[Peter Branch]

At last a thread that gets to the root of why the Leica M is an unrivalled classic and in its latest incarnation deserves to continue that tradition.

Back in 1959 I started with a IIIf and a 50mm f/1.5 Summarit and progressed via a Canon VI T body with a small collection of Leica and Canon lenses to an M5 with a good set of lenses. We think the problems with the first release of M8s are bad but Leica never managed to get the shutter on my M5 to run evenly. I needed a built in exposure meter so progressed via R3 Mot, R4, R6.2, to eventually the joy of using an M6ttl. The point is that for a very wide range of uses the rangefinder was much more than just adequate and in many applications it was superior to the SLR both in terms of the results and the ease of use where size, weight and noise are important considerations. OK it’s not much use with lenses longer than 135mm and certainly not really suitable for real close-up work but for everything else it often excels.

I have done a lot of travel photography and other than for specialist wildlife pictures the M takes a lot of beating. The SLR was cheaper and easier to make, certainly as designed and built by Japanese companies, and this is an important factor; most professionals simply did not wish to risk the cost of a Leica whilst working. But there were, and are, serious professional photographers, in for example the fashion and combat zone fields, for whom the M camera was, and is, the first choice.

Now we have the M8 and here I tend to support Ervin Puts with his view that the camera, once one gets used to its characteristics, is a masterpiece with a surprisingly limited number of compromises. Surely the Leica engineers were right to insist on getting the very best from their lenses – they have succeeded beyond the expectations of all those who now own the camera; but perhaps not the armchair critics. The banding problem, for those who have it, will be eradicated and be lost as a footnote in Leica history.

The bigger lesson for Leica is that public offers of compensation, like the reported 30% discount on a lens, which are based on the assumption that the world in commercially homogenous are bound to fail. If it is going to happen it is going to have to be country by country and it will take weeks to sort out the detail.

The IR problem is strange because Leica obviously knew the issues involved and came to the conclusion that it was not nearly as important as it has turned out to be. It was one of the trade offs deliberately and knowingly made to maximise lens performance. Perhaps we will never know the answer to this mystery. I bet they would make the same engineering decisions again but be a bit more careful about their launch publicity. We now all know what the issue is and a proven solution is soon to be available; it is not the end of the world. Those who rant and rave against the cost/performance of filters but seem willing, at least conceptually, to spend very serious amounts of money on the system tend only to annoy me. Councils of perfection are easy, cheap and useless - we have an outstandingly good product being pilloried in some quarters because it is not perfect – crazy!

In the end when all the sound and fury has died down the camera will sell on its merits. It is everything than previous M cameras have been and a whole lot more in addition. I refused a refund and I’m going to enjoy it when it comes back from Solms.