Thankyou Leica!

[Keith]

Keith (et al),

I will strongly advice you to keep your M8s up to shape. It might come handy when you are going to buy the new M9. Here in Norway, the price of 2.hand M8s has been dropping to bellow 1/3 of the new price. The reason for this is the uncertainty of Leica's future and the M-rangefinder system. Buying a M8 and you could risk buying a camera without a future.

Now that a M9 is in the horizon, the future of the M-rangefinder system and Leica seems secured. That, I am convinced, will bring the value of 2.hand M8s up! I am certain about it.

Think about all those who will sell their M8 to finance their M9s. They will have to be very careful to price their M8s as high as possible to be able to raise the 8,000 US$ (which I am sure will be 10,000 US$ when it hits the shelves, due to the financial status of the dollar, USA and all that)

Olsen,

If I could see myself upgrading to the M9 in the future what you suggest probably makes sense ... keep it looking pretty to maximise it's resale value. However ... the chances of my spending eleven or twelve big ones (Aust) on a replacement for my M8 are about the same as my chances of getting the Hasselblad from the moon!

The recent realisation that the M8 and I are now a permanent item means that how it looks is no longer important to me so why baby it? In spite of it's indifferent low light capabilities it's still a great camera and provided it doesn't let me down mechanically it should keep doing what it does for many years to come and would probably look pretty classy with a bit of wear and tear on it.

If my photography needs (professional) continue to demand that I produce usable results in light that my M8 really struggles in sure, I'd love an M9 with full frame and decent high ISO performance to use in these conditions ... but if that scenario does become inevitable a D700 or 5D and fast 50mm and 35mm primes can get me there also.

And I'll still have the M8 to play with!