mby Posted September 7, 2009 Share #21 Posted September 7, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Couldn't agree more - and when you look at the personal computer industry, the progress has also declined quite a bit and we're looking at completely new approaches to try to reinitiate innovation (for example # of cores vs. MHz/GHz race); btw, I used my old Titanium PowerBook G4 500MHz for eight years for Internet and office stuff before it needed replacement (and it still ran the latest MacOS quite well, albeit Leopard required a small hack). So I do expect the M9 to be usable for quite some years to come... Best regards, Michael Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted September 7, 2009 Posted September 7, 2009 Hi mby, Take a look here M9: An Investment for a Lifetime. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
adan Posted September 7, 2009 Share #22 Posted September 7, 2009 Thrid, I believe the current idiom is: ">M9: An Investment for a Lifetime Because that's how long it's going to take to pay it off? Wanh-whanh-whhanh-WHANNH! (descending trumpet scale) "Thank ya, Thank ya very much, I'll be here all week! Thank ya!" otherwise - spot on! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted September 7, 2009 Share #23 Posted September 7, 2009 In fairness, though I should add, since I added it to another thread, that buying a camera is the epitome of "current consumption" - which is the exact opposite of an investment - "putting capital aside in assets that offer ongoing returns or future growth potential". I don't expect an M9 - or any camera - to do anything but depreciate. The M9 may depreciate a bit slower than some others (and will be fun in the meantime, and in the right hands earn income). No doubt an appeal to the same people who thought the value of their homes would go up forever, too. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick De Marco Posted September 7, 2009 Share #24 Posted September 7, 2009 Sorry but anyone who believes the M9 is going to be an investment for a lifetime must be either at the end of their life, oblivious to the fast development of digital technology or looking for an excuse to spend a small fortune. The rapid pace of development of digital camera technology is far more dramatic than film. In a few short years I have had a Canon 350D, followed by a Canon 5D, followed by a Leica M8 followed by a 5D Mk II. The quality of sensors, the ability to shoot at high isos with low noise, to increase tonal range etc is developing very fast. Although, a few short months ago, when I bought the 5D Mk II I thought it was just about as far the technology could go, I am sure in 12 months (if not before) I will see something new from Canon or Nikon which does even better at high isos or whatever. If Leica as a company is going to survive it will have something better than the M9 in 2 years. Now a film M6, for example, is an investment in a lifetime. I bought mine a few years ago and it is still my favourite camera. Other people bought it 20 years ago, and it is still theirs. How many people really think that in 20 years they will be still using an M9 (or any other current digital camera)? Unless you are over 70 its not going to be an investment of a lifetime Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted September 7, 2009 Share #25 Posted September 7, 2009 "If Leica as a company is going to survive it will have something better than the M9 in 2 years" Fair enough - but will I or my clients need something better than the M9 in 2 years? Or 5 years? If the M8 had been full-frame, I'd be paying very little attention to the M9 - but glad Leica was moving forward. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
egibaud Posted September 7, 2009 Share #26 Posted September 7, 2009 yes, I've heard this before.... M8 an investment.... update, and M8 for ever... Where is the M8 in today Leica's catalogue? I see.... it like buying an SD Card, it says lifetime garanty. Most of us undertsand garantied for life... MY LIFE? nOOOOOOOOOOO the chip's life. So you read the small print and it says: Lifetime = XXX thousand use.... M8 is and investment for life... life = until we get the M9 out !!!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
SJP Posted September 7, 2009 Share #27 Posted September 7, 2009 Advertisement (gone after registration) Sorry ...lifetimeNo, emphatically NO. In 2000 we were f...ing around with 300kpix webcam like things, about 4 or 5 years ago everyone was drooling at 5 Mpix, 2006ish around 10M, 2009 about 20M and stabilising. If they offered me a free 40M or 80M or etc. size sensor I would not want it. Actually they should offer a FF 10M version of the M9 with higher DR and even faster image processing. That would be about it (for me) - the perfect image making machine. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrid Posted September 7, 2009 Share #28 Posted September 7, 2009 Its probably possible to make a different case for the cash. I average about 240 rolls of Tri-X a year. Not as much as a working pro, but not bad for a civilian. Sometimes it climbs to over 300, but let's take 240 for the sake of simplicity. Right now I'm paying 36 Euros a brick (10 pack) and that includes the sales tax. I make my own developer and process everything, so that figure is also pretty low. Let's say 15 Euros a month for developing (mainly fixer, the raw chemicals are dirt cheap). So, for an average month I'm coming in at close to 100 euros for film, processing, storage etc. That's only 1200 euros a year. If I shot color, things would of course be different... If the M9 really is 5500 euros I would have to shoot it for an awful long time, for it make financial sense... The biggest saving the M9 would provide to me is time. Scanning is time consuming, even with something like a Nikon 9000ED. And there is nothing more valuable than time. I'm also intrigued by the idea that I could choose for the pic to be color or black and white... I love b/w, but every once and a while I run across something that really should be shot in color and I lose the shot, because I'm locked and loaded with Tri-X... BTW.. Third - another sign that the megapixel race is about done, the new Canon G11 down-graded the sensor from 14 to 10 megapix with better quality.. clearly Canon did not feel they would loose sales by throtteling back the sensor on their flagship power-shot. The LX3 was a real shot across the bow to a lot of companies... ;-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlanG Posted September 7, 2009 Share #29 Posted September 7, 2009 If you are going to pay $3,000+ for a Leica lens, you might consider that it could take a 30-50+ megapixel sensor to get the most out of it. At some point AF focus tracking will improve to where you choose the desired focus spot and it can follow the fastest action. All kinds of other developments are possible... I think we are in the very early stages of digital photographic technology not at a mature point. The M8 and M9 may adequately serve the photographic needs of many photographers but they have one leg in the past, and the other leg in the present. Looking forward will require new concepts of what is possible. (Whether photographers now feel they have a need for it or not.) I remember in 1987 when I got a 386 computer, that others thought it was really fast. Years later, when I bought a 4 gig hard drive, the salesman told me that I'd have a hard time filling it up. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
yanidel Posted September 7, 2009 Share #30 Posted September 7, 2009 yes, I've heard this before.... M8 an investment.... update, and M8 for ever... /QUOTE] I think a lof of this way of thinking has to do about the frustration of the fast path of technological advances and consumerism. Reading this forum, I guess we could extract that the M8 had three main major critiques : - crop factor - high ISO bad performance. - UV/IR filter needs. So since these will be probably solved by the M9, I can understand the need (and feel it myself), to say : "Let's stop the gear war and cash spending, this is the tool for many years to come". Of course, other M's will come with improvements but I am not sure that the resulting IQ will be such big leap forward, at least for 99.9% of human eyes. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
thrid Posted September 7, 2009 Share #31 Posted September 7, 2009 Wanh-whanh-whhanh-WHANNH! (descending trumpet scale) "Thank ya, Thank ya very much, I'll be here all week! Thank ya!" otherwise - spot on! :-) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
delander † Posted September 7, 2009 Share #32 Posted September 7, 2009 This forum was virtually dead a couple of weeks ago. The same will happen in 2 years as we start to anticipate the M10. The M9 will not be an investment at all - or for a lifetime. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
dpattinson Posted September 7, 2009 Share #33 Posted September 7, 2009 When Leica said that the M8 was going to be upgradeable - they actually did stick to their word in large part. Almost all of the features you got in the M8.2 you also can get in an upgrade (at a price - which I declined to pay). Now that they have a FF camera, I'd kinda expect that if they make a better sensor, it should be possible to upgrade that in-camera. Especially if they are now using custom components and have done a bit of designing for the future. Maybe it wouldn't prove to be economic - and maybe it won't happen. However they did do it with the M8 upgrade, so I think some of the speculation here is a bit off base. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sliversurger Posted September 8, 2009 Share #34 Posted September 8, 2009 from a purely investment point of view, it is probably more prudent to purchase a new noctilux than to purchase an M9. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scott Root Posted September 8, 2009 Share #35 Posted September 8, 2009 I'm going to purchase an M9 whatever the cost, but the next development I look forward to is not an M10 but an after-market company to develop a sensor insert for film cameras so I can shoot a digital M7. I love the M7 shutter and don't use flash. And, when it comes to upgrade I can get a new insert and discard the old insert like film. The real estate required for electronics is now getting small enough to perhaps make this possible, albeit without the motor advance which would not be needed. Now, there is a market for a small startup electronics company. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
efftee Posted September 8, 2009 Author Share #36 Posted September 8, 2009 >how likely is this going to be the last M camera you'd buy? Digital cameras are now like personal computers, it is a highly depreciative electronic product and frequent upgrades is the norm. If Leica cannot keep up with the frequency of updates/upgrades, she will lose out to the industry norm. I do not agree that cameras are like personal computers, which has evolved from its early days as formidable tools for number crunching, data processing, desktop publishing, etc, to the modern day appliances for communications, entertainment, etc. Operating systems and software upgrades, new applications and uses, all place higher demands on the computer, which in itself needed to be constantly improved on to meet the growing needs of its users. The camera, on the other hand, remained quite unchanged. It was a tool for capturing an image and regardless of the process of evolution, it is still today a tool for capturing an image. And because talent accounts for 90%, and equipment only 10%, give or take, of the final quality of the picture, context and content, the camera is quite secondary to the process and product of photography. I know because for all the superiority of Leica lenses on an M8, I still take crappy pictures. Finally, this has nothing to do with whether marketing/advertising is able to supplant our common sense and make us want an M10, 11, 12... 99, nothing to do with what Leica needs to do in order to ensure its own relevance and posterity. It has to do with whether the M9 - with its specs and assumably better IQ - satisfy you and your personal photographic needs? Given that the ROI may not be a tangible financial reward but satisfaction of photography, whatever that means to you. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adli Posted September 8, 2009 Share #37 Posted September 8, 2009 Its becoming pretty relative at this point. 10 megapix M8 have proved to be plenty for a magazine spread. 10 years ago a Nikon D1 was NOT enough for a serious magazine spread, and as such had to be upgraded as soon as technology improved. Its doubtful there will be a significant increase in magazine print resolution over the next 10 years, which would demand higher resolution files. As far as I am concerned, the biggest advantage of the M9 is the full-frame sensor, the 18 megapix give some room for cropping even. But I don't think any current professional will look at the M8 and say - this camera just don't cut it. the same applies to the new M9. Naturally there will be new more exciting M cameras in the future, but with the introduction of full frame sensor, we are now to some degree back where Leica users were with the M7, lots of photographers were perfectly happy with their M3 and M6 cameras and simply did not see how the M7 would improve their life. I think the M10 will be much less celebrated compared to the M9... this is the first full-frame leica digital rangefinder. . I only partially agree with you. The analogy to film Leicas is not a good illustration because with the M3-M7 you can use the same "senor" and thus be able to acieve the same IQ, independent of which of these cameras you use. As you state, the M9 will be more than good enough for the job in the future, but one should still expect that predesessors will be able to perform better. It will allways be a marked there for new M models with better dynamic range, better noise etc. (and even more pixels even though there is no "need" for these pixels) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted September 8, 2009 Share #38 Posted September 8, 2009 I'm going to purchase an M9 whatever the cost, but the next development I look forward to is not an M10 but an after-market company to develop a sensor insert for film cameras so I can shoot a digital M7. I love the M7 shutter and don't use flash. And, when it comes to upgrade I can get a new insert and discard the old insert like film. The real estate required for electronics is now getting small enough to perhaps make this possible, albeit without the motor advance which would not be needed. Now, there is a market for a small startup electronics company. Scott !!! I find exciting that there is someone who dares to expose an idea that me too had, and didn't post for fear of being ridiculized... ; I explain it: - Basically, any 35 mm camera has the physical space to insert the volume of two film cassettes and a strip of film between them: let's start by this fact. - Someday, there will be the tech for the above space can accomodate a very thin sensor + electronics + power + microstorage device. - Very few settings (ISO + simple WB/°K) operated accessing directly the device (this means to open the camera... annoying but less than with film inside ) - Of course... no embedded LCD... BUT...why not a wireless separated LCD (an accessory) if and when you want it ? - Minimal processing power and software on board : RAW only, a proper developer Software included in the kit. - And, maybe... two version of the device : B&W and Color... Is it so foolish to think it could be possible ? - Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted September 8, 2009 Share #39 Posted September 8, 2009 It will be some time. The Imagex "digital film cassette"was a real flop. By the time it will be technologically possible there might be too few film cameras outside musea around to make it economically viable Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marioalessi Posted September 8, 2009 Share #40 Posted September 8, 2009 John Lichter (Silicon Film & Quest Manufacturing) Said they where doing that in 2002. Sept 17 2002 PC Magazine had an article. Used to be called E-Film before that. Also: in 2001 PMA they had an announcement Silicon Film demos EFS-1: Digital Photography Review http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/read.asp?forum=1018&message=27462698 Looks like it was always vaporware Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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