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The ongoing M8 market


jfaier

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after i sold my silver m8 to buy a black m8.2, i felt terrible because i'd had such great times with it. it was like losing an old friend. of course, now i'm so attached again and i'm not letting her go..who can put a value on that?

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If this might be an indicator, I bought my 2nd hand M8 in pristine conditions this spring for € 2,500. The same shop now sells them at € 1,800. A clerk anticipated me that in the nearby future it'll be possible to buy used M8.2 even for less.

As of now I'm not totally sold on the M9. I see no compelling reasons to upgrade now. First because, known her limits, the M8 has NOT ceased being a formidable picture taker, second because the M9 is still in her .0 stage and there's something to trim. Check Erwin Puts' rolling review in this respect. Trouble is that when the M9 will be grown into a mature product, M8s will be worth much less than now.

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after i sold my silver m8 to buy a black m8.2, i felt terrible because i'd had such great times with it. it was like losing an old friend. of course, now i'm so attached again and i'm not letting her go..who can put a value on that?

 

I tell you it wouldn't take me long to get attached to an M9. She's pretty too.

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If this might be an indicator, I bought my 2nd hand M8 in pristine conditions this spring for € 2,500. The same shop now sells them at € 1,800. A clerk anticipated me that in the nearby future it'll be possible to buy used M8.2 even for less.

As of now I'm not totally sold on the M9. I see no compelling reasons to upgrade now. First because, known her limits, the M8 has NOT ceased being a formidable picture taker, second because the M9 is still in her .0 stage and there's something to trim. Check Erwin Puts' rolling review in this respect. Trouble is that when the M9 will be grown into a mature product, M8s will be worth much less than now.

 

The clerk wants to sell M9s so of course the M8 and M8.2 will decline in value.

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I´ve just seen a sold M8 for 1500€ on ebay. This decline in value is just insane. Selling one is like burning money. I´ll keep mine and use it as a back up for the M9 (when it comes). Or maybe my son one day can learn how to photograph with it.....

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Buying any digital camera and expecting it to not decline in value is insane. If a Leica declines in value that much, then you know you all other cameras are doomed. However, I wonder in 20 years, which examples will be what the collectors will be after.

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One of the best thought out, objective discourse I have read here for a long time. The subjective part, shows that that too plays a vital role in the decision making process, where disposable incomes need to be apportioned.

 

I have 2 M8s and a few film Ms. I could easily sell from this set and get me a M9. But then, I remember the issues I had with my first batch M8, how I cursed it and then how I

bought another one, in case it failed. They never did, after the first trip to solms.

 

I look at all the pictures I made, the places I travelled with it, the prints that hang in my house alongside those from my D700, and film Ms.

 

No way, I will part company with something I know and can handle with my eyes closed

and be sure of what I shall get when I print.

 

While $7k is a lot of money, even if it were $4k, I have to ask myself, what is it that

my M8 cannot do for me photographically speaking. $7K can take me and wife to some

beautiful places and my M8 would capture the memories for my grandchildren long

after the M9 dust had settled.

 

of course, in my moments of zen, I open a roll of portra and loose myself.

 

If you are itching to spend your money on an M, get yourself a s/h mint M7 or MP and

a dl4/lx3. see if you can outgrow what these can do for you!

 

Good luck.

 

I've argued in favor of full-frame for a long time now, but once I'd had a chance to shoot with the M9 I realised two things:

 

1. the character of the lenses is best expressed on full-frame film, and the fullness of their character isn't really carried over onto full-frame digital as completely as I'd hoped;

 

2. I suddenly realised how I've come to love the look of the M8 files, and also the cropped field-of-view. I predict that the 75 focal length is gonna have a massive increase in popularity, as people who've used the M8 with their 50s are going to crave the more intimate look to their portraits again, after becoming accustomed to the 67mm fov of the M8.

Ironically enough, people continue to take the same pictures regardless of their equipment - within a few weeks the excitement of the new format will wear off, and these new owners will have difficulty differentiating their M8 from their M9 images, apart from filesize. Pictures of the cat will still be pictures of the cat; with the M9 they'll be using their brand-new 75 summarit instead of their old 50 summicron on the M8.

 

While I really hope the M9 is a success, and that Leica sell an enormous number of them and continue to prosper, I do feel sad that many people feel they have to disparage the M8 as part of the process: there's much talk of the lenses finally being used as they were 'intended' or of the M8 having been a 'substitute' or 'not real' M. A lot of this talk is coming from people who never even owned an M camera before, or who previously defended the crop before they discovered that Leica (or Kodak) were capable of producing a full-frame camera. What's more, most people can't even guess which lens has been used to capture an image, if they're asked in a blind test.

 

If good sense were to prevail, the M8 should have a renaissance: the files are sharper, have better color differentiation, and I personally prefer the tonality of the sensor over the M9.

Unfortunately, when it comes to digital, the latest is the greatest - so the M8 will inevitably sink in value over the coming months and years, just as the M9 will sink without trace when the M9.4 with dual Maestro chips and a truly better sensor emerges.

 

Don't get carried along with the hype is my recommendation: if you believe some of the reviewers (especially the ones actually selling the camera themselves) pretty much everything on the M9 is supposedly "one stop better" than the M8 (I think even the paintwork is supposed to be "one stop better"). The truth is, your own eye is the most important link in the chain.

 

Make your images "one stop better" by being a better photographer, not by buying the latest equipment.

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I found a less expensive way to satisfy my FF need and larger pixel count, a Canon 5D II (I had no problem selling my old 5D for that). I recently added a 90mm Elmarit R to my lens collection and I'm having lots of fun with it on the 5D II, especially when I need a high ISO setting and low noise ( http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/other/99813-under-boardwalk.html. ). I'll probably buy at least one more R lens for it, perhaps a 35mm Summicron. The large LCD screen is also a joy to use. The Zeiss lenses I use on it are marvelous.

 

I use my M8 with 50 mm f1.4, and 35mm f/2.0. But I also have a canon 20D. Do you need an adapter to mount your R lens on a Canon D-SLR? Thanks

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"While $7k is a lot of money, even if it were $4k, I have to ask myself, what is it that

my M8 cannot do for me photographically speaking. $7K can take me and wife to some

beautiful places and my M8 would capture the memories for my grandchildren long

after the M9 dust had settled."

 

Absolutely right...and while some describe their sentimental attachment to their cameras, and I will probably never sell the 35mm v4 summicron I've owned for more than 20 years, I feel more connection with the places my spouse and I have visited, and the photos I've taken as connections through time.

 

I suppose I'll eventually end up with an M9 [really, a certainty], but there is no rush. Besides, the best deals I've always gotten in "electronics" [what else is this but electronic capture?] have always been in the most recently eclipsed generation of products.

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This is what I posted about 6 weeks ago...http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/leica-m8-forum/98241-handled-m9-today-reinforced-decision-stick.html

 

Nothing has changed for me since then. I hope Leica sells tons of M9s...and reduced priced M8s... since we will all benefit from the Company's success. But, I'm absolutely sure that my photographs, and my A4 (sometimes A3) prints, would not improve at all with a switch to the new camera. And, that's the point of it all. Having transitioned to the M8.2 this year after more than 2 decades with film Ms, I'm having a blast making photographs again.

 

As I concluded my former post, I'm still hopeful that the market for M8.2s will decline enough for me to pick up a spare. Maybe one day a new camera will emerge that changes my view, but I'm in no hurry. The biggest room for improvement resides within me...and perhaps in some changes to my print processing (papers, inks, profiles, etc), since the final print is my gauge for success.

 

Jeff

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Jeff, Well said! The M9 may turn out to be the best Leica ever made, however that remains to be seen. I am not planning on replacing my M8 until it stops working and is unable to be repaired, or a rich uncle whom I have never heard of dies and leaves me a large sum of cash. But in the mean time the only way for my photos to improve is to keep on shooting. Great photos are a combo of subject, position, timing, lighting and exposure. If you can't do that on a P&S, going from the M8 to the M9 will not make any difference.

Now my question, when you are shooting in B&W, do you shoot in jpeg, with the camera set to B&W, or do you shoot in RAW, and convert to B&W in your computer? Thanks, Jim

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Now my question, when you are shooting in B&W, do you shoot in jpeg, with the camera set to B&W, or do you shoot in RAW, and convert to B&W in your computer? Thanks, Jim

 

Always shoot in RAW and convert...absolutely no reason to waste information.

 

When I first got the camera, however, I shot in RAW and jpeg simultaneously, so my LCD and computer showed a bw rendition to keep my workflow bw. Even then I used the RAW image to convert. But, I found that this process slowed up the camera, and loaded up my computer with too many images. Plus, I try to minimize looking at my LCD...usually only to check the histogram. This process now is seamless for me.

 

Jeff

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