC]

I have tested the M9 3 times and I come to the same conclusion. My M8 is very close if not the same in quality ... Maybe there are many like me that have made this realization as well, hence so few used M8's for sale.

For my, vastly improved high iso in the M10 would be way way more important than more megapixels. I hope Leica realizes this!

Precisely. The M9's improvements are "nice to haves" but hardly quantum leaps, and when you factor in the humongous price increase...

Personally, I wish Leica/Kodak had kept the M8's 1.3x crop and put the R&D into improving aspects of the camera and sensor other than full frame (but (a) that's a discussion for another thread and (b) it's now a done deal).

I use my M8 professionally and have to supply 50 MB TIFF files (= 18 MP - coincidentally the same resolution as the M9), but M8 files resample very nicely (obviously won't equal an equivalent M9 image, but the difference in printed images at any size, even for posters, is negligible and perfectly acceptable to my - very critical - clients)

 

[Ben Z]

Going back to the M6TTL (the first model introduced in the "Internet Era") there has been a flurry of selling of prior models whenever Leica rolled out a new one. Eventually it tapered off.

It's also heading into winter in the northern hemisphere (which includes the largest markets for Leica). It's been my experience in the past that winter tends to be more of a buyer's market for photo gear. I sold my M8 last month, but if I hadn't, I would have waited until spring.

As for buying a used M8, if you get one for $2300 and worst-case have to pay another $1200 in repairs at some point, it's still costing half as much as an M9 and giving (IMHO, having owned both now) most of the same picture-making potential.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Another possibiity is that if you can find the very serious money needed for an M9, the value of an M8 is not sufficient to warrant selling it. I'd bet that quite a lot of people bought the M8 as their first serious digital camera; found it worked; and are perfectly happy to keep it as a backup to the M9. Buying two M9s would get the attention of all but the super-rich, whereas an M8 that's already given you (say) 3 years' pleasure and good use is effectively 'written off' in one's mental accounting.

If I didn't see clear advantages in the M9 -- mainly, full frame and no IR filters, and with (to me) significantly better image quality as a bonus -- I'd not have considered buying one. But the M8 is still worth more to me than I could get for it.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Lance]

This time last year there where plenty M8s and they where cheaper than they are now. I picked mine from several ones for sale. I think it's a question of most of the people who was going to upgrade to M9 already sold their M8s and moved on. It was more active last year because of the M9 being so new. M8 owners wanted to upgrade and digital M-less owners wanted the M8 for cheap. The circle of (camera)life.

I sold my M8 again 3 month later because so many things bugged me. Cropped censor, UV and lack of high ISO. Of course I just recently started to regret the sale and started thinking I could live with the quirks. Cant help looking through the classifieds all the time. :bang:

 

[jaapv]

I've got a couple of M8s besides my M9 - Why should I sell? They are fine cameras and useful as backup and IR camera too.

 

[Ming Rider]

Lance,

Yep, strangely it took me 3 months after selling the M8 to start thinking, "what a burk." The effort to raise the funds for another was twice as much as for the original one. Well worth the effort though.

 

[Johnny_Johnson]

Well, they're only more expensive to repair in the sense that they're all out of warranty now, right?

They aren't all out of warranty - mine still has about 12 months left. And, the International warranty (not the USA one) can be transferred to a new owner. Might be a good time to sell it since I'm not getting much use out of it.

Later,
Johnny

 

[Ben Z]

Another possibiity is that if you can find the very serious money needed for an M9, the value of an M8 is not sufficient to warrant selling it.

I'm sure that's true for some, but not all (or maybe even most). The only way I "found" the money for an M9 was by selling my M8 and a couple watches I wasn't wearing much. I carried a DLUX3 as a backup for my M8 for 3 years (and never needed to use it) so I figure it ought to do for the M9 as well. The only way I could have kept the M8 would have been to sell all my Canon gear, and that's not happening.

 

[jsrockit]

I heard that Leica got rid of all the bootleg M8s that were on ebay... 😉