X1 musings

[pappde]

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Before I begin, I would like to make certain facts clear. I am NOT a photographer and I am not intending to become one. I am not even an enthusiast. You can call me your ultimate amateur. The guy, who in your and most others opinion should be content and happy with an acceptable P&S camera and take average shots of family and pets. So what does a guy like me doing on the LEICA/X1 forum? I like nice, well engineered and meticulously manufactured things. Like german cars, swiss mechanical watches, japanese electronics and everything APPLE. LEICA cameras and lenses are among these things. You do not have to be a photographer to appreciate the feel the sturdiness the beautiful build of a LEICA product. My father used to have an old FED camera and I just loved the feel of it, though he never let me to use it. I always felt that to buy a LEICA RF, just because it looks so great and fascinates me, to be a little excessive. When I saw the X1, I thought this is something that if I buy it, would be OK.

During this past several months as I was lurking on the various LEICA fora, trying to get a feel for the X1 I learned a lot about photography, other cameras digital and traditional, and most of all about people. On my road I picked up a never used LEICA CL with a 40mm Summicron C. I know some does not consider the CL a LEICA. Now the CL has the same length and depth as the X1, and only 15mm taller. Also the X1 reminds me of the CL. And what LEICA might have meant with the CL in the seventies. The CL was considered and still is, the most portable LEICA and 35mm camera in general. I was so much fascinated with this camera, that I bought on ebay a not working CL body for really cheap. So I took this dead CL body apart. It is amazing how much mechanical parts are crammed in this small package. Just the rangefinder part is made up from four different units , each mechanically linked to the others by cams and springs not larger than a few millimeters. To fit a rangefinder on a X1 body would be almost impossible. And the RF would be a short one with its inherent problems, and our naysayers then would complain that it wont focus properly with all LEICA lenses

So where I am going with all this? I am glad that people who already have the X1, feel that it is an interesting camera that fits well in the LEICA tradition.

[jpmac55]

pappde - what a very nice and welcomed break from the typical rant and rave of the X1.

 

Sometimes the siren draw of a camera, pocket knife or even a fountain pen is not defined by a product spec's. Sometimes the unexplainable satisfaction derives just from looking at it, just holding it in your hands. Nothing wrong with that in my book.

 

Anyway, here's to your new X1.

[diogenis]

Yea, and most of the times these products cost ridiculously high. Leica is not at the same category as for instance an luxury Swiss watch, its price is justified.

[Don Helmudo]

pappde, you must be lost brother My feelings and impressions of the things you listed are absolutely the same and once I could afford them I bought all them step by step. About one and a half year ago I bought my first Rolex. A simple Submariner Date. A watch that has always been on my mind, a watch that must have somehow entered my mind when I was a kid. diogenis, the price for a rolex, at least for a steel one and not gold one, is not ridiculously high, it´s worth every (euro-)cent. This watch will probably last longer than I will (I´m 38 and intend to have a long life) and when I´m gone I hope my son (who is still growing in his mothers stomach) will wear it. A Submariner cost 1.000 DM (500,00 EUR) in 1971 when I was born. Now a days a 1971 with box & papers is some where around 20.000 EUR. So it is an investment

 

Leica Ms are also something which I have always known and which is an icon for a quality product. Never the less I wasn´t too much interested until the M8 came out. But because an M8 with a Leica lens costs twice as much as one of these swiss watches I love so much I had to wait until last year until I got one for 1850 EUR plus 1750 EUR for a 35mm Summilux (I still wonder why the seller of the lens made it so cheap, I haven´t seen them for under 2000 EUR - It´s a coded ASPH). Handling the M8, feeling it in your hands is such a great experience no DSLR could ever give this to me and the results are beautiful even for an amateur like I am. I do not intend to produce art I just use it as a memory keeper although of course I am aware of some rules of photography and try to follow them.

 

The only bad thing about the M8 is, that I can not take it everywhere I go and this was the reason for me to buy the X1. I know that there are other brands around but I do not care for them, because I am kind of simple minded. Once I find something I like I stick to it: Leica, Rolex... and of course Apple - I am so much looking forward to the iPad.

 

 

[diogenis]

Yes don, but I wasn't talking about a steel or even a gold Rolex. I was talking about luxury swiss watches ranged anything from E 50k, 100k up to the sky is the limit. Leica and the Japanese has nothing to do with these luxury products. Leicas are products that we use everyday and they deliver.

[Don Helmudo]

Agreed. I was talking about 4k-7k EUR steel Rolex. They are not called "tool watch" for no reason

[earleygallery]

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To fit a rangefinder on a X1 body would be almost impossible. And the RF would be a short one with its inherent problems, and our naysayers then would complain that it wont focus properly with all LEICA lenses

 

Your CL is a fine camera, I think it has lost the 'not really a Leica' tag by now and seen as a unique camera.

 

As for the rangefinder on an X1, well, the X1 was never meant to be a rangefinder camera. It's a large sensor AF 'point & shoot' camera aimed at exactly they type of customer that you describe yourself as (until you fell for the CL?!).

 

It is what it is, which is the problem that some people here have with it, they want/hope for a less expensive alternative to an M8/9, rather like the CL was to the M range I guess.

[pappde]

Indeed the CL is a unique Leica camera. It offered Leica a rare opportunity to change its own future and the future of the camera industry to a certain degree. The CL represented something that Leica haven't done in a while. A camera that was very well built, did what it was designed to reliably and marvelously and above all was very affordable. It had its own Leica lenses( as far as I can deduce from others opinion on this, the 40mm Cron was one of the best and least expensive). The CL also was a platform for some of those other gorgeous Leica lenses. The CL was the smallest M mount RF camera. A truly pocketable Leica (especially with the 40CronC). And Leica stopped making it after only three years. For me it represents a one off, a unique and also futility and squandered opportunity. When I look at the X1 I have a feeling of déjà vu. The X1 could be a beginning of a new line of Leica. A line that represent quality, innovative and affordable cameras, that one day might even take the M lenses. The technology is there. Leica only needs the will.

[earleygallery]

An X? taking M lenses?

 

Well, it would need a rangefinder/viewfinder like an M for sure, or a significantly improved system for focussing with an EVF. It would need a deeper body. It would be like an M9 but with a crop sensor. If that's what you want there is already a camera just like it, called an M8!