Some things are just right, from the day they are invented. Consider the bicycle – for all the flash stuff that is added to the basic Rover safety cycle these days it is still, underneath the gadgets and the heroic brand names, a Rover safety cycle c1885. Many have tried but none has succeeded in improving on John Kemp Starley’s original concept.
The Leica camera is like that. Pick up the Leica M9 digital camera and, except for replacing the film with a digital sensor, there is an immediate tactile and visual connection with the first Leica 35mm camera that came from the Leitz factory in Wetzlar in 1925.
Melbourne now has a dedicated Leica Boutique on the first level of Michaels Camera shop in Elizabeth street. Fitted out in the company colours of red and black, with all the display cabinets and floor coverings supplied by Leitz in the interests of universal uniformity of style, it is where Leica owners and would-be owners can handle the venerable German cameras.
The Panasonic-sourced and elegantly repackaged Leica compact cameras are also on sale in the boutique, but it is the M9 and M9P that you have come to see. (The M9P is the same as the M9 except that it has no Leica badge on the front and costs $700 more, because, let’s face it, the people-who-matter recognise a Leica without the nouveau riche ostentation of the red badge.)
The M9 is heavy and it is simple. For the basic $7500 body there is no fancy auto-focusing function. Move the focus knob on the lens and, looking through the viewfinder, you see an old-fashioned coincident spot rangefinder. The camera feels as though it has been carved from a single block of metal and everything works smoothly, just as a camera should work.
Lenses for the camera will set you back thousands of dollars more and Tony Menz, the Leica Boutique manager, says because every lens is hand assembled and tested by craftsmen, you may have to place your order and wait.
Leica says the M9 is not a luxury item; it is premium. Luxury suggests frivolous fashion gadgets, bought today at great expense and embarrassingly out of date by tomorrow. Leicas are built to last. So they are “premium” cameras intended to function for years.
We could wax ecstatic about the Leica S2 medium format DSLR which, unlike the M9, is as modern as anything from Japan in its design and electronics, but we won’t. It costs $28,000 for the body and $5,000 for the cheapest lens. It is a sublime piece of gear, but not for taking on your next trip to Surfers Paradise.
But if your heart is set on owning a Leica and you want the genuine German-made article, pop into the Boutique and look at the little X1. It costs $2000, has a fixed focal length lens and, if anything, feels even more classic than the M9.
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Apparently the M10 will be released on 10 May. It will be interesting to see how far Leica go down the technology route where they are now sadly trailing. At the very least they are going to have to replace the now unavailable Kodak 6MP sensor for something from another manufacturer.