squirrel$$$bandit
Veteran
That's nonsensical. Both have the exact same relationship to the subjects of your photographs.
dreamsandart
Well-known
The Leica M9 is a 'discount camera' 
Every 36 exposures I make, I pocket $20 in film/processing cost. That could be quite a savings ( 'discount' off that $7,000) over a few years. Add into that equation I'll be taking more photographs because I don't have to think about film/processing costs, and also with luck my photography will become better for it.
As for initial cost of the camera, and depreciation factor of digital Leicas... Its a Leica, historically they are on the border of being outrageous cost wise As has been pointed out here, everyone has their reasons and thoughts on cost/investment justifications. Here in Japan a new M7 or MP goes for around ¥450,000 (that's about $5,000). Used is 'used', great deals out there on great 'like-new' M8s, and used M9s will be showing up, but with demand still high I wouldn't count on big discounts in the short term. Or if you can wait for an M9.2 which should be just as much $, and a year or so down the line probably. A new and improved M10?... nothing on the Pacific horizon, a longer wait, and just as expensive. But if the M9 calls to you, and you can pony up the money, why not?, its just money, you'll use it, have fun, use it in work, and in 3 years or so when the M10 comes out you can still sell it (with all the film savings in the time you had it) or keep using it like the many still happy M8 users out there (you only 'loose' money when you sell, and even used Leica film cameras are not seeing the prices they did a few years ago, and will probably be going down more as film becomes more for the few). Its not a 'disposable digital', and built quality is superb.
Every 36 exposures I make, I pocket $20 in film/processing cost. That could be quite a savings ( 'discount' off that $7,000) over a few years. Add into that equation I'll be taking more photographs because I don't have to think about film/processing costs, and also with luck my photography will become better for it. As for initial cost of the camera, and depreciation factor of digital Leicas... Its a Leica, historically they are on the border of being outrageous cost wise
As has been pointed out here, everyone has their reasons and thoughts on cost/investment justifications. Here in Japan a new M7 or MP goes for around ¥450,000 (that's about $5,000). Used is 'used', great deals out there on great 'like-new' M8s, and used M9s will be showing up, but with demand still high I wouldn't count on big discounts in the short term. Or if you can wait for an M9.2 which should be just as much $, and a year or so down the line probably. A new and improved M10?... nothing on the Pacific horizon, a longer wait, and just as expensive. But if the M9 calls to you, and you can pony up the money, why not?, its just money, you'll use it, have fun, use it in work, and in 3 years or so when the M10 comes out you can still sell it (with all the film savings in the time you had it) or keep using it like the many still happy M8 users out there (you only 'loose' money when you sell, and even used Leica film cameras are not seeing the prices they did a few years ago, and will probably be going down more as film becomes more for the few). Its not a 'disposable digital', and built quality is superb.
BillBingham2
Registered User
The Leica M9 is a 'discount camera'
Great approach. Shoot 100 rolls a year and you pay it down to the level of an M7, shoot more and it pays for itself quicker.
B2 (;->
cidereye
Film Freak
Totally agree, but to me the most laughable thing when people use such an argument these day's is that they scan their film (as indeed do I) to a digital format of jpeg/tiff/etc to post on the www anyways - Is there any *other* way around that?
I am just so bored rigid with any film v digital debate these day's, they are both a medium of photography and both have their pros & cons - get over it.
> The sensor will die in ten years, they all do...
I know for a fact that is not true.
The Digital camera used to TAKE the above shot is over 10 years old. My oldest DSLR is 17 years old, still operational. Even the built-in SCSI Hard Drive works.
I know for a fact that is not true.
The Digital camera used to TAKE the above shot is over 10 years old. My oldest DSLR is 17 years old, still operational. Even the built-in SCSI Hard Drive works.
edodo
Well-known
Sorry to disagree on that matter. A film scan is just a transcription of the real object which the film is while the digital photo from a digicam is algorythms and digital processing creating the digital object in itself.
The reality of the film is positively underlined by the archivability and the respect of the real object as a unique experience, a chemical one both within the mind and the surface of the film.
For comparaison let me explain what the cinema is. It is an illusion of the reality because by definition it is just a succession of 24 photographs aligned in time creating a deception of the mind. For that matter cinema is jailed in this purpose of deception of reality/spectator no matter what you may say or think. The definition of the media itself aim the purpose of the media.
Photography is not litely taking by your servant that is why I keep on remind self and others about what digital photography really is, just a rigorous and mirror like identical mathematical processing of reality, just like a simplification by computers endangered by the end of the computer itself.
I may sound like I'm a freaking nut sorry about that but my english isn't so good. Many a word would have found a better adequation in french...
I won't get over it like this on the hostel of the progress sorry.
jaapv
RFF Sponsoring Member.
Sorry - this is utter nonsense - the medium is not the content.
250swb
Well-known
Hats off to you, it must be a fine body of work. But I couldn't imagine any well known photographer who's lifes work (when selected into coherent bodies of work) would get close to 100 rejects to 1 'keeper', never mind 50:1. It has always been in the realm of the rangefinder (for people who don't look at high film usage as a negative) to 'work the subject', and only by looking at the contact sheets of HCB, Garry Winogrand, Sebastiao Salgado (rangefinder in spirit), Josef Koudelka etc do you see that the 'decisive moment' has other moments either side of it.
Steve
Ming Rider
Film, the next evolution.
. . . err, what, sorry. Must of dosed off there. Yes, make mine the same with extra mayo please . . .
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edodo
Well-known
man that's what it's like to talk to a wall!?
glacierparkmagazine
Newbie
I own both, Leica and Nikon digital and I'm a working photojournalist. Bought the M9 'cos it saves my aching back. Does it completely replace the Nikon? No. I need the Nikon for wildlife (telephoto) and sports. It's a completely different machine.
But most days, I take the M9 to work and leave the Nikon at home. It's so lightweight, the lenses are so dang sharp that I don't mind carrying it around. It weighs a fraction of what a Nikon with an 80-200, 14-24, and 50mm weigh. And I love DNG files. They're easy to tweak, they load fast, and you don't have to upgrade software everytime you buy a camera.
Having said that, there are some negatives. The auto-white balance is so-so (use the manual mode, it's much better). It takes forever to format a SD card and the batteries stink. Was it worth 7 grand? Maybe not. But after I sold my M6, which was just sitting on a shelf, I have about 6 grand into this. It was worth 6 grand, just for the weight savings. I feel that much better.
I wrote a full and continuing review on my blog at: www.glacierparkmagazine.com
But most days, I take the M9 to work and leave the Nikon at home. It's so lightweight, the lenses are so dang sharp that I don't mind carrying it around. It weighs a fraction of what a Nikon with an 80-200, 14-24, and 50mm weigh. And I love DNG files. They're easy to tweak, they load fast, and you don't have to upgrade software everytime you buy a camera.
Having said that, there are some negatives. The auto-white balance is so-so (use the manual mode, it's much better). It takes forever to format a SD card and the batteries stink. Was it worth 7 grand? Maybe not. But after I sold my M6, which was just sitting on a shelf, I have about 6 grand into this. It was worth 6 grand, just for the weight savings. I feel that much better.
I wrote a full and continuing review on my blog at: www.glacierparkmagazine.com
glacierparkmagazine
Newbie
I own both, Leica and Nikon digital and I'm a working photojournalist. Bought the M9 'cos it saves my aching back. Does it completely replace the Nikon? No. I need the Nikon for wildlife (telephoto) and sports. It's a completely different machine.
But most days, I take the M9 to work and leave the Nikon at home. It's so lightweight, the lenses are so dang sharp that I don't mind carrying it around. It weighs a fraction of what a Nikon with an 80-200, 14-24, and 50mm weigh. And I love DNG files. They're easy to tweak, they load fast, and you don't have to upgrade software everytime you buy a camera.
Having said that, there are some negatives. The auto-white balance is so-so (use the manual mode, it's much better). It takes forever to format a SD card and the batteries stink. Was it worth 7 grand? Maybe not. But after I sold my M6, which was just sitting on a shelf, I have about 6 grand into this. It was worth 6 grand, just for the weight savings. I feel that much better.
I wrote a full and continuing review on my blog at: www.glacierparkmagazine.com
But most days, I take the M9 to work and leave the Nikon at home. It's so lightweight, the lenses are so dang sharp that I don't mind carrying it around. It weighs a fraction of what a Nikon with an 80-200, 14-24, and 50mm weigh. And I love DNG files. They're easy to tweak, they load fast, and you don't have to upgrade software everytime you buy a camera.
Having said that, there are some negatives. The auto-white balance is so-so (use the manual mode, it's much better). It takes forever to format a SD card and the batteries stink. Was it worth 7 grand? Maybe not. But after I sold my M6, which was just sitting on a shelf, I have about 6 grand into this. It was worth 6 grand, just for the weight savings. I feel that much better.
I wrote a full and continuing review on my blog at: www.glacierparkmagazine.com
glacierparkmagazine
Newbie
The M9 has its issues. But I still really like the camera.
Wrote a review here: www.glacierparkmagazine.com/blog
Wrote a review here: www.glacierparkmagazine.com/blog
peterm1
Veteran
I certainly do not wish to be rude as I hate it when people do that in forums.....but this is too good a chance to miss
So all I can say to this is (with of course the utmost of respect)
"Mon aéroglisseur est plein d'anguilles "
You non Francophones will just have to Google it. But those who have worked it out already, will realise that otherwise translated my Fench phrase very loosely translated, equates to "Huh, what th?"
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cidereye
Film Freak
Roger Hicks
Veteran
I've had mine since December and love it. Of course it could be improved: better high-ISO and indeed higher ISO, for example. On the other had I find the omission of the frame counter and battery meter far less of a problem than I expected: the INFO button takes care of it.
I've probably taken 2000 pics with it -- I even use it an an SLR with the Visoflex for pack shots and personal photography (http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/worst dslr.html) -- and at as low as 30 cents a shot (the lowest you can easily pay for slides) that's $600 saved in 4 months. When I think back to Polaroids and MF tranny, or of faster films, the savings are of course commensurately greater. Sure, it'll take a few years to pay for itself at that rate, but for the kind of (rather odd) professional photography I do -- I sometimes refer to myself as a 'paid amateur' -- it's just about the perfect camera.
But I still prefer the MP and Ilford for black and white.
Cheers,
R.
I've probably taken 2000 pics with it -- I even use it an an SLR with the Visoflex for pack shots and personal photography (http://www.rogerandfrances.com/subscription/worst dslr.html) -- and at as low as 30 cents a shot (the lowest you can easily pay for slides) that's $600 saved in 4 months. When I think back to Polaroids and MF tranny, or of faster films, the savings are of course commensurately greater. Sure, it'll take a few years to pay for itself at that rate, but for the kind of (rather odd) professional photography I do -- I sometimes refer to myself as a 'paid amateur' -- it's just about the perfect camera.
But I still prefer the MP and Ilford for black and white.
Cheers,
R.
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vincentbenoit
télémétrique argentique
braver
Well-known
yes, used M8 prices are becoming close where I might not be able to resist the temptation either
Although cost effective, me and my Nikon DSLR are just not the best of friends. Leica has already won me over for black & white film, and I'm definitely getting more and more interested in also shooting color digital with a rangefinder. I do believe one should not spend a lifetime wanting something but never getting it (life's too short, it's just money, yadayadayada, etc), but the M9 will need to drop to where the M8 is now: getting more and more interesting.
Kodak could fix that if Leica wanted to. KAF-18500M.