_jim_ wrote:
Desmolicious wrote
_jim_ wrote
Desmolicious wrote
_jim_ wrote
Desmolicious wrote
The R9 is akshully the light weight version. The R8 was made of solid something really heavy, so on the 9 they made the top plate out of magnesium. I can tell the difference. I really can. Fer realz. I mean if I put both of them on a scale. Erwin said it was a whole 100 grams lighter! And not only that (because it's Leica) it's amazing-er because it's made out of magnesium alloy and aluminum (not like those other camera manufacturers that hate us completely and prove it by using magnesium alloy and aluminum). The R9 has such few changes over the 8, it really should have been called the 8.2, or 8S.
It is an incredibly well designed camera apart from one bizarre flaw. It should have had a dedicated on/off switch. Instead it is incorporated into the exposure mode setting dial, so say you like Aperture Priory most, everytime you turn it off and turn it back on you have to spin the dial going passed a bunch of modes until u get to Aperture Priority. Really annoying. That sounds incredibly silly. How is it that Leica struggles with on/off switches? Why does my M7 (which, at least has the switch in the right spot) take time to boot up? The location of the on/off button on the new SL3 makes no sense to me. I don't use that on/off switch (and DAG said not to because Leica's awesome design apparently causes wear on the shutter plunger which can make taking pics balky). But it is weird there is a boot up time - what other camera of that era or before needs time to boot up? My F3 is instantly on. My Minolta XK - two decades older! - is instantly on.
I just leave the power switch on and it is only activated if the shutter is cocked - then a tap springs the meter to life. Like a camera decades older... I do the same and leave it on all the time and similarly find it strange that a camera from the early aughts can’t turn on instantly. If you read Erwin’s thoughts on the M7, at release, he hails it as a true technological marvel. I mean the Hexar RF beat it to market by two or three years.
I’m probably just salty that my M7 has spent more time in the shop than it has in my hands in the year that I’ve owned it.
Don’t get me wrong, I really like using my M7 because of that Leica feel and shutter sound. But there are so many ways they could have improved it by offering less! If they got rid of the awful DX reader -both old and new - that would have cured so many of those weird ‘what does the little flashing led mean?’ issues. Even though a $20 p&s has figured out how to make a DX reader work - but hey, Leica!
Anyway, what’s wrong w your M7 and what shop works on it?
FYI also had the Bessa R3a but did not like it. Just felt clanky and the VF was not great. Had the ZM Ikon and it broke - film transport failed. Guess they used the same cheap plastic gears as they did in my Bessa L which failed the same way.