[Leica] Leica M6 Anniversary

[Frank Filippone]

It is also fair to mention that there are a LOT of M's out there.  Spare parts could be fashioned form raw steel, etc or could be scavenged form a 
different body.   Any mechanical camera can be made today, given the right technical skills.

But you can not, without billions of dollars, make a 256mb dRam chip.  And that is why digital camera have given life spans.  Parts to make them are 
out of production.

Ever notic how every new DigiM is compared to the M3?  Says something special about that M3.

And there is one more salient comment.... an M3, even form the original series of manufacture (1953? 1954?) , is still a state of the art camera.  It 
has never been eclipsed.  While I like to think of the M6 as THE best M, with its built in meter, the M3 is equally capable of making equally great 
images.  It is no better than an M3.

In digital, with all the features, and with technology making new designs imperative ( the old 1GB Ram chips are long out of production as an example, 
another being the Motorola 68000 PowerPC processors that fueled Apple's success, when Motorola discontinued it, and Apple had to use Intel 
processors....) and bigger is better, the classic M is timeless.  Nothing eclipses it.

Try saying that about an M8.  Not going to happen.

Quickie History on Leica digital cameras....

The S1, a huge, first in the world Digi camera, that succeeded, to some degree, in the market to archive documents.  A failure otherwise.

The M8.  APS-C sensor killed it as full frame sensors became pretty universal.

The M9.  The sensor cover glass fiasco killed this camera, although the Monochrom is still a desirable camera.

The M240.  Ridiculed for being 3mm too thick.  ( If you want proof that thee isTHE correct sized Leica camera, look at what happened to the M5).  The 
24MP sensor was designed and made FOR LEICA, when Sony turned down Leica as a customer.  While I have no real facts on this, the commercial need to 
make a new IC ( a digital sensor is an IC that is special purpose) was so great that they produced with this design way too late, just for the sake of 
a contract to produce or purchase enough.  At least they somewhat learned their lesson....

Th M10 was going to go nowhere, At 24MP it was hard to differentiate to a M240, except for that terribly large and bulky 3mm thing.......BTW, 3mm is 
slightly less than 1/8 of an inch. after Leica armed it with a 40MP sensor (M10-R) it was an instant winner.

The M11, at 60MP is state of the art, in terms of features.  Customers claim it has too much resolution.  (You can not win no matter what you 
do.....)  the money is betting that the M10M or M10R is THE ideal DIgi M. Enough resolution.

But my story is that each of these cameras was a major improvement (or maybe the word ...further.... is better),  than its predecessor.  And thus it 
REPLACED its predecessor, making the previous model fully eclipsed.

Never happened with the traditional film M.  Perfection from day 1.



Frank Filippone
BMWRed735i at Gmail.com

On 9/24/2024 11:14 AM, Dan Khong via LUG wrote:
> Only 10% of my cameras are digital, the rest being film. I don't expect my
> digital cameras to live beyond 20 years at most. Hardly any manufacturer
> will keep electronic spares for so long. They make more money selling new
> cameras. The IIIf and M6 can live so long because they are mechanical film
> types which can be repaired by any competent repairman.
>
> Dan K.
>
> On Tue, 24 Sept 2024 at 22:31, Lluis Ripoll via LUG<lug at leica-users.org>
> wrote:
>
>> Happy Birthday Leica M6!
>>
>> Today my M6 is 27 years old, still very young, my IIIF is 70 years old!
>> I hope that digital artifacts has also a long life!
>> #LeicaM6#lluisripollphotography
>>
>> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/luisrq/Leica_M6.jpg.html>
>>
>> Saludos cordiales
>> Lluis
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
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