Wonder what the street price on the m9 will be in a year. And sometimes Leica has some cashback and rebates as well. Drop a thousand off that price, and it might start to get more interesting.
thrice wrote:
Used prices will be about 4500 in a year I'd say.
I am wondering if the used price will drop so much, considering its possible to argue that there are no other places to go for M-Leicas now. They got their digital M, FF finally. People who get one, know what they want and will keep it.
M8 was always only a bump in the road towards the FF-M and it affected used prices more. Perhaps.
thrice wrote:
Used prices will be about 4500 in a year I'd say.
That's a drop of over 35%.... I would say, it depends on how popular the M9 and how trouble-free it is. Based on the case with M8, which had one issue after the other, but still retained the value pretty well in a year, I believe you are a tad over-pessimistic .
I'm just used to seeing values on anything leica related drop like a stone as soon as they're "used" I guess
When I bought the 5D Mark II I thought I would never need another digital camera, got my collection of R glass and enjoyed great image quality. But what I mostly shoot is low-iso landscapes, and some cheeky devils (particularly on this forum) showed me what the A900 was capable of, that, along with the Leica DMR made me crave better low-iso quality. Now I want an M9 for that reason (I already have a film M).
I'm sure in 3 years my position will change again. I'll keep the 5D-ii for when I need very high iso, and I'll use the M9 for absolutely everything else haha. I do have a great 50/1.1 for the M system though so not much reason to use high iso.
Sure would! If they managed to best the Leica IQ it would be something! I doubt beating the Leica build quality would be a priority of theirs though, and as such the Leica will still remain the premium product.
thrice wrote:
I'm just used to seeing values on anything leica related drop like a stone as soon as they're "used" I guess
I was an early M8 adopter; my camera's serial number was 000037. There was a hardware recall and we had to send the camera back to Solms (arranged by Leica in Jersey). The need to use IR-cut filters, sudden death syndrome, etc. plagued that camera. After almost 3 years, I sold the body at a loss of approximately 40% (in comparison, my Nikon D700 has dropped more than 30% in value only after a short year). Early M8 adopters received a 25% discount off the old prices on one lens of their choice as an apology from Leica. I did that and the value of that lens went up more than 50% and I ended up selling that. I would say that I didn't loose any money on my M8, if any, it wasn't much .
Leica has a fairly small but effluent aficionados basis in Asia, mostly in Japan and lately in China. They are not interested in Canon or Nikon, let alone Sony . These people enjoy the economic boom in their countries and they don't know what to do with their money . They are the ones that keep Leica prices high. Yes, similar to Canon and Nikon, Leica lenses retain their value better than their bodies. Again, these people could careless for Voigtlander lenses, regardless of their performance. They do take pictures but they mostly collect Leica items, since the Leica brand has become a status symbol for them. I am sure you are aware of this.
thrice wrote:
Sure would! If they managed to best the Leica IQ it would be something! I doubt beating the Leica build quality would be a priority of theirs though, and as such the Leica will still remain the premium product.
Weather sealing would be a compelling upgrade I suspect. I doubt any competitor would best the M9 IQ though. The sensor would likely be a more mass produced sourced unit with an AA filter from Sony possibly higher MP than the M9 but producing no real IQ advantage. That's my suspicion anyway.
AGeoJO:
Leica lenses retain their value better than their bodies. Again, these people could careless for Voigtlander lenses, regardless of their performance....They do take pictures but they mostly collect Leica items, since the Leica brand has become a status symbol for them.
I can completely understand that and I was always baffled that Americans (and British) do not get it. People in many parts of the world value uniqueness and craftsmanship (and yes, the are sensitive to their status in relation to their peers)
mfurman wrote:
I can completely understand that and I was always baffled that Americans (and British) do not get it. People in many parts of the world value uniqueness and craftsmanship (and yes, the are sensitive to their status in relation to their peers)
Well, there are some, many in fact, in the U.S. and Britain who do get it and do value craftsmanship. The only Cosina Voigtlander thing I currently own is a nice 28mm metal finder and the craftsmanship on that is as good or better then Leica finders I have owned in the past which included a wonderful 50mm 1:1 classic finder and the 21mm finder that came with my Veriwide 100. Actually, the 21 finder, while optically really nice, did tend to loose the eyepiece surround. I guess Leica did not use a very good adhesive. In any case, I have owned and/or handled a lot of classic equipment from all manufacturers and I can assure you Leica does not hold a monopoly on uniqueness nor craftsmanship. Yes, even today.
ovredal73 wrote:
One bad thing about the m9 - it seems to have the same battery as the m8. Thats a downer. Its really not very good.
Hmm, maybe I am missing something here. Mine lasts a fairly long time, getting approximately 300-400 shots/charge and still showing some charge left. I don't see it as a a negative issue at all, maybe not quite as good as current the current Canon/Nikon battery systems but really not bad. Keep in mind that if you use a RF camera and a MF camera at that, you compose more carefully, you take less shots and don't shoot and pray, like using a machine gun with an AF auto-everything of sport/wildlife cameras. You opt more for quality over quantity. The original M8 charger was bulky but Leica replaced that starting with the M8.2 and the same charger comes with the M9.
AGeoJO wrote:
Hmm, maybe I am missing something here. Mine lasts a fairly long time, getting approximately 300-400 shots/charge and still showing some charge left. I don't see it as a a negative issue at all, maybe not quite as good as current Canon/Nikon battery performance but really not bad. Keep in mind that if you use a RF camera and a MF camera at that, you compose more carefully, you take less shots and don't shoot and spray, like a machine gun with an AF auto-everything sport/wildlife camera. You opt more for quality over quantity. The original M8 charger was bulky but Leica replaced that starting with the M8.2 and the same charger comes with the M9....Show more →
That's actually barely more than my G1 achieves and about half what you'd get from a typical DSLR battery pack. My D300 regularly achieved between 550 and 800 RAW shots per charge depending on settings (card writes were the determining factor there, the D300 gets 12-14GB per charge regardless of quality settings. I've had over 2800 JPEG's on one EN-EL3e charge and as low as 550 14bit RAW's). I don't tend to machinegun unless I'm shooting an airshow, so I generally get a few days out of a charge even on the G1 which gets 250-300 shots per charge.
The M8/M9 battery is fairly low capacity and also rather low voltage, being a 3.7V pack rather than the more typical 7.2V or 7.4V packs. The high mAh rating is offset by the low voltage. It's only 7WH compared to the 11WH that's typical for most high-end DSLR's or the 9WH that a G1's battery has.
AGeoJO wrote:
Hmm, maybe I am missing something here. Mine lasts a fairly long time, getting approximately 300-400 shots/charge and still showing some charge left. I don't see it as a a negative issue at all, maybe not quite as good as current the current Canon/Nikon battery systems but really not bad. Keep in mind that if you use a RF camera and a MF camera at that, you compose more carefully, you take less shots and don't shoot and pray, like using a machine gun with an AF auto-everything of sport/wildlife cameras. You opt more for quality over quantity. The original M8 charger was bulky but Leica replaced that starting with the M8.2 and the same charger comes with the M9....Show more →
Maybe my batteries are not representative though. One is aftermarket and the other is original, but came with my used camera. But they are both really bad.
I've shot 1100 shots on my d700 with the current battery. I don't use the screen much at all and I use manual lenses.. so I'm not the average user I guess..
I still drool on the M9 though. I just wonder what a Zeiss Digital Ikon would look like image quality wise with a modified a900 sensor compared to the M9. I guess they would fare quite similarly versus each other in several areas.
Empire wrote:
Id love a Digital Bessa (or Ikon) with a modified D700 sensor!
A D700 sensor with the M9's microlens layout and Nikon's back-end processing chain would probably make for the most useful DRF out there. It would be a high ISO monster.
I'd love to see a Nikon DRF as a vanity project (they've done a few S series re-releases over the last decade), especially if it was an M mount body.
While I'd love the idea of being able to use/buy another FF rangefinder camera with M mount other than the Leica M9 that would have a noise performance similar to the D700, but I am realistic. Let''s face it, the chance of something like that would be slim to none . There is simply not enough market for something like that that would make other companies pursue this niche market. Leica M9 would still sell well though, since again, because of the presitige, the red dot .
Back on topic though - any of you guys would buy the M9 within a month or so? Personally, I would wait until the end of the year to make sure that the early production bugs have been addressed...
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. There is simply not enough market for something like that that would make other companies pursue this niche market. Leica M9 would still sell well though, since again, because of the presitige, the red dot