New Leica M6 Film Camera

[logan2z]

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1 hour ago, Huss said:

In Paris, France.

Looks like you won't need to make the trip...

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[Huss]

12 minutes ago, logan2z said:

Looks like you won't need to make the trip...

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How am I going to cover up that massive red dot on the box?  A can of spray paint?

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Huss]

4 hours ago, Al Brown said:

I was just in Paris’ Beaumarchais store. They said no idea when the camera arrives (they know Leica is shipping FROM November 3rd, no arrivals today which is a day before) but they showed me the list of pre-orders and it’s 17 person long. They also said they will not be putting the first M6 they get in the store display for demo, but will ship every arrival to fulfill pre-orders first. Me, I would have definitely kept one in store and brag about it on the internet so more people would come, test and buy..

Al, this is interesting as the Los Angeles store - as seen above - has already announced they received one and it is on display!  I'd assume.... that Leica would ship more than one camera to a store, but who knows?

[Al Brown]

9 minutes ago, Huss said:

Al, this is interesting as the Los Angeles store - as seen above - has already announced they received one and it is on display!  I'd assume.... that Leica would ship more than one camera to a store, but who knows?

Each store does what they think is best I guess. LA store definitely took the right route by putting a demo M6 on display. It all comes down to which store managers have better connections in Wetzlar when the new stuff arrives. It was also how I got the last 2022 M10-P Reporter ever built (still holds the title).

Edited November 2, 2022 by Al Brown

[madNbad]

Looks just like the M6 I bought in the 1980s except for the fancy sticker on the baseplate.

[Huss]

Just now, madNbad said:

Looks just like the M6 I bought in the 1980s except for the fancy sticker on the baseplate.

Ya know, it really does.  Honestly who would be able to spot the difference from 10 ft away? At that point black chrome and matte black paint look the same..

[madNbad]

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Does it come with a beanie? At least a couple of hair ties as a nod to the targeted buyer. Us old guys should get a bottle of Asper-cream and a thanks for keeping us alive button.

Edited November 2, 2022 by madNbad

[mshchem]

I called Samy's in Pasadena yesterday to find out if they had heard anything. The guy who answered must have had a crappy day, he was rude. He thought I wanted a steel rim lens, I told him no, I had pre-ordered a new M6. He was clueless, didn't seem to know when to expect even a demo. 

 

I should have ordered it from the Leica store, valet parking. 😀 The "Stores" probably wouldn't wait on me being the fashion disaster that I am 😄.

 

I remember walking around London, Ferrari window shopping. Crazy wealth. 

[madNbad]

4 minutes ago, mshchem said:

I called Samy's in Pasadena yesterday to find out if they had heard anything. The guy who answered must have had a crappy day, he was rude. He thought I wanted a steel rim lens, I told him no, I had pre-ordered a new M6. He was clueless, didn't seem to know when to expect even a demo. 

 

I should have ordered it from the Leica store, valet parking. 😀 The "Stores" probably wouldn't wait on me being the fashion disaster that I am 😄.

 

I remember walking around London, Ferrari window shopping. Crazy wealth. 

Welcome to the forum! There’s a fair amount of grumbling but a much greater amount of knowledge. 

[mshchem]

8 minutes ago, madNbad said:

Welcome to the forum! There’s a fair amount of grumbling but a much greater amount of knowledge. 

I'm a frequent viewer, I recognize some of You folks from APUG. Fun topics! I bought my first M6ttl like new with a 50mm Summicron, used from a local Cedar Rapids Iowa shop late 90's for $1,300.00 USD. Like a darn fool I sold the whole outfit for less than half what I will be paying for one of these new ones. 😅.

I have too many cameras, maybe I will be deemed unfit for the new M6 😀

Thanks for the welcome!

[Matlock]

9 hours ago, madNbad said:

Looks just like the M6 I bought in the 1980s except for the fancy sticker on the baseplate.

Leica will soon be making the baseplate sticker available for retro fitting to all original M6s. Only $500 plus postage. 🙂 

[Anbaric]

10 hours ago, mshchem said:

I have too many cameras, maybe I will be deemed unfit for the new M6 😀

The new customer selection process is pretty challenging. Remember that in the Latin alphabet, the second letter of Summicron is a V.

 

[Al Brown]

The numbers just in from the official source. Leica’s planned quantity for the new M6 reissue.  So not a limited edition but still not unlimited. I guess that is their projection for M6 sales. This actually is a very important document for future reference.

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Edited November 3, 2022 by Al Brown

[a.noctilux]

3,000 planned that is good.

I wonder how many a year or only "on demand" ?

[Anbaric]

19 hours ago, Matlock said:

Given the number of M6, M6TTL and late M4-Ps constructed (well over 130000) the number of reported bubbling is miniscule.

I've mentioned before that I found 4 of 20 M6 bodies I looked at on sale a few months back had some degree of bubbling. Yesterday, I looked at the first 10 that came up in an ebay search, and at least 2 had bubbling (one bad). This morning, I looked at the stock at a specialist Leica dealer, and 1 of 8 had bubbling. Hard to guess how common this is without a large random sample, but I think the numbers are more than miniscule or they wouldn't be so easy to find.

[Matlock]

20 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

I've mentioned before that I found 4 of 20 M6 bodies I looked at on sale a few months back had some degree of bubbling. Yesterday, I looked at the first 10 that came up in an ebay search, and at least 2 had bubbling (one bad). This morning, I looked at the stock at a specialist Leica dealer, and 1 of 8 had bubbling. Hard to guess how common this is without a large random sample, but I think the numbers are more than miniscule or they wouldn't be so easy to find.

So you have come up with around 7 examples. Out of 134000+ cameras made do you consider that to be a high number? More of the scaremongering comments that do no one any good. Reading the various posts on the M6 and new M6 it would seem that everyone is clamouring for the original zinc models, interesting. I don't know what it is about this forum but we have post after post about bubbling of M6s and failure of the meters on the original M6 neither of which have any evidence in fact.

[Anbaric]

1 minute ago, Matlock said:

So you have come up with around 7 examples. Out of 134000+ cameras made do you consider that to be a high number?

I've come up with 7 examples out of only 38 that I looked at (around 18%). That is how a sample works. We can't say 'out of 134000+ cameras', because nobody has examined anything like that many. You've suggested in the past that 99.9% of zinc cameras are OK, which would mean that there are only about 134 affected ones in the world. Without really trying, I've stumbled across 7 after looking at fewer than 40, which suggests the problem is much more common than that. This is not scaremongering, it's just what I see. Feel free to do your own survey and post the results!

If we want to put a hard number on it, the question is whether my sample is representative or not. Maybe cameras are more likely to be on sale if they have bubbles. Maybe cameras without bubbles are snapped up more quickly, so I'm less likely to see them on any given day (though the blemished cameras are probably cheaper, which may compensate for this). Maybe, by chance, my small sample is simply unpresentative of M6s in general. 18% seems unexpectedly high to me, but if I were betting money on it I would guess the true figure is much more likely to be 'several percent' rather than 'a small fraction of one percent'. That said, if I needed to replace my zinc M6 (which is fine) with another one, I'd be happy to do so if it had no sign of corrosion after 20+ years, though I might think twice about current prices.

As for the meters, nobody has suggested failure is common, but it clearly does happen (and will happen more in the future as the components age), which is why some of the most respected technicians are highlighting the unavailability of parts as an issue. Personally, I think it's positive that both Leica and Alan Starkie are looking at fixing this. As Alan puts it 'You can't complain really. The first M6 was 1984 and circuit boards have only just become unavailable. That's nearly 40 years but these cameras have at least another 40 years life in them. For that reason I fully intend to redesign the metering and produce replacement circuit boards.'

[Danner]

3 hours ago, Al Brown said:

The numbers just in from the official source. Leica’s planned quantity for the new M6 reissue.  So not a limited edition but still not unlimited. I guess that is their projection for M6 sales. This actually is a very important document for future reference.

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Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

That's a large quantity.  Leica usually reserves serial numbers by lots, often time 1000, or 2000 units per lot.  An initial lot of 3000 is the most I can recollect for a M-body run.

 

Per CameraQuest:

Edited November 3, 2022 by Danner

[Matlock]

39 minutes ago, Anbaric said:

I've come up with 7 examples out of only 38 that I looked at (around 18%). That is how a sample works. We can't say 'out of 134000+ cameras', because nobody has examined anything like that many. You've suggested in the past that 99.9% of zinc cameras are OK, which would mean that there are only about 134 affected ones in the world. Without really trying, I've stumbled across 7 after looking at fewer than 40, which suggests the problem is much more common than that. This is not scaremongering, it's just what I see. Feel free to do your own survey and post the results!

If we want to put a hard number on it, the question is whether my sample is representative or not. Maybe cameras are more likely to be on sale if they have bubbles. Maybe cameras without bubbles are snapped up more quickly, so I'm less likely to see them on any given day (though the blemished cameras are probably cheaper, which may compensate for this). Maybe, by chance, my small sample is simply unpresentative of M6s in general. 18% seems unexpectedly high to me, but if I were betting money on it I would guess the true figure is much more likely to be 'several percent' rather than 'a small fraction of one percent'. That said, if I needed to replace my zinc M6 (which is fine) with another one, I'd be happy to do so if it had no sign of corrosion after 20+ years, though I might think twice about current prices.

As for the meters, nobody has suggested failure is common, but it clearly does happen (and will happen more in the future as the components age), which is why some of the most respected technicians are highlighting the unavailability of parts as an issue. Personally, I think it's positive that both Leica and Alan Starkie are looking at fixing this. As Alan puts it 'You can't complain really. The first M6 was 1984 and circuit boards have only just become unavailable. That's nearly 40 years but these cameras have at least another 40 years life in them. For that reason I fully intend to redesign the metering and produce replacement circuit boards.'

You have made some valid points but I still maintain that the number is very low. As I have said before, I have never seen a M6 (or M4-P or M6TTL) with bubbling and I know of no one who has, other than on this forum. How many have you actually seen and handled? Without examining all M6s sold (which, of course, would be impossible) we will never know the true number affected but I am willing to bet it is tiny.

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[Al Brown]

16 minutes ago, Danner said:

That's a large quantity.  Leica usually reserves serial numbers by lots, often time 1000, or 2000 units per lot.  An initial lot of 3000 is the most I can recollect for a M-body run.

 

Per CameraQuest:

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Most likely, it will not be a continuous serial numbers lot. This is just production count. Leica has been assigning smaller batches of serial numbers that are not consecutive, other M models will most likely cut in.