A long history of compelling images. But it also reminds me how it's become a bit unfortunate that Leica users today have been for the most part reduced to well-heeled hobbyists who are concerned primarily about resolution and 'bokeh' and 'lens renderings' etc..
Leica has designed some excellent optics over the decades that are wonderfully small, and their film cameras are indeed robust and very portable. But again, the current trend seems to be a desire for the much more expensive and exotic lens formulas with the belief that the the lenses themselves will actually make or break a photograph (which then becomes the rationale for spending big money on those lenses.) The photographers from that video (and other recognized artists using Leica over history) were concerned first and foremost with the content and context of the images that the Leica produced, and not so much the device itself or the 'rendering characteristics' and 'bokeh' of the lenses (aside from choosing the focal lengths that worked for them.)
I've always been curious about the obsession with 'resolution' and the desire for a recording 'perfection' by the device itself that seems to be such a priority these days. Any of those images discussed in that video would never pass the muster of today's technically oriented hobbyist. And yet that very same technically minded individual would freely admit that the content of those images are indeed compelling and that they are worthy photographs. Which should remind them that an obsession with achieving 'technical perfection' is for the most part some kind of Sisyphean task.
Anyway, I personally think the Leica is a pretty good tool (since it works for me.) I've been using film Leicas for a long time, but it happened only because I was given one to use for a year by a photographer who had hired me to do her gardening as a summer job. The camera turned out to fit me well and so I started a long term relationship with Leica. But they are a device that makes an image. There is no 'mystique' about them nor do they posses any supernatural abilities. We all know making a photograph comes from the mind; the device is simply something that facilitates (or doesn't facilitate) the process of making an image. Those 'mystical' characteristics always being mentioned are just part of the mythology which gets promoted by the manufacturer (and a reminder that we need to be invested more in the photographer him/herself and the images, and not the camera they used.) I guess this is my dislike about the current Leica AG. They emphasize the past pretty heavily and yet their current business plan has no real connection to that past; it's become a marketing strategy.
Jus' sayin'
