Is this camera a waste of time?

semi-ambivalent · Aug 21, 2012

PKM-25 said:
My wife and I joked about having special matching t-shirts made. One would say "I Leica" the other would say "I Leica you too!"...we are goofy like that.
Problem is we only have one M3 between the two of us....

There is a famous story about theater reviewer Walter Kerr whose review of John Van Druten's 1951 Broadway play "I am a Camera", was "Me no Leica."

Dali · Aug 21, 2012

It has been a long time since Leitz products are in a niche market. Like other brands out of the photography domain, they keep up a mythology which allows them to charge whatever they want. Guess what? I am pretty sure they would sell the exact same number of cameras, lenses, you name it, if they were charging 20% more.

In this regard, Leitz is not alone as they can rely on a certain number of zealots ready to justify whatever product they release.

So it is totally useless to be rational as Leitz does not buy cameras and lenses but a mythology. Or you buy it or you don't (in every sense of the word).

Now the concept of a B&W digital camera is interesting. I doubt any other major brand would jump on the bandwagon, unfortunately...

darkosaric · Aug 22, 2012

Dali said:
allows them to charge whatever they want.

APO-Summicron M 50mm ASPH = 7195 Euros (8900 U.S. dollars)

RattyMouse · Aug 22, 2012

Arctic amateur said:
Colour filtering on the sensor reduces sensitivity, resolution and sharpness. Remove the colour filter and you get a sensor that's better for B&W pictures than a colour sensor.

It's a specialist camera. If you want to take the best possible digital B&W pictures, this camera will capture slightly sharper pictures than the same camera with a colour sensor and the picture converted to B&W in post.

It's crippled in kind of the same way a TLR camera is crippled because you can't look through the bottom lens to compose: It's not. Compromises were made to make this camera, like they were for any other camera.

Is it pointless? No, but this thread probably is.

Slightly sharper does NOT make a better photograph. A slight increase in resolution again, does not make a better photograph.

Vision and the ability to execute makes a good photograph.

Arctic amateur · Aug 22, 2012

RattyMouse said:
Slightly sharper does NOT make a better photograph. A slight increase in resolution again, does not make a better photograph.

Vision and the ability to execute makes a good photograph.

It does not necessarily make an artistically better photograph. It makes a technically better photograph. To some digital people this will be important, just like maximum sharpness and minimum grain is important to some film users.

RMP-NikonPro · Aug 22, 2012

Please understand it's just a TOOL! It's just another way of creating a image!
Do Carpenters Forums discuss what's better, " Hand Jigsaw Vs Electric Jigsaw" ??

semi-ambivalent · Aug 22, 2012

RMP-NikonPro said:
Please understand it's just a TOOL! It's just another way of creating a image!
Do Carpenters Forums discuss what's better, " Hand Jigsaw Vs Electric Jigsaw" ??

Perhaps not but back in the day I was 'carpentering' in California and the framing boys used to have some pretty vigorous discussions about the best framing hammer. There was quite a bit of loyalty and a high-end axe was not cheap. There was one brand whose advertising tagline was 'Make the nails bleed'. Of course nails don't bleed, it's just advertising hooking into one aspect of human psychology. Humans are tool builders/users but at some point I think the tool analogy breaks down and you are left with things that are just engineered/finished to a perhaps unnecessary degree. That hooks us too, like crows collecting shiny things. I'll be damned if I'll buy a monochrome Leica but I'll be damned if I wouldn't use one given me. I could admire someone owning one, but would not envy them. Enjoy the tool, even if your images are less than the world's greatest. We share that much.

As for the dissent about a digital camera thread on APUG we could short circuit that by substituting '$8,000.00 lens'. Fortunately, Leica provides those as well.

s-a

RMP-NikonPro · Aug 22, 2012

semi-ambivalent said:
I'll be damned if I'll buy a monochrome Leica but I'll be damned if I wouldn't use one given me. I could admire someone owning one, but would not envy them.

me too!

ME Super · Aug 22, 2012

Jeff Kubach said:
At $8k I'm going to order 12 of them.

Jeff

Nah, you only need 3. One for red, one for green, one for blue. Four if you want another one for Infrared.

lxdude · Aug 22, 2012

ME Super said:
Nah, you only need 3. One for red, one for green, one for blue. Four if you want another one for Infrared.

But what if you also want to shoot black and white? There's another two- one for black, one for white. So that's 6.

And then there's backups. That brings it to 12.

Kubach's always got it all figured out.

Roger Hicks · Aug 24, 2012

"I don't want it" or "I can't afford it". Standard reply, therefore, from the hard of thinking: "Everyone who wants it is either a fool or a financially overprivileged snob."

Cheers,

R.

brucemuir · Aug 24, 2012

What I find a bit comical is the "host" was turning up his nose at Tmax while in the same breathe proceeding to shoot a mono only DIGITAL camera.
IMO no matter how much software you throw at a digital b&w… they just dont look the same (except maybe online). They look sorta like Tmax

Seems pretty poseur to me.

Pitxu · Sep 26, 2012

onepuff said:
...Still, I'm sure there will be a queue of people to buy these with more money than either sense or talent.

This is my feeling too.

It's just bling for the rich.

RMP-NikonPro · Sep 27, 2012

lol

it's just another Camera!!

Is this camera a waste of time?

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