What you'd want in the M9

Cripes, Magus, let it go. 😛

He asked about a potential M9. Since the M8 is a digital camera, it's understandable that people might assume the M9 - the next number in sequence - would be as well.

Here's my guaranteed, no fail business plan for Leica camera:

1. Keep making the MP. Offer all the outrageous finishes options that buyers want, along with plenty of 'special editions' commemorating composers, satraps and bridges. Never change the camera. Never ever. (MP lovers with weak hearts should stop reading here.)

2. Ditch the M7. Make an M7-2 with modern features. Use the shutter from the M8. Offer built-in motor wind. Consider ditching the traditional M body.

3. Next M8: Full frame. Full stop. 😀
 
"And more finishes, as well as leather I'd like silk, carbon fiber, and aluminum options."

This thread is amusing the heck out of me. This whole website amuses the heck out of me. Leica fans amuse the heck out of me. Yeah, that's what everyone should want - the perfect silk-finished 1960 camera.

Silk? SILK? SILK? Geesh.

I'm outta here.
 
Another rare RFF art: a penchant for sometimes defending the indefensible by distorting words and their meanings...
Click to expand...

Well keep fighting the good fight there, Magus. Ignore the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and all that, and victory will be yours. 🙄
 
I thought the 9 would be digital.....Oh, I'm Sorry, Never Mind......

If you are talking film, I look at the MP as almost there. Perhaps the M7P will take the shutter from the M8 as she will need batteries to live.

What about change in the way frame lines are displayed? The more I think about the SP approach, the more I like it. What about having two magnifications switchable via a lever. One for 24/28/35 frame lines, the other for 50/75/90. I’m not sure where the 135 lines would fit, if they even would. Part of me says go SLR for that range. We do for 180 or 200. You could use the three option mounting info on the lens bayonets still. You clean up the finder from too many frame lines. Give me that on an MP2 and I would buy one new tomorrow!

Other than quality and TTL flash metering, I do not see a lot of difference between my M6 classic and an MP.

I do agree, keep the options for finishes and customization going so the MP will have a long happy life.

B2 (;->
 
All mechanical, OK!, get rid of that terrible removable base plate and flap anf go to a conventional swing open back like the ZI. When you're trying to load an M on the run it's a nightmare as to what to do with the bottom plate. I usually hold it in my mouth. Bad design and always has been. Second, a larger VF/RF high eyepoint style like the ZI. The ZI has the best RF/VF that I've ever seen and used. Third, Magnesium aluminum alloy body for weight just like the ZI. Sounds a lot like the Zeiss Ikon doesn't it. Well I have 6 M's plus a ZI and like the improvements in the ZI over the M. Well done Zeiss. A few other gems to be added. Built in electronic flash trigger. Diopter built into the VF. Selectable lower magnification for wide and ultra wides.

Now I'll say it, time to go electronic and abandon the all mechanical body. Mechanical M's can still be in production but incorporate the above with a much improved meter system with selectable patterns and matrix system much like Nikon used in the F100, F4, F5 and F6. AE exposure modes driven by data from the lens (manual focus). Electronic vertical metal shutter with 30 sec. to 1/8000 second with atleast a 1/250 flash sync. TTL matrix flash is important. Electronicly projected RF / VF lines in the VF that are true paralax corrected for field at different distances (driven by electronic lens data). One frame line at a time. This would give SLR accuracy in framing which the RF desperately needs. Electronic focus confirmation like Canon and Nikon.

I think the mechanical body has gone about as far as it can but why not go electronic and make it a 21st century camera.

In 10 years who knows, possibly the pressure plate could be a FF 30mp sensor that would allow the camera to be switched to digital if film wasn't being used. Film and digital in one small package. An LCD on the back would be costantly active and articulated for press use. All functions would be visavle on the LCD plus active image and replay. Why not, it could happen in a few years.
 
iml said:
Sure, but it's tiny in the great scheme of things. No company can flourish catering mainly for that market, unless it's a really small company.
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The thing is Leica already has digital offerings and god knows that that isn't what is keeping the company going. When people go Leica, they think go film. I don't think that's ever going to end.


But what would a next-generation M body do that the currently available Ms don't? Sure, they may be able to tweak the ergonomics a bit but I think the M design for film bodies is pretty much at the end of the road as far as radical new ideas go. One of the reasons I love my M6 so much is because it seems to me it gets everything almost exactly right, any changes I would like are really minor.

Ian
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Exactly. What WOULD the next-gen M body do? That's my main question here. Each succeeding M has always been a tweak of ergonomics, the addition or subtraction of features, and the relocation of key components - none were extremely radical except for perhaps the M5. The M8 is radical in terms of digital technology. What I want to know is the next step for mechanical Leicas.
 
ElrodCod said:
That would be the wrong assumption. Maitrestanley is talking about an improved the MP.
Click to expand...

Not JUST an improvement on the MP but hopefully something entirely "next generation".

The M6 was the camera of the 80s and 90s. The M7 and MP for the first decade of the new millenium. What will the (mechanical) camera be of the 10s and 20s of this this millenium?
 
maitrestanley said:
What I want to know is the next step for mechanical Leicas.
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I doubt there is one. Like it or not, from a strictly business POV Leica needs new digital products more than it needs rejigged film products. A shame, but that's just the way it is.

Ian
 
x-ray said:
All mechanical, OK!, get rid of that terrible removable base plate and flap anf go to a conventional swing open back like the ZI. When you're trying to load an M on the run it's a nightmare as to what to do with the bottom plate. I usually hold it in my mouth. Bad design and always has been.
Click to expand...

From what I understand, the bottom baseplate is used instead of a swinging door to maintain camera rigidity and body strength. A swinging door could be utilized but it wouldn't be as strong as the system right now.

And the thing is, how often will you actually be actively running while loading your camera? It literally takes less than 20 seconds to thread the film through the tulip take up spool and close the bottom.
 
You do realize, Magus, that Leica needs to find a way to survive by making digital products so that they might continue to supply you with wonderful bits of obsolesence like the MP, right? 😉
 
iml said:
I doubt there is one. Like it or not, from a strictly business POV Leica needs new digital products more than it needs rejigged film products. A shame, but that's just the way it is.

Ian
Click to expand...

Yeah, digital is the future. But we're not there yet. Not even close. So yes, go with the 'future' - but how much of that future will you actually get? How long before your 'future' digital camera will need replacing? 2 years? 3?

I am pretty confident that digital IS the future but I am pretty confident that film will NOT be phased out in my life time either.

Film is at its peak. Digital just in its beginning.
 
Don't get me wrong, I love film Ms, and it would be great if Leica could just carry on making them without thinking about digital. Sadly, that's not likely to be how it pans out. My guess is, as others have suggested, there may be a new film M using the M8 shutter and a couple of other tweaks, but apart from that and a la carte MPs at the luxury end of the market, the end is in sight for production of new film M bodies.

Ian
 
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