Just gonna complain about Leicas for a bit, sorry (a thread):

Leicas are so fucking shitty, I'm convinced that the sensor is mounted in my M9 cockeyed (maybe off by a couple degrees). Level the camera on a tripod, take a photo, horizon is crooked. The framelines are off too (ie, level the framelines and the frame is crooked). WHY.

Beyond this, and beyond my shitty eyesight that requires I wear glasses and makes it hard for me to even look through the peep hole viewfinders ... the rangefinder focusing system might be the single shittiest way to focus a camera, period, this side of literally just guessing.

All of this would be ok if the M9 Monochrom produced good files, but it just doesn't. You have to force the camera to deliberately underexpose to retain highlight information while making sure the shadows aren't underexposed enough that when you push them there's something there.

As an aside, I just have no idea what good black and white images should look like. In my mind, a perfect histogram gently rolls off from deep blacks, to subtle midtones, to fluttery, light highlights but this has just never, ever come together for me.

So anyway ... The camera has shoddy construction, an imprecise viewfinder, imprecise focusing method, limited dynamic range ("it looks like film!" my fucking ass), and MSRP was like $8000.

I'm so fucking done with this shit.

There's also the elephant in the room of Leica lenses, another marketing ruse. Leica lenses are not special. The first actually good Leica lens was the Summicron in 1953. (the "Leica look" is due to softness) ... Today Leica ASPH lenses are good, but no better than anything else.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that Leica marketing can play up the lenses through a combination of historical mystique and the fact that no one can know for sure they focused them properly anyway, re: rangefinder systems.

Like, look, I have a 35/1.4 FLE and 75/2 ASPH, ostensibly two of the crown jewels of what Leica currently makes (the FLE considered the best 35mm lens ever, the 75/2 is a 50/1.4 with an element removed and stretched slightly). THEY'RE FINE. There's nothing more to say.

Need to bring this thread together. Lets just focus on value. The M9 M + 35/1.4 FLE, when new, would set you back like $13k clams + tax. Is it worth that in image quality? NO. Is it worth that in experience? NO. NO. NO. NO. NO.

But it becomes a matter of aesthetic value...

Leica Microsystems should rip the Leica name out from under Leica Camera. They'd be out of business in two years.

Ok anyway, aesthetic value: if you are a member of the bourgeoisie and have an appreciation of mid century small camera photography, then sure, get a Leica. Get the best camera they ever made, an M3, with the best lens, the Summicron 50mm (any version), and call it that.