Vintage Paw
dead stare and computer glare
I've always kind of coveted an M8, although I hear they have some drawbacks.
Dribble, drool, M8 Digital Rangefinder camera announced
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stowpirate
skinflintish camera nut
I want one but they cost silly money. The lenses cost just as much as the camera bodies
I think with Leica it is best to keep to film and go for old 1950's screw mount and maybe an early bayonet M series and ignore the digital stuff. The only one to avoid is the M5 unless it is dirt cheap as I recall reading it was as a design a complete disaster. The screw mount bodies are dirt cheap now. A few years ago I would never have dreamed of owning a Leica. I was in the right place at thre right time and got an M2 body with screw to bayonet adaptor & a mint Leica IIf with Summar and a Zorki C and 42mm Jupiter-9 all for £100 from a camera shop dumping its unsellable stock
But just look at it!
It looks like something Richard or Clint should have had round there necks in Where Eagles Dare
George & Bill
semiotically superfluous
No doubting that this is a nice looking camera, but why does the above article compare it to two three-year-old(ish) cameras? The 5D and 1DS mkII are almost certainly no longer class-leaders in any respect...
George & Bill
semiotically superfluous
Also, making a digital camera to these sort of build-quality specs is pointless - film leicas last for decades, but the technology inside this one will be for the museum within a few years.
stowpirate
skinflintish camera nut
I do not know what you lot think, are they now technically better or even cutting edge? In the past they were considered to be very conservative and slow to take up new ideas or even follow fashion trends. The M8 I suspect is more a 1950's camera hiding a digital box of tricks. If you want a modern up to date Leica buy a cheap Panasonic
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
With the M8 it's arguably the only game in town apart from the Epson RD-1, a semi-obsolete camera with uncertain support. Those are the only two digital rangefinders that take Leica M-mount lenses.
The compacts are just fancy compacts.
With the film Leicas you have the alternative of Voigtlander (actually Cosina pretending to be German), I got mine for a couple of hundred quid and I love it. There are also loads of old rangefinders by Contax, Canon etc if you look around. Same with the lenses, both Voigtlander and if you've got a bit more dosh Zeiss make some really good lenses in that mount and there are tons of old ones about.
So what you're really buying is a coat pocket camera with really simple fast direct control that takes very good and widely available interchangeable lenses. Sure the framing is a bit uncertain compared to an SLR, they're crap at flash and macro, lenses don't go any longer than short tele and there aren't any zooms. Doesn't matter though, for what they do they're awesome, except all the ones that normal people can afford use film and digital is so much easier. I really like using my film one though and I'd buy a digital one like a shot if they weren't so stupidly expensive.
On the obsolescence thing, Zeiss have strongly hinted that they want to produce one (or rather partner with Cosina and someone digital to have one made to their design) but they've said they're basically holding off until sensor technology has come far enough to avoid it becoming obsolete in a few years. They seem to think that's not far off though and to be honest, I suspect they're right. I haven't felt motivated to upgrade my D200 and I really couldn't imagine wanting any more sensor performance than you get with say a D3/D700. What would I do with it? I don't print any bigger than A3 ...
The compacts are just fancy compacts.
With the film Leicas you have the alternative of Voigtlander (actually Cosina pretending to be German), I got mine for a couple of hundred quid and I love it. There are also loads of old rangefinders by Contax, Canon etc if you look around. Same with the lenses, both Voigtlander and if you've got a bit more dosh Zeiss make some really good lenses in that mount and there are tons of old ones about.
So what you're really buying is a coat pocket camera with really simple fast direct control that takes very good and widely available interchangeable lenses. Sure the framing is a bit uncertain compared to an SLR, they're crap at flash and macro, lenses don't go any longer than short tele and there aren't any zooms. Doesn't matter though, for what they do they're awesome, except all the ones that normal people can afford use film and digital is so much easier. I really like using my film one though and I'd buy a digital one like a shot if they weren't so stupidly expensive.
On the obsolescence thing, Zeiss have strongly hinted that they want to produce one (or rather partner with Cosina and someone digital to have one made to their design) but they've said they're basically holding off until sensor technology has come far enough to avoid it becoming obsolete in a few years. They seem to think that's not far off though and to be honest, I suspect they're right. I haven't felt motivated to upgrade my D200 and I really couldn't imagine wanting any more sensor performance than you get with say a D3/D700. What would I do with it? I don't print any bigger than A3 ...
IIRC when the M1 was released it took the competitors ages to make anything that could match that performance. Think the closest anyone got was Nikon after about 4 years. However I could be hopelessly wrong about that though.
stowpirate
skinflintish camera nut
It is an old fashioned way of focusing which gives you the ability to design very small system camera compared to an SLR, albeit the M series are are all bricks compared to earlier designs. You have a twin image that you line up to achieve focus or on some camera makes a split image. The viewfinder being separated from the lens it can introduce parallax errors. The Leica has I believe a complicated mechanical mechanism to correct this - certainly my M2 has. The metering is through the lens , TTL refers to this type of metering and does not just apply to SLR's.
Dillinger4
Es gibt Zeit
I cant really comment on the specs, as I don't know much about that kind of thing.
But this is one beautiful looking camera, I want it so much.
But this is one beautiful looking camera, I want it so much.
stowpirate
skinflintish camera nut
The Ziess Ikon Contax Rangefinder System camera predated the Leica M series by about twenty two years. That is about how far Leica got behind the times in camera design by being conservative. They did have a prototype Leica IV in 1935 or 36 which had a few features that ended up in the M series cameras. The Nikon I Rangefinder dates from 1948 and included a Leica type shutter in Zeiss Ikon body and was a far better camera than the first Leica M series. Also in the same time period Nikon and Zeiss lenses were considered to be sharper in the center than Leitz lenses. I think the M series was a catch up exercise as they felt theatened by Japanse camera industry and the post war Zeiss Ikon Contax of 1950. This was a superb redesign of the earlier 1930's camera that had been taken as spoils of war by the Russians. The first M series was the M3 of 1954. The M2 was a cheaper cutback version from 1957. I think the M1 dates from 1959 and had no rangefinder and was for lab work.
stowpirate
skinflintish camera nut
well you that told me
but very informative so i forgive you
I think it is far more complicated than my brief history
I tried to start a conspiracy theory that the Leica was in fact a Soviet camera design and some idiots actually believed it!!! I get loads of emails from people who skipped the first paragraph and took the whole thing seriously
http://sovietcamera.110mb.com/fed1/
It is a work in progress so full of typos and errors!
While you lot are Dribble, drooling over traditional looking cameras what about one of these
Or a Soviet hybrid of Contax bayonet mount meets Leica. Apparently these were made to a higher quality standard that not even Leitz could achieve.
Leica digital - absolutely yes.
Leica's film cameras - No.
Their film camera's are beauitfully pieces of engineering.
Their digital cameras, whilst still a quality product, are essensially a bunch of [very high quality] 3rd party components assembled inside a box with a red logo on it .
Leica D-Lux 4 is the Panasonic LX3.
One costs £300, the other £550 (oh, and there's even some places that'll let you buy a silver version for £850
)
stowpirate
skinflintish camera nut
Leica digital - absolutely yes.
Leica's film cameras - No.
Their film camera's are beauitfully pieces of engineering.
Their digital cameras, whilst still a quality product, are essensially a bunch of [very high quality] 3rd party components assembled inside a box with a red logo on it .
Leica D-Lux 4 is the Panasonic LX3.
One costs £300, the other £550 (oh, and there's even some places that'll let you buy a silver version for £850
I would say you are paying for the brand name with both types. There is no doubt that they make superb cameras but are they really any better than the competition? Have you used the similar Contax, Voightlander Prominent or even a Russian Kiev 5 or Zorki 3m?
http://www.cameraquest.com/voiprom.htm
http://www.cameraquest.com/conrf.htm
http://rus-camera.com/camera.php?page=kiev&camera=kiev5
http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Zorki_3M
The screw mount cameras manufactured after 1940 I would say were the best as they had a better chassis. From the M5 onwards there was some problems with build quality or design. The M5 nearly put an end to Leica rangefinder production and nearly destroyed the company. I do not think there was anything fundamentally wrong with the camera just not what the photographers of the period wanted. Anyway production was stopped for a time. During the M6 period quality was relaxed to cut costs. They started using plastic bits that broke in use and film pressure plates that sometimes scratched the film! There was a few other design issues like batteries discharging quickly.
I would like an M6 or M7 but I would never see them as being that much better than other manufacturers.
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