Received an email from Leica UK today to promote the range of second-hand cameras and equipment. While I applaud the non-euphemism of “second hand” (instead of “previously owned”, “previously cherished” or, even, “used”), I did smile a little at the space devoted to an ex-demo Leica M Monochrom:
This monochrome counterpart of the Leica M9 is equipped with the splendid 18-megapixel Kodak CCD sensor, from which the colour filter array has been removed. This makes it more sensitive to light and able to capture crisp black-and-white images more than ever before.
It must have been knocking around for all of ten years, but it is looking good for such a long period of demonstrating. And at £2,800 it will find a willing buyer, I’d warrant. I never cease to marvel at the strong residuals of M9s. As Leica hint in the spiel, there must be life left in that splendid 18MP non-live-view chip after all. It’s what legions of users have been saying for years, whether based on fact or myth, but it’s nice to see Leica admitting it.
If you fancy a browse through the Mayfair secondhand runners, cast an eye here. Perhaps your fancy will run to a colourful Paul Smith CL kit, including the 18mm pancake, for just £2,500. Or maybe, you’d prefer an Urban Jungle CL by Jean Pigozzi, again with the pancake, for £100 more. A positive cornucopia of delights here, so why not treat yourself and burnish your street cred?
What think you? Is that 18MP CCD sensor so splendid or is this just a load of old copywriting guff? And your views on the Pigozzi CL will be welcome…
A cup of coffee works wonders in supporting Macfilos
Did you know that Macfilos is run by a dedicated team of volunteers? We rely on donations to help pay our running costs. And even the cost of a cup of coffee will do wonders for our energy levels.
Copywriting optimistically read by CCD fans. The frame of comparison was the regular M9, not any subsequent camera. What makes the Monochrom more sensitive to light [than color cameras] is removing the Bayer filter, which omission adds about 1-2 stops to the sensitivity of the system. The same thing happens with CMOS. The change in sensor in the M9 changed the cover glass, not any functional part of the Kodak sensor.
The M9? I sat on the fence for a long time (my main camera was a secondhand M8). But having taken the plunge in 2019, when Leica offered refurbished M9s, I couldn’t be happier. As Brian says, the rendering is gorgeous. I just don’t use it when the light gets low.
I absolutely am smitten with the rendering from my M9. In my experience, nothing compares to it. I am never surprised at the used prices – it indicates that there quite a few people that appreciate the rendering. I almost purchased the monochrome version but I can only carry so many cameras.
The M9 motivates me to go and capture images – that is what is important to me.
Sales people get saddled with a poor reputation for not knowing what they’re talking about and also being the last to know.
Salesman in the local travel agents looks up from his iPhone when he hears the doorbell tinkle. Customer: “My wife and I are thinking of booking a cruise. A neighbor told us about a new cruise ship called the Ark from a company called Noah’s Line. Do you know anything about it?”
Salesman: “Never heard of it, probably rubbish anyway. A woman came in the other day and asked the same thing. She told me it was a cruise ship for pets! What a daft idea! The next customer will probably ask about a cruise ship in this Noah’s line that only sails when it rains!” Trust me, it’s never going to happen…”
Mike, I had the same email, looked over the fare on offer while I relax at Centre Parcs having a break, and nothing stood out to me, as in, I must have. Has Covid cured my GAS? Perhaps, or has it shown me the fragility of life, and to live in the moment.
For those who can, or follow me on LinkedIn, hear My Covid story, and how I have bounced back wrestling long Covid too. It’s been fun, but those who work with me loved my sessions on this, I got commissioned to do a bigger event.
Could be fun. Even if I am a little nervous.
Let us know what event this turns out to be, Dave. Sounds fascinating.
Oh dear… Such enthusiasm here.. I too received an email from Leica as I had previously shown interest in a CL.
I replied checking if there is any plan for an M sized body with an evf instead. My comments have been noted as interesting and that they will get back to me.
I’ve been also told by a sales agent at another Leica shop that there is no plan for a CL2 and that having a similar camera with a full frame sensor is a possibility.
On the other hand, a few weeks before CL came out, a sales agent at Leica next to Bank station strongly denied possibility of such a camera as CL, despite that being all over rumours!
Fingers crossed…
You’ll never get any straight answers from asking Leica staff about forthcoming models. It’s more fruitful to keep an eye on LeicaRumors. That said, I’ve had my ear to the ground for the past twelve months and there is no whiff of a new CL. There’s an M11, of course, and that should come within the next six months, but no hints about APS-C. Sigma keep churning out APS-C L-mount lenses, though, and they must be intended for something other than existing TLs and CLs. Perhaps they know something we don’t.
I was also in a Leica store this weekend. I did not get any information about a new CL. The guy did acknowledge though that dropping APS-C altogether would make Leica look really bad… after all it was the T that started the new mount… They did not seem to be selling many CLs but he added that most people who buy them really like them (including people who also have FF and medium format cameras)… About sales, apparently the Q2 currently outsells everything else in Leicaland… which is probably why this year Leica already raised the price twice in the US (once with $500 and recently with another $200)… I hope Leica is delaying the CL2 because of the rumored new high MP Sony sensor but who knows…?
Indeed. The whole system is now rather dated, even though the lenses have a good reputation and the CL is an excellent camera. But the system does seem to be in the Doldrums and it will need a lot of effort to whip up a bit of wind. As for the Q/Q2, this has been Leica’s major (and unexpected) success without a doubt.
Being the CL STARTER BUNDLE WITH ELMARIT-TL 18MM F/2.8 ASPH., BLACK, BOXED – PRE-OWNED 2400, for just a bit more you get a decorated one ☝️
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All of Leica’s publicity is, to use your own words, Mike, “..a load of old copywriting guff”! ..and has been for years.
Remember all those claims that the most memorable photos of the 20th Century – and I’ve got the book here, somewhere – were shot with Leicas? ..Does that include sports photos? ..of course not, as the longest lens which Leitz/Leica made for Leica rangefinders was only 135mm. Great cameras – small, but unnecessarily heavy – for wide-ish-angle ‘reportage’ shots ..but telephoto shots? I think not ..though Don could give a more professional assessment, of course!
“..Is that 18MP CCD sensor so splendid..”? ..Er, in bright light, yes. In anything other than bright light ..no. (I’ve got mine here beside me ..but in M9 colour photo format, not Monochrome.) In average room light – lit by a large window at 3:30pm – a bunch of flowers on the table (..with the 50mm lens wide open at f2..) needs 1/15th sec exposure ..set at 160 ISO by the camera’s ‘AUTO’ exposure mode. The pic looks great, and saturated. But at shake-preventing 1/60th it needs an ISO of 640, which knocks down the quality of the pic a bit ..and if I use f4 – for more detail beyond the flowers – then I’m at the camera’s MAXIMUM ISO of 2500 ..which becomes really rather grainy (..and it takes about 7 seconds for the camera’s underpowered electronics to display that detailed photo, as its replay circuitry is so wimpy).
Essentially, the normal M9 (colour) was an electronic version of a film camera, and couldn’t even shoot in such low light as a camera loaded with, say, ISO 3200 film. And the M9 CCD’s life – before needing to be replaced, like mine, due to ‘sensor rot’ – was only 3 years!
The Monochrome version could or can, though, shoot in dimmer light, of course – because it had, or has, no light absorbing tri-colour Beyer filter in front of the sensor – and so the Monochrome’s max ISO was, or is, about 10,000. Much better performance – as long as you want only black-&-white photos.
The Pigozzi CL..? We-ell, it’s a CL. If I do want a specially decorated camera, I’ll decorate it myself. (As I’ve done – hold onto your hat William! – with my Leica III ..I don’t like that large expanse of shiny cast metal beside the lens mount, compared with the smaller, neater-looking, earlier Leicas ..so I’ve painted mine black from the edge of the wraparound ‘leather’ up to the thread where the lens is screwed on. There; that looks SO MUCH better!)
I don’t think either the Paul Smith or the Pigozzi creations were massive sellers. I remember seeing the Paul Smith version on display in Mr S’s emporium at Bicester Village upmarket shopping centre. It was there at full price (can’t remember, but well over three grand). It rather epitomises Leica’s vain quest for the “boutique market”, all those well-heeled non-photographers who pass a smart window and rush in with their black cards to grab a camera because it looks pretty. And the following week, enthused by Signor Pigozzi, they’ll be back for an SL2 and a trio of lenses for another 20 grand.
Well, Leica – according to Erwin Puts – joined Meisterkreis “..a European organisation of luxury goods manufacturers..” in 2010. Not a European organisation of camera or imaging manufacturers, but “luxury goods manufacturers”.
That’s how the company, under Andreas Kaufmann, sees itself. (And don’t forget that until he bought the company, it had previously been rescued from insolvency in 2000 by Hermes ..those are the people whose business is scarves and handbags, and by the German Steinindustrie ..that is, jewellery gem cutters.
So Leica’s been aligned with “luxury goods” for many years.
Der Meisterkreis! Perhaps they’d have had more luck had they joined the Zauberkreis…
Mike, you don’t think the ‘Fancy Dan’ editions were remaindered, but I don’t remember them at all. David, I hardly ever wear a hat, but I would if I saw you with a Leica III. I have an M9 with a ‘new’ sensor which I got done just before the replacement offer ran out. I understand Don’s ‘once bitten’ (or is it twice bitten?) approach. The nice thing about the recent Leica offers is that they confirm that some of my Leica lenses are now worth much more than they were when I bought them as new. Which leads me to the conclusion that the digital stuff needs to be amortised, but the optical stuff will go on appreciating or at least holding steady forever.
William
What makes me laugh David, is the sensor in my Df is only 16mp, but what a wonderfully capable 16mp in comparison. If you fit the right lens, it will shoot in near darkness with wonderful results.
..and with auto-focus, and usable with telephoto lenses beyond just 135mm, and usable with zooms, and with such sensitivity in extremely dim light. An altogether brilliant camera!
Having had sensor failures quite early in the life of both of the two M9’s I previously bought new, and then had the cheek of being asked by Leica to pay for the sensor replacement for both of them when they were less than a year old during during the brief period before almost everyone else’s M9 sensors also failed is still a tough time to remember.
Sure Leica were eventually obliged to admit fault for those others whose sensors failed after mine and they did replace those all for a period for free whereas I was offered what then was still a VERY expensive so called cheap offer if I sent my M9’s back to them and bought two M240’s from them instead.
So maybe I am biased against the M9 though I do admit to loving them when they were working but in short, sorry but much as I once rated the camera I certainly could never trust any M9 again, hence in the VERY unlikely instance of my ever being tempted to buying another ‘Pre Loved’ (or S/H) I know I would very quickly reason myself back out of temptation.
For instance – Has the sensor been changed, can the seller really prove it, even more importantly to me can or will Leica themselves guarantee replacement sensors will not eventually suffer the same sort of fate as the originals? And frankly do I trust them? Whatever having reached this point I would instead slap my own wrist for my even considering going back to or buying a M9 whilst also being content in the view the M9’s M240 successor was not only far superior, but not that much more expensive nowadays ‘Pre Loved’ either.
I’ve written an article on this subject for the next edition of the TLS Magazine. Once it’s published, I’ll reproduce it here so we can have a good old natter about sensors, digital rot and suchlike…