AlanJW

I'm not involved with the meeting planning. Ask the admin on the LSI site about agenda. The banquet is an extra, above registration. The LSI meetings are worthwhile IMHO and compared to commercial seminars, a huge bargain too.

The website has a list of speakers and some of the agenda items and the hotel is the AC (Marriott), which is where the meetings and banquet

The advantage of a ORF is seeing beyond the frame, but that works well only with 50mm and 35mm lenses. For longer lenses, the frame is too small and for wider than 35mm you can't see outside the frame. WYSIWYG not only allows use of wider and longer but also would allow Leica to design zoom lenses for the M mount. And of course seeing the exposure in real time is a huge advantage of EVF. I doo not see it substituting for the optical system but it would be a dynamite complement in the M system (even if it is called something other than "M" because it is not a "Messucher").

You are a nasty person, making ad hominem attacks on me and Jono too. Anyone who disagrees with you is dumb. You’re going on the ignore list.

Having a Q3 and a Q2m, I disagree. They’re different - and not so different -they handle very similarly. I was sceptical about the screen but have found it useful. And I’d trust a review from Jono way more than the “verge”. You don’t like it, don’t buy it.

Leica Rumors has it wrong. It is changing (or maybe already changed) to Leica Society International.

This. When looking at Leica prices, I think one should also consider the longer term. I have some older Leica lenses that are now worth more used than they cost me new. What other manufacturer can say that? The Leica bodies also hold their value better than any of the Japanese compeitors. So there is an initial shock to the wallet in getting into Leica but after that not so much. But as someone said, if you don't like the way Leica prices, there are lots of alternatives. They seem to have a pretty good idea of what their market will bear. It is easy to criticize but one thing Leica is not going to do is compete against mass production companies like Canon and Sony (and to a lesser extent Nikon).

The ProGrade mentioned above work just fine. They also have a Thunderbolt card reader that is very good.

Okay. Let's concede that "M" means an optical rangefinder. Lets hope Leica keeps making those. But I for one would welcome a camera (call it Leica E11 or similar) that has an EVF and a M mount. I think I'm not alone.

Pure clickbait.

Plus one for SD Card Formatter. Doing it on my computer also enables dropping a pdf onto the card with name and address, in case of loss.

Yes, the function button issue is solved.

Hate is an awfully strong word to use about a camera function. Certainly there are some "strong preferences" about a lot of different functions and features and people here are not bashful about expressing their opinions. But I'm not going to buy into hate by voting in this survey.

YES, definitely would buy one. My aging eyes are starting to have trouble with the coincidence RF. I'd also buy an M with an optical viewfinder that somehow was able to do focus confirmation. The advantage of the OVF (and the reason it allows for a different way of shooting (anticipation, etc.) is you can see beyond the frame lines. For me this works for 50mm and 35mm lenses, but for anything wider I find it impossible to see past the frames and for anything longer I find the frame too small to use effectively. I may be an outlier, and there are many who like the rangefinder but Leica could simply provide a choice: (1) the existing mechanical RF with the possibility of using the rear EVF or a clip-on Visoflex. (2) An EVF M mount camera with the possibility of using an accessory clip-on optical viewfinder for the times you want to look beyond the frame.

Seemingly lost in the discussion since the first post is that Porsche also makes SUVs (and I would add the Panamera) to cater to different market segments. The auto industry has obviously shifted (no pun intended) and so too did Porsche, as a matter of survival, as selling only 911s would not work very well economically for very long. So too has Leica reacted to the changes in the camera business, and so too it was a matter of survival. Leica can keep the RF purists happy by continuing to update the M cameras but like Porsche it needs to appeal to others too. In addition to the SL and maybe the S line, there are some things Leica can do to keep everybody happy and maintain the M concept. One approach (if feasible) would be to maintain the optical viewfinder but provide electronic focus confirmation. The OVF strength is allowing one to see beyond the frame lines. The split image rangefinder is an expensive and space-consuming way to focus. Is focusing that way the essence of the M or is it the viewfinder with no blackout, etc? Electronic focus aids would help lots of us whose eyes are aging and could be faster than finding the image coincidence needed to focus. Second approach (and likely more feasible) is to build a camera with an M mount in M-camera size, but with an EVF in place of the rangefinder. If a camera without a rangefinder can't be called an "M", then they should simply call it something else. The difficulty here is perhaps the concern that EVF M mount cameras would cannibalize M rangefinders to the point where they are no longer economically viable. But Steve Jobs was once asked about Apple products cannibalizing each other and his response was "If you don't cannibalize yourself, somebody else will." The M11 will not be the last iteration of the M camera.