New Article/Review - Just Published A Hands On Review Of The Leica CL

[Mark D Segal]

One can say the sensors used by Leica is customized by the third party manufacturer to spec but is not a in-house design unlike Canon or Sony. Leica doesn't have the technical expertise to design their own CMOS/CCD sensors from the grounds up.

When I refer to the precision manufacturing, I am referring to the camera body. Making those to the precision and craftsman ship that Leica touts as competitive advantage is not rocket science. I guarantee you critical aerospace and automotive components have higher precision than Leica bodies. Leica's quality control involves either super high part rejects (to meet their requirements) or very tight control in their manufacturing process.

It doesn't matter that they don't make their own sensors. What matters is the quality produced by whoever they get to manufacture them to their requirements.

Your guarantees also don't matter - irrelevant. People in the market for cameras are comparing one camera relative to another. Whatever their final product acceptance rate involves, which neither of us know, if it adds more to the cost of a Leica than to the cost of a Canon, that incremental cost needs to be paid for so the price is higher. That's the main point.

[Mark D Segal]

Digital Leica is a throwaway because I don't see how the M10 users can justify their use when next-generation sensors can lets say deliver double the ISO performance or can shoot at 0 lux (for exaggeration purpose). Unless Leica makes a camera with user-changeable sensor, then all that engineering, quality control into the body etc goes into the dumps when a better sensor comes along.

As yourself this, typical German luxury automobile cost $80K. A Leica camera costs on average $15K. does it really take. It is really 5.3X harder to make a car than a camera?

Well, there are people and there are people. Not everyone who invests 15K in a camera will throw it away in 2 years just because the next model with improvements comes along. Many people are intelligent enough to make rational choices about buying what they need and assessing whether they really need any more with each upgrade that comes along to tempt them. Yes, some people need to be at the bleeding edge and they will trade the last model for the latest model, and someone else will gladly buy at a discount the model they are trading in. And the used equipment that maintains highest value is the best-made stuff, because any one buying used equipment is especially mindful about performance going forward. So in fact, NOTHING necessarily "goes into the dumps" as you put it.

I wouldn't ask myself what a Leica is worth relative to an Audi or a BMW because I think it's an irrelevant, fruitless comparison. The products, the markets, the technologies and the manufacturing scales involved are so completely different these products can't be talked about in relation to each other. Makes no sense whatsoever.

[KLaban]

Lets face it, there are those who know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

[Telecaster]

If that is the case, can we safely conclude that Leica is 1% substance and 99% facade? If its a luxury product then there still should be differentiating factor that commands the price premium. When one buys a Herme bag or a Christian Dior coutoure dress, one knows why the item is priced in a certain way because of the material usage, craftsmanship and timeless heritage. Not so much with a throwaway camera.

Incorrect. The cameras, while luxury items (and I do think luxury is the appropriate term nowadays), are very well made and to precise mechanical tolerances. The lenses are flat-out superb. The whole package is no throwaway. It works. Thus the company has genuine cred as well as providing bling. This combo keeps them in business.

My M8s are eight years old now while my M9 is pushing six. Bought ‘em all used. Lenses range from a few months to 70+ years old, and the oldest one functions exactly the same as the newest. The sensors will crap out eventually but I’ll keep using ‘em ‘til this happens. Or who knows, they may outlast me. If you get rangefinders you’ll get why I and other RF enthusiasts enjoy using this stuff, and may understand why I in particular mostly prefer it to SLR and other mirrorless systems. If you don’t get it, that’s fine. But why then waste time & energy tilting at it? IMO life is too short for that.

Cheers!

-Dave-

[Mark D Segal]

Incorrect. The cameras, while luxury items (and I do think luxury is the appropriate term nowadays), are very well made and to precise mechanical tolerances. The lenses are flat-out superb. The whole package is no throwaway. It works. Thus the company has genuine cred as well as providing bling. This combo keeps them in business.

My M8s are eight years old now while my M9 is pushing six. Bought ‘em all used. Lenses range from a few months to 70+ years old, and the oldest one functions exactly the same as the newest. The sensors will crap out eventually but I’ll keep using ‘em ‘til this happens. Or who knows, they may outlast me. If you get rangefinders you’ll get why I and other RF enthusiasts enjoy using this stuff, and may understand why I in particular mostly prefer it to SLR and other mirrorless systems. If you don’t get it, that’s fine. But why then waste time & energy tilting at it? IMO life is too short for that.

Cheers!

-Dave-

Yup - that about sums it up nicely.

[traderjay]

Incorrect. The cameras, while luxury items (and I do think luxury is the appropriate term nowadays), are very well made and to precise mechanical tolerances. The lenses are flat-out superb. The whole package is no throwaway. It works. Thus the company has genuine cred as well as providing bling. This combo keeps them in business.

My M8s are eight years old now while my M9 is pushing six. Bought ‘em all used. Lenses range from a few months to 70+ years old, and the oldest one functions exactly the same as the newest. The sensors will crap out eventually but I’ll keep using ‘em ‘til this happens. Or who knows, they may outlast me. If you get rangefinders you’ll get why I and other RF enthusiasts enjoy using this stuff, and may understand why I in particular mostly prefer it to SLR and other mirrorless systems. If you don’t get it, that’s fine. But why then waste time & energy tilting at it? IMO life is too short for that.

Cheers!

-Dave-

Dave - I am not disputing that Leica has superior optics and I understand they have excellent mechanical construction on the body. However, in the digital age how much of role does mechanical play at producing superior image quality? I think you will agree with me that the superior mechanical construction of the M10, M9 etc is no match for lesser priced camera of its time that uses a superior sensor. A photographic equipment absolutely have to the judged on its technical merit and Leicas are lacking in many aspect.

Maybe at the end of the day, Leica appeals to the crowd that wants a sense of nostalgia and the mechanical aspect of photography.   

[traderjay]

Lets face it, there are those who know the price of everything but the value of nothing.

So we can't have a technical discussion on Leica? Or is that a forbidden topic?

[Mark D Segal]

So we can't have a technical discussion on Leica? Or is that a forbidden topic?

Of course we can, and no it's not a forbidden topic by any means, especially when those participating in the discussion know what they're talking about.

I think your main point in all this is very clear - tell me if I'm not mistaken: why pay premium prices for something that has a short technical life-cycle when cheaper cameras will do almost as well and perhaps with more features? In response, I think what some of us have been trying to get across to you is that regardless of all that, there is a market determining the value of the product, and the market just so happens to value that product highly, which is good for Leica because what they produce is intrinsically expensive for well-known reasons. Those are facts of life and there's no point denigrating the company, the customers or the product because of those facts. It is what it is, take it or leave it.

[KLaban]

Perhaps if I explain a little more about why I use Leica digital it might help traderjay in some way. My comments will be restricted to the cameras of which I have experience!

I use Leica M series digital cameras, the reasons for this are as simple as the cameras themselves. I use them not for any sense of nostalgia but purely for reasons to do with working methodology. The most important factor is the rangefinder - as it happens very expensive to manufacture - which is unique in digital cameras. It allows seeing beyond the frame and I find it to be the quickest and easiest way to focus a manual lens. The Leica M digital bodies are beautifully built and allow the use of Leica lenses of exceptional quality and get the very best from them. They are compact and offer utter simplicity in use which is a quality I very much admire. Above all the cameras compel me to pick them up and use them and give me a great sense of joy. I wish the cameras were less expensive but they're not and there is no alternative. Far from being throwaway my camera bodies will serve me well for many years.

As a professional photographer I used some of the best film and digital cameras on the market including Hasselblad V and H series but have never enjoyed using anything more than my Leica M series equipment.

To describe cameras as throwaway, a facade and a joke without ever having used them is ludicrous and an insult to those enthusiast and professional photographers here who use them to great effect.

traderjay, I invite you to have a peek at my website galleries and explain to me where I've been going wrong, how you think your choice of camera could have improved my work and where my choice has failed. Even better, I invite you to post links to your own work and explain how your choice of camera has been fundamental to your own success.

traderjay, I wish you good shooting.

[Mark D Segal]

Superb photography Keith, and I really liked how your galleries work - clear, simple and effective. Mind if I ask what app you used to create them?

[KLaban]

Superb photography Keith, and I really liked how your galleries work - clear, simple and effective. Mind if I ask what app you used to create them?

Mark, many thanks, very much appreciated.

I made the website from scratch using Dreamweaver. It was a labour of love and a very steep and long learning curve!

[JeanMichel]

Nicely summarized, Keith. My experience parallels yours: I have used everything from a 4 by 5 Speed Graphic (for weddings when I was just in my late teens) to medium format ( Mamiyaflex, Hasselblad), and Leica M's. Now it is a Canon 5D2 and M9 and MP. I recently purchased new 35 and 50 Summicrons, but until then I was using the same but built in 1962 and 1967, still have them – I'll grudgingly admit to prefer the new lenses. I do quite a bit of work documenting art exhibitions and copying artists's works for catalogues and their websites. When I went 'digital' I switched from Hasselblads to the Canon as I could not afford a medium format digital back. That works fine. And now I find myself using the MP, which has LV and an EVF, for that work; bonus: no need for a cumbersome emote release, any cable release fits!

I just viewed the videos with Kevin and Charle Cramer and found his recommendation for the use of a viewing card is interesting (I have used those in photography workshops and seminars). With an M9 or MP, you have a built-in viewing card, from 28 to 135 a the flick of a lever. You don't even need the lever, you just eventually learn instinctively what the field of view will be even before raising the camera to your eye.

No digital camera will be useful in 50 years. Will a Leica be useful longer than other cameras? Maybe not. However, there appears to be a market for used M8's and it also appears that many M8 owners simply keep using their camera. That camera is getting quite long in the tooth in digital years but people keep making images with those. My first dSLR, a 5D, lasted one year before being replaced by the newer 5D2.

[petermfiore]

Yes, the Fuji looks pretty, but it's longer lenses are slow zooms, which I would not buy.

Rob

Hi Rob,
I have a Fuji XE-1 and I use older fast Canon prime glass...great combo.

Peter

[Mark D Segal]

Mark, many thanks, very much appreciated.

I made the website from scratch using Dreamweaver. It was a labour of love and a very steep and long learning curve!

Dreamweaver - I can imagine. Thanks.

[Rob C]

Hi Rob,
I have a Fuji XE-1 and I use older fast Canon prime glass...great combo.

Peter

Hello Peter,

Nice to see you active here again, but where are those atmospheric street shots you did so well? Photography the "second-level" art still?  :-)

Regarding your use of Canon lenses on the Fuji: as it means the use of an adaptor, do you simply get manual focus, or can af still be used if the foreign lens has it? My eyes are not that good anymore, and even using the Nikons with their viewfinder magnification lenses, focus without af is tough, simply because of no split-screen focussing facility...

If it means touching screens and making enlarged sections, no use: I want to have accuracy in the straight, immediate viewfinder mode, as I see and shoot. Having to pause and fiddle has no value for what I'd see as such a camera's appeal to me. Zone focussing is as useless: I have discovered my sweet spot to be f2 if it's there, or F2.8 at the smallest. Just how it works for me today. Also helps since I have no image stab. on camera or lenses!

What's the method to get whatever Raw files Fuji uses into Photoshop as Tiffs - is there a dedicated converter that works well?

Rob

[petermfiore]

Hello Peter,

Nice to see you active here again, but where are those atmospheric street shots you did so well? Photography the "second-level" art still?  :-)

Regarding your use of Canon lenses on the Fuji: as it means the use of an adaptor, do you simply get manual focus, or can af still be used if the foreign lens has it? My eyes are not that good anymore, and even using the Nikons with their viewfinder magnification lenses, focus without af is tough, simply because of no split-screen focussing facility...

If it means touching screens and making enlarged sections, no use: I want to have accuracy in the straight, immediate viewfinder mode, as I see and shoot. Having to pause and fiddle has no value for what I'd see as such a camera's appeal to me. Zone focussing is as useless: I have discovered my sweet spot to be f2 if it's there, or F2.8 at the smallest. Just how it works for me today. Also helps since I have no image stab. on camera or lenses!

What's the method to get whatever Raw files Fuji uses into Photoshop as Tiffs - is there a dedicated converter that works well?

Rob

Hi Rob,
Yes,painting has been my focus for the last couple of years...Things have been going well on that front. Painting is my first love, you know how that goes. The call of the Siren, and all that stuff.

The Fuji combo I use for street. I shoot at f/8 or 11 and manual focus for seven feet and the world is mine.
You will need a ground glass to truly see you picture prior to exposure.

Peter

[Rob C]

Hi Rob,
Yes,painting has been my focus for the last couple of years...Things have been going well on that front. Painting is my first love, you know how that goes. The call of the Siren, and all that stuff.

The Fuji combo I use for street. I shoot at f/8 or 11 and manual focus for seven feet and the world is mine.
You will need a ground glass to truly see you picture prior to exposure.

Peter

Thanks, Peter; I suppose that zone focussing has ever been the route for Leica rangefinder street work, especially as so much of it does employ great DOF... maybe I have the wrong temperament for rangefinders, as several folks have warned me already.

:-(

Rob

[David Mantripp]

I don’t own any Leicas, probably never will, although I had a Q on loan for 3 days and it was a memorable experience.  But I do subscribe to LFI magazine, because of the sheer luxurious quality of the portfolios published monthly, from Leica photographers of all backgrounds. It may well be that one could assemble a similar quality publication by collecting together work by photographers using some other single make, but I’ve never seen one. These Leica photographers, from their bios, are frequently young, not wealthy, and have very little gear. But they have decided that Leica cameras suit them well and are worth the investment. A good number of the portfolios focus on some pretty dodgy parts of the planet, so we are absolutely not talking about “dentists on vacation” here.  Not that buying a Leica makes one a good/interesting photographer - there is plenty of evidence of that on various internet forums - but to say that Leicas are 1% photography is just trolling.

Of course there are plenty of Leica bores around too.  They’re almost as bad as computer bores, you know, the kind of people who list every component of their PeeCee in their forum signature....

[Mark D Segal]

David,

What makes you think there aren't wealthy, artistically talented dentists who make fine photos with their Leicas in dodgy parts of the planet?  :-) (OK, got your point, just having some fun here.)

[JeanMichel]

Perhaps a quote too often used, but:
Ernest Hemingway to Irving Penn: “Your photos are really good. What camera do you use?”
Irving Penn to Ernest Hemingway: “Your novels are excellent. What typewriter do you use?”