[Leica] will you ever buy another leica body?

[pj at GoodPhotos.com (Michael Eric Berube)]

Probably not.

I've purchased five different Leica RF bodies in the last decade and I 
have never yet purchased new.

I'm in that 'professional' category of the aforementioned 'three types 
of folks who post on the LUG', but I do purchase the best equipment for 
the job that I do, that equipment happens to be Nikon DSLRs. For a small 
select cadre of commercial shooters the new S2 may look like a good 
value, but for most of us it is nice tech that we don't need.

The M8 is a very nice camera and no one would argue that Leica lenses 
are not the best on the planet, but even at their best, they are simply 
not in the same category as a D700 (or even a 'cheap' D90) in high ISO 
image quality even with lesser lenses...and this is not even taking into 
account seamlessly balanced iTTL flash use that the Nikon brings to the 
table as an additional option.

I know that there are some folks out there who've made the investment 
and are making the equipment work for them very well (Sonny, Tina, Ted, 
Chris....), but for my own business, I can far more easily justify clean 
6400ISO at f/1.8 for $3200 over clean 640ISO at f/1 for $11500 (or even 
f/1.4 for a mere $9000) any day of the week.

I love my Leica IIIf (and my Rollei) but they are 'fun' cameras for me, 
not practical working tools.

Carpe Lumen,
Michael Eric Berube
GoodPhotos.com