I want this

ok so apparently iphoto won't send the fullsize versions to flickr, what the heck

http://www.dpreview.com/news/0910/09100603leicax1preview.asp

http://a.img-dpreview.com/previews/LeicaX1/images/frontpage.jpg

high ISO performance looks great, makes the EP-1 and EP-2 look cheap though.

yeah the high ISO shots had that 'film-grain' look to them, at least at web-viewing resolutions.

I'm extremely puzzled by the Ricoh system that was just announced - who would ever pick it over M4/3 or an entry level Canikon DSLR, especially when in its large sensor configuration it's actually bigger than a E-P1 or GF1?

according to Michael R.'s take at LL, the X1 has a nearly silent shutter - but about a quarter of a second shutter lag. why can't you get it right Leica????

so i think i'm getting a cam for xmas

but which one????

http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2010/09/9-19-10-finepixx1002-1284941430.jpg

*swoon*

Was completely psyched til I found out it's not a real rangefinder (ie Leica killer at $1000-1500).

Still kind of psyched if the autofocus is fast. A camera like that needs to have excellent reaction times. The fiddliness and slowness of the E-PL1/etc. turned me off of them.

yeah that thing looks RAD

does it shoot RAW?

It does.

lately I've found that I've become pretty good at guesstimating focus. so if it just has a real focus scale on the lens I'd be happy.

or, even if there was some way to set hyperfocal distance through the menus. and then just frame using the (optical) viewfinder. swoon

What camera is that pic of?

fuji x100

http://www.dpreview.com/news/1009/10091910fujifilmx100.asp

http://a.img-dpreview.com/news/1009/fujifilm/X100_top.jpg

external EV dial = swoon

That is p. nice. Would like changeable lenses, tho

It's exactly the FL I'd choose to shoot with 90% of the time, so I'm okay with fixed. The old Konica Hexar fixed lens film cameras were A+, as were really old-school Canonets and such.

Hmmm... I should find a nicely refurbed Canonet (I've got one on my desk but it doesn't work) and load it with Tri-X.

the new TOP post about the Pentax K-5 has put some gear lust in me. apparently the best performing APS-C sensor with the widest dynamic range, put into a body with a relatively quiet shutter sound. best of all, great selection of pancake primes:

http://photo.net/equipment/pentax/pentax-limited-lenses

Probably a bit over my budget but I wouldn't mind shiny new pentax dslr action of some description.

new nikon mirrorless out today. 2.7x crop factor?! I know Nikon has the best noise-reduction algorithms in the industry, but...

only one prime out at launch - 10mm 2.8 (27mm equiv.). not bad, not bad...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f0/Sensor_sizes_overlaid_inside.svg/550px-Sensor_sizes_overlaid_inside.svg.png

so the nikon sensor somewhere in between the 4/3 sensor and the 1/1.6" sensor. it'll be nice, and a change, for m43 users to lord over nikon mirrorless users for having smaller sensors.

I don't get the Nikon mirrorless strategy at all. Pentax tried to go smaller than 4/3 and got laughed at - people have come to expect at least the quality of 4/3 files, if not better (ie new NEX model that has the same sensor as the D7000)

2.7 is like some comedy joke. I half expected them to say "and in stunning 1mp vga quality".

I mean look at this http://www.blogcdn.com/www.engadget.com/media/2011/09/nikon-1-system-vs-nex-c3-sensor.jpg

yeah that's p dumb

priced similarly to its competitors, no discernable advantages besides the nikon name. ok, there's a nikon f adapter, but then you've got a 2.7 crop factor, m43 is already pushing it as far as those things go. idgi.

either
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/31ABC3yb09L._SL500_AA300_.jpg
Fuji 6x6 rangefinder

or

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2233/2109255147_1664c78391.jpg
Minolta Autocord TLR by jonathan ponce, on Flickr
Minolta Autocord

I love the idea of medium-format rangefinders, but I almost always used MF on a tripod back in the day, I'm not sure how 6x6 would work (for me) casually.

have always sorta wanted a Bessa R3M tbh

but dayo: how do i shot used Leica?

gbx looking for a leica enabler

p much

think it is a good plan, buy a leica already versus spend a lifetime wondering. was it you who said you maybe had access to some that were in an attic, or?

that too

my dad's a "leica dude" and has an m6, an m8.2, and an r-something-or-other at home. but basically all he ever takes pictures with now is a little point and shoot

sure. a guy in a store saw my camera recently and was all ah!, back in the day i ..., i sort of skipped ahead in my head and started imagining being bequeathed his old, dusty, long dormant leicas (this wasn't the point of the story, but remembering it i realise it was the time i left the store without the paracetamol i was buying, maybe such was the depth of my reverie); would be great to get to play around with something without necessarily having to jump right into making your choice. it's nice to know that there's some flexibility in still being able to trade up and down once you have one, though.

I have a M7 and had a R2A - tbh, I'd go Bessa or Zeiss Ikon over a Leica.

gbx I would borrow your dad's m6!

milo I have an autocord - bought it used off eBay, sent it off to an autocord export for a (reasonably priced) CLA. great camera! there slight differences in all the variations, such as what company did the shutter, but they are all pretty much the same. great build quality.

for used Leica, I would break it down like this:

meter or non meter?

meter, you're stuck with an M6 or newer, probably at least $1000, maybe $900 if you're lucky.

non meter, you have M2, M4, M4-2, M4-P. lot to be said for all of them. depends on what you're looking for. measure twice, cut once as they say!

oh i'm totally gonna borrow the M6. and i was thinking if/when I buy a RF for myself, i'd get something non-metered. the R3M is appealing for the 1:1 viewfinder, all manual-ness, and price. plus, i have a sneaking suspicion that it'll be easier to borrow lenses from my dad than bodies.

but i guess my q to you was: you said in the other thread that ebay leicas are overpriced, and that privated dealers were the way to go. but....which dealers?

hmm, well it depends on how much of a risk you want to take... on eBay, check out the seller wye7, who is a pretty well regarded leica repairman who sells CLA'd leicas on the side. all the bodies he sells have been CLA'd by him and he's pretty good at standing by his work.

other than that, private deals rangefinderforum.com and getdpi.com are the way to go. that's tougher though, because the good deals usually get snapped up quickly. and people get burned on those sites too. and it can be a huge timesink, spending every hour refreshing to see if what you want comes up, and trying to be the first in line.

if you want to go this route, look for ads done by "honest abe" types of people - people who make full disclosure, go above and beyond what's necessary to provide a surfeit of detail about their cameras, and who have good feedback.

other than that, you can try KEH, which *had* a good reputation but people have been questioning them lately. and they tend to be above the market price by $1-200 in most cases, at least on leica bodies.

you can still get good deals on eBay, but there'll be big risks. the worst that can happen is you buy a leica, find out it has a problem, and have to send it in for repair, which can be $2-400. (otoh a repaired leica, assuming good internals and no abuse, will then be bulletproof for at least 10 years, or so people say - I haven't owned one for more than a year yet!)

and if you ever decide to sell, you'll probably get most of what you put in - I'd figure about $1-150 in losses at most after factoring shipping, paypal fees, etc.

I've had very good luck with KEH for used stuff, but it's been a year or two since I bought anything from them. Probably going to order a NIkon FE2 pretty soon, though.

If you got a meterless Leica and decide you want some kind of meter, Voigtlander makes (or made) a hotshoe meter that was affordable - imperfect (you can't really see exactly what's being metered) but good enough for negative.

I guess the main thing to emphasize is that, buying a leica will be a money-losing proposition, in some way or another - just depends on where you'll take your lumps! you can buy a bargain leica and later discover that it'll need repairs - that's a lump. you can buy a priced higher than average leica that's guaranteed to work - but when you sell it, you'll take a lump. if you happen to drop that leica or break some part of it, that'll be another lump. and of course you'll be spending money on film and processing and scanning, which will be a big lump.

it does help to think of the money that you lose as akin to a 'rental fee', and that compared to the initial investment, it's not big. and sometimes you break even when you sell, or you can even sell at a profit. those are good scenarios. if you happened to buy a lot of leica equipment about a year ago, you're grinning right now, because leica prices have gone up in the past year, sometimes by 50-100%. this is because of the success of the m9, and because of the rising china middle class. I don't think prices are likely to come down soon unless something like, say, the death of Kodak happens in the next year. which is very likely. then, body prices will likely fall, but I see lenses as either stable or growing, since there will always be digital bodies to use them on.

and that's not to say digital doesn't have its own share of lumps - digital bodies are almost guaranteed to lose money as soon as you click the purchase button. digital lenses are better in this way.

I bought a used M7 and used 35 Summilux ASPH in early 2003 from folks on the Leica User Group mailing list - my total expenditure was under $3k.
Thanks to Leica's absurd price increases over the last decade, I can probably get $4k for the lens and almost $2k for the body.

That is nuts

a 35mm summicron v4 used to go for $1000-1200 a year and a half ago, now they regularly go for $1600-2500 depending on condition

>:|

30 years ago you could kick a leica down a street

I think it's going to be all I can do to gather a little extra cash and get myself a Leica 50mm (probably an Elmar or something) before just writing off purchasing new gear. Oh well, guess film will die and I'll be using a 5D in a few years anyway?

collapsible summicrons are usually pretty cheap, $2-300, because the front element is really soft and is usually scratched up and they are prone to haze. otoh the collapsible 50mm 'cron was HCB's primary lens. shrug!

30 years ago you could kick a leica down a street

kinda thought that was one of the selling points tbh