Leica M9 - Now that's gear lust!

First, let me apologise for the absense of updates in the last week or so. I have a few articles almost ready to publish, but my "day job" has consumed way too much time lately. Rest assured, I plan to have them all finalised this weekend and will resume a normal schedule then. However, I just wanted to get this out there.

As most Leica fans out there, I'm really excited about the new M9. About 6 months ago I wrote an article called "How many cameras do you really need?" in which I stated that one of them was a small street photography camera that unfortunately didn't exist in the form that I wanted. I actually wrote:

"I’d love a digital rangefinder with a decent sensor, good low light performance, manual controls, and ability to shoot RAW ... The Leica M8 is pretty cool, but way too expensive"

Since then I bought a Panasonic LX3 and have been playing around with it for my street photography with varying degrees of success. It's supberb at certain things once you get the hang of it, especially low light black & white photography, but it's lacking in very important areas to me: no viewfinder, no usable manual focus controls, bizzare RAW files that Aperture can't read, and no interchangable lenses. Don't get me wrong, I love the little LX3, but I see it more as a toy than a serious camera. Now, the new Leica M9 is a whole different story. It's exactly what I want in a camera for street photography. I'm not going to go over the full specs here as there are plenty of sites out there with that info and you can read the press release is here. Let's just say it's the first rangefinder with a full frame sensor (18mp) that has everything I want: compact, quiet, light, beautiful viewfinder with good split-image focusing, and lets me use the supberb M-mount lenses without a bunch of unnecessary gimmicks like scenes, face recognition, and useless program modes.

Yes, it seems expensive at around US$7,000 street price, but if you consider it costs less than the top-of-the-line Nikon D3x and "only" about $1,200 more than it's predecessor, the M8, it doesn't sound so bad for all that it offers. Of course, it's not a camera for everyone. If you're into macro photography, require long telephoto lenses (above 135mm), or need fast focusing and/or frame rates (sports and wildlife photography), this is definitely not for you. But for us who're into street photography, this is as close to perfection as we've ever been. And as far as I know, it's the first time we can get a top-of-the-line Leica M series for less than a top-of-the-line Nikon.

Up until now, anyone who wanted to shoot with a digital rangefinder had only the Leica M8 and the old EPSON RD1 to choose from. Both of which use small (non full frame) sensors, which is a critical flaw in my opinion for street photography, where wide angle lenses are desired. I regarded the M8 as seriously over-priced because of this. The M9 changes all that.

Since I heard the rumor that Nikon might be coming out with a D700x this year, I've been saving my pennies to upgrade when it comes out. The Leica M9 is seriously tempting though and I just might hold on to my D700 and bite the bullet and get an M9 instead. Hey, I've been longing for a true digital rangefinder for years and I haven't found the perfect street photography camera. I still think my very old Konica C35 film camera is the best street photography camera I've ever had! Given the history of Leica, I believe the M9 will be a great performer for years to come and won't decrease in value as bad as the DSLR's do. It's also the classic camera for black & white street and documentary photography.

Plus, I've always wanted a Leica.