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Why Leica has become a belief or miracle of many photographers?


EllenHuang

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  • 4 weeks later...

Maybe because it's the "obscur objet du désir". I always wanted one but bought my first M at age 50.
The Leica has always meant the "real" way to take pictures. It's amost a legend among cameras.
Sooting with any other camera on the market you do not feel the same delightful pleasure. Even if it is now digital, it has someway stopped time.

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1 hour ago, jankap said:

We think, that high priced products must be better.🙄

Jan

I would think that that is very low on most Leica users list of priorities, if at all. It certainly doesn't feature on mine. If they were ten a penny, I would still use my MP or M2 and Leica lenses in preference to anything else.

Pete

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16 minutes ago, keithlaban.co.uk said:

I certainly don't celebrate the fact that the cameras are so expensive but recognise it's a price I have to pay if I want to own them.

what'd you do?

Same here. I hate the prices, but I have no choice but to pay. Because I desperately want it. 😬

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17 hours ago, jaapv said:

They are simply good cameras with a concept that appeals to a number of photographers. Nothing more, nothing less.

Sometimes I see the Leica design being an evolutionary dead end. The kind of which an engineer would be proud to be a part. Not too many cases of that left anymore in the rush to profit. Visegrips certainly.

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On 10/18/2018 at 1:26 AM, EllenHuang said:

Why does Leica become a belief or miracle of many photographers?
You can also talk about your story with Leica and share your picture.

 

Why do you think that Leica has become some kind of "a belief or miracle of many photographers"? That's your personal opinion speaking ... why do you think that?

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2 hours ago, semi-ambivalent said:

Sometimes I see the Leica design being an evolutionary dead end. The kind of which an engineer would be proud to be a part. Not too many cases of that left anymore in the rush to profit. Visegrips certainly.

If you are taking about the M you may have a point. The chance of innovation was lost when the M10 replaced the M240. It is firmly settled in its niche now.

However, there is plenty of evolutionary life left in the SL and CL. I see the CL as the carrier of the original Leica concept in this day and age.

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43 minutes ago, jaapv said:

If you are taking about the M you may have a point. The chance of innovation was lost when the M10 replaced the M240. It is firmly settled in its niche now.

However, there is plenty of evolutionary life left in the SL and CL. I see the CL as the carrier of the original Leica concept in this day and age.

Yes, the M. It's the only Leica with which I have experience. Should have quoted "dead end" as well, as in can't be made better. I can certainly see the CL fitting in to the Leica product history in the same manner the M fit into the extant camera landscape of its day. To be clear, I think digital Ms do have headroom because sensor technology will keep churning along and Leica will have to pay attention since that's such a selling point, whether or not a valid use case can be made for it being so. I'm a relic and perfectly happy with the whole film...thing. But, to decide to get a digital camera (because I really dislike using a phone for that sort of thing), the CL is very enticing indeed. But I wouldn't use it and my wife would get tired of carrying it. Plus she's used to just saying 'get a picture of that will you?'

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For me it began about 50 years ago when I appreciated knowing that when I picked up the Leica it would work. I found no such assurance in any other rangefinder. When I was a daily news staff photographer I also used Nikon F equipment but always kept a couple spares on-hand, and I'm glad I did. Today when it concerns reliability I reach for the Leicas - but with the digital models I also keep a couple spares.

 

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2 hours ago, jaapv said:

If you are taking about the M you may have a point. The chance of innovation was lost when the M10 replaced the M240. It is firmly settled in its niche now.

However, there is plenty of evolutionary life left in the SL and CL. I see the CL as the carrier of the original Leica concept in this day and age.

Interesting.  If you separate your personal disappointment over the loss of video, I’m not at all sure this stands up.

For me, the M3 was an evolutionary dead end niche product with its fixation on the coupled rangefinder at all costs. The concept is fundamentally flawed (with the dislocation between the focusing mechanism and what hits the film or sensor surface), yet it persists. There is an analogy, it seems to me, between the M5 and the M(240) - both a step too far for Leica purists. Not sure I concur, but the point can be made.

I don’t for a minute think the M10 is a dead end for the same reason the M3 wasn’t, despite it being displaced by the Nikon F.  The M will continue as it has for 60 years, with incremental improvements which keep it up to date with technology while retaining the charm of the original concept. The CL is more likely to follow the X cameras than the M, in my view. It just doesn’t have a unique selling point, other than aping the M form factor, without quite being an M.

The brave step for Leica would be to look again at what it is that keeps the M alive - even thriving in the electronic age, and to think how to retain that “essentials” concept in a new product.  Hasselblad almost managed it with the X1D, the T camera was a brave attempt which may still succeed (it’s a very good camera, where the CL seems to me to be pastiche).

Leica may have dug themselves a hole, but I don’t think it’s the M that has put it there. There is further development around the concept of manual focus lenses and direct control of exposure, but the rangefinder has reached its limit.  The latest M lenses are already showing that the perform better on the SL, with its focusing off the sensor.

The M concept remains popular, and will continue to do so after the CL is forgotten like so many of the other compacts which have gone before it.

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4 hours ago, semi-ambivalent said:

Sometimes I see the Leica design being an evolutionary dead end. The kind of which an engineer would be proud to be a part. Not too many cases of that left anymore in the rush to profit. Visegrips certainly.

Well the "rangefinder" camera (at least in 35mm) has sort of reached it's summit in the Leica M and it's just been improving ever since, THOUGH the transition to digital required a LOT of hard work and innovation to achieve that digital M. If you really mean that it's not a mainstream camera, and that the thrust of modern camera technology has veered away and left it in its own niche, that probably happened with the Nikon SLR (and is happening to DSLRs now I think as mirrorless cameras blow them off the mainstream track). 

These days, rangefinders are complex to make and EVFs promise more features and very good looks too. So nobody but Leica is even thinking about how to innovate on rangefinder design. 

That said, even if the Leica M looks traditional (and its fans have kind of forced that on Leica), in reality it's a very high tech, innovative camera under the brass and chrome.

It might be a premium price camera with "gold plated" variants at ridiculous prices, but it's also a superb camera with a superb sensor and superlative lenses. Plus hey, Leica was doing full frame mirrorless cameras in the 1930s, and they were doing full frame digital mirrorless cameras since the M9. While people were carrying around Canon 5D full frame DSLRs (including me) that were so big they created their own gravity, you could carry the M9 and a 50/2 summicron far easier. Actually it's just taken the rest of the camera companies years to figure this stuff out and thus we have the Sony A7. But Leica got there first.

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49 minutes ago, IkarusJohn said:

For me, the M3 was an evolutionary dead end niche product with its fixation on the coupled rangefinder at all costs. The concept is fundamentally flawed ..... yet it persists.

 Flawed but persistent? Isn't that a contradiction in terms?

The OP seems quiet:mellow:.

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Not really.  Lots of flawed things persist - for example, having the engine of a car dangling behind the rear axel?  Or in front of the front axel?  Both more than persist - they’re quite successful.  Similarly, watches you have to wind and pens that you fill with ink ...

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