Really, new cheap(er) film M in 2021 ?

[plasticman]

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18 hours ago, adan said:

You gotta understand that plasticman is our long-time "film evangelist." Kinda like Guy Kawasaki and Apple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evangelism_marketing

"Keep the Faith, Baby!"

Naturally I could only ever aspire to be the Guy Kawasaki of pretty much anything.

When I started using film 10 years ago I thought I needed to evangelize it - I'd wasted so much time being put off by the internet naysayers telling me it was finished before I'd even tried it. 
Nowadays my main problem as a film user is the queues of twenty-somethings outside the lab I use - they're not so good with the social-distancing thing - so my impression is film is doing fine without my help. 

18 hours ago, Fontan said:

My point was that film or digital, it’s not much different in the end. Your perceived negativity just may stem from your own insecurity, perhaps?

I have plenty of insecurities, but if you want to make me feel bad or score internet points you really have to be more specific about which one you mean here? 

 

As for a cheap(er) film M - I see nowadays people locally trying to sell M6's for the equivalent of anything between 2000-3000* euros, sometimes even more, which feels like an insane amount to me. Saw an M7 for sale for around 4000 recently. I remember one that I'd bought new (but at a reduced price) and then quite quickly sold again together with a really nice Summilux 35, for 1200 a few years ago, during that time when I wavered between trying film or sticking with digital - so demand must have skyrocketed for these cameras.

So a new film Leica M - one that was made to an affordable price to bring even more of the young film crowd into the Leica environment - would be a great initiative. Though I have no idea how realistic the project would be.

* PS: I went back to have a quick check on the prices, and really the span is more like 2500-3300 euros for a standard 0,72 chrome used M6 in good condition. Looks like the M5 is the only bargain to be had.

Edited January 4, 2021 by plasticman

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[willeica]

4 hours ago, 250swb said:

and most people in this thread are trying desperately hark back to something

Of course, but the young folk cannot hark backwards. For them it is very much 'Back to the Future'.

William

[Erato]

fair enough

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Edited January 4, 2021 by Erato

[adan]

16 minutes ago, plasticman said:

* PS: I went back to have a quick check on the prices, and really the span is more like 2500-3300 euros for a standard 0,72 chrome used M6 in good condition. Looks like the M5 is the only bargain to be had.

M4-2s are about in the M5 range, with no lens or winder. $750 for a user, up to $1600-ish for a primo condition with box, etc.

An M4-2 was my "starter M" 20 years ago this April. Medium condition, $1000 - so those are relatively stable.

[tom.w.bn]

vor 22 Minuten schrieb plasticman:

So a new film Leica M - one that was made to an affordable price to bring even more of the young film crowd into the Leica environment - would be a great initiative. Though I have no idea how realistic the project would be.

 

I don't think that a cheaper Leica will bring young people to using film, it's still much too expensive. In my city we had (pre covid19) a regular meeting of film users. The older people (like me) had the fancy cameras and used less film. The younger people (mostly students or people just finished studying) spent everything on film (film, dev, scan) and had mostly cheaper SLRs or low budget medium format cameras (yashica...). For those, 500 EUR for a camera + lens is already so much money.

 

[logan2z]

10 minutes ago, tom.w.bn said:

I don't think that a cheaper Leica will bring young people to using film, it's still much too expensive. In my city we had (pre covid19) a regular meeting of film users. The older people (like me) had the fancy cameras and used less film. The younger people (mostly students or people just finished studying) spent everything on film (film, dev, scan) and had mostly cheaper SLRs or low budget medium format cameras (yashica...). For those, 500 EUR for a camera + lens is already so much money.

 

Then who is buying up all of the M6s and driving prices way up?  Most of the YouTubers I see talking about film and shooting with Leicas (mostly M6s, it seems) appear to fall into the "twentysomethings" category.  Maybe that's too small a sample size to tell the whole story...

[a.noctilux]

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12 minutes ago, tom.w.bn said:

I don't think that a cheaper Leica will bring young people to using film, it's still much too expensive. In my city we had (pre covid19) a regular meeting of film users. The older people (like me) had the fancy cameras and used less film. The younger people (mostly students or people just finished studying) spent everything on film (film, dev, scan) and had mostly cheaper SLRs or low budget medium format cameras (yashica...). For those, 500 EUR for a camera + lens is already so much money.

 

I agree that the new M (or just Leica branded film camera) would be too expensive for many,

but if Leica make it right ( the question is HOW hard ), the thing would be viable.

[wizard]

The most expensive unit on any Leica M camera (save the ones without rangefinder) seems to be the rangefinder. So if Leica has found a way to greatly reduce complexity of the rangefinder system, corresponding savings in manufacturing price could be achieved. That said, I'd still be surprised if Leica came up with a new film camera in 2021. As it was rightly mentioned already, there are tons of high quality film cameras readily available for ridiculously low prices (if not Leicas) nowadays.

[plasticman]

33 minutes ago, tom.w.bn said:

I don't think that a cheaper Leica will bring young people to using film, it's still much too expensive. In my city we had (pre covid19) a regular meeting of film users. The older people (like me) had the fancy cameras and used less film. The younger people (mostly students or people just finished studying) spent everything on film (film, dev, scan) and had mostly cheaper SLRs or low budget medium format cameras (yashica...). For those, 500 EUR for a camera + lens is already so much money.

 

This is a very good point and probably a killer for this 'cheap' Leica idea tbh. Also, if you can't afford a Leica for 3 or 4k euros/dollars, then you are not gonna be buying any Leica lenses to go with it. If anything, even Voigtländer lenses are gonna be out of reach. 

[adan]

47 minutes ago, logan2z said:

Maybe that's too small a sample size to tell the whole story...

Just as a general principle (nothing personal - you just gave me a good "hook").....

There are 7600000000 humans on the planet - and any one us meets just 80000 of them in a lifetime, on average. Let alone a few years watching youtube (or going to camera clubs).

It is a common mistake here on the Forum (and in human perception generally) - "I am the market" or "Everyone I know wants...."

BS - nobody knows enough people to use personal anecdotes to measure anything important. Any one of us and every one we know or ever met could drop in the ocean tomorrow, and from a practical point of view, the world would barely notice. (In actual fact - there are about 300,000 drownings worldwide every year. How many of those is any one of us really conscious of?**)

As the film critic Roger Ebert once said, "Anyone who thinks Gigli is the worst movie ever made just hasn't seen enough movies."

Just something for us all to keep in mind, as we roll along......

________________________

**Over my 67 years of life, that would be 12-15 million drownings (assuming population growth and constant rate). Only 2 of which (in one incident) were people I knew even distantly.

Edited January 4, 2021 by adan

[Ouroboros]

2 hours ago, Aryel said:

.....No matter what, if they do end up making a new film camera, I hope it will be successful.

That we can agree on.

[logan2z]

13 minutes ago, adan said:

Just as a general principle (nothing personal - you just gave me a good "hook").....

No worries, I said it tongue-in-cheek, I just didn't add the requisite 😉 emoji.

I do still wonder who is buying up all of the used M6s if it's not young-ish film shooters.

[Ouroboros]

5 minutes ago, logan2z said:

I do still wonder who is buying up all of the used M6s if it's not young-ish film shooters.

Who cares as long as they're being used.

[Charles Morgan]

I only know one young film shooter with an M6, bought from my local camera shop by a student who's mother owns the nearby Pasty shop*.

It cost so much she couldn't then afford a lens. Or film.

* The only person who has ever paid me for a print, in this case of her Chihuahua, Marley, and in the form of two large pasties.

 

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Edited January 4, 2021 by Charles Morgan

[a.noctilux]

6 minutes ago, Charles Morgan said:

I only know one young film shooter with an M6, bought from my local camera shop by a student who's mother owned the nearby Pasty shop.

It cost so much she couldn't then afford a lens. Or film.

 

 

Funny that some decades ago, same thing with my first Leica M4 second hand.

The dreamed camera was so expensive (even second hand) that I must wait (long long wait not been able to use the M4 ) six months before I can buy (second hand) a first lens,

fair condition Summicron 50mm which I always use 😇, the M4 was "traded" for later model after some years.

[logan2z]

18 minutes ago, Charles Morgan said:

in the form of two large pasties.

Hoping you meant 'pastries' 😀

[Charles Morgan]

11 minutes ago, logan2z said:

Hoping you meant 'pastries' 😀

The local "delicacy" in Devon and Cornwall is the pasty - bits of steak with highly seasoned onion, potato and swede, wrapped in lard pastry then baked.  As a snack on a cold day it is stunning, albeit likely to remove your ribs from sight thereafter. The manner of closure of the pasty - side crimped for Cornish, top crimped for Devon is one for the locals to argue over. 

Edited January 4, 2021 by Charles Morgan

[a.noctilux]

😊must be delicious 

🥟

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Charles Morgan]

A pasty emoji! Wow!

I emphasise with your delay in buying a lens. I recall as a teenager getting an OM10 with 50mm kit lens for Christmas, and then having to save for a year to buy a 28mm. The camera long since died, but I still have the 28mm. I can't bring myself to sell it, despite having absolutely no use for it.

Returning to the topic at hand, Leica has always been a high cost producer, and has teamed up with others for more affordable cameras. They will never be mass production items, so I'm not sure I see any great gains from volume, so colour me sceptical one will ever appear. 

[a.noctilux]

May Leica surprise us again ?

To be fair, I don't need the to-come-film-M-or-just-Leica ( if it comes ),

 

Maybe I'd buy IT ( or them ! why not ) just to support the nice idea for film longer life span.