Why would someone buy a 11 year old camera model with no autofocus, rudimentary video, no EVF, and a viewfinder that gets partly blocked by some lenses? And why would they pay a premium for it?

A VSL reader named Gary asked: 

"As someone who has never used a Leica M camera, I must humbly ask why you would go back to a rangefinder with its fiddly focusing, lack of TTL view, and lack of telephoto range. It could be nostalgia for an old (I'm not talking about age) Leica M user, and it could be the tradition of great photojournalists who used film M cameras. I suppose "Because I want it and can afford it" is a sufficient answer. That said, I've always heard that the reason to buy a Leica is "for the Leica glass." And yet all the lenses you mention are non-Leica. I would appreciate your thoughts on the common "for the glass" advice. Is there really some magic in Leica lenses? And all THAT said, I'm glad you are still writing about photography and cameras instead of various and sundry other topics."

 This is where a lot of Leica owners struggle. They know they like their cameras but find it hard to make logical arguments about why they are willing to put up with old tech at premium prices when they could instead buy a feature laden, wonder camera from Sony, Nikon or Canon that's just throbbing with the latest picture taking technology. The inability to articulate the advantages of a Leica M series camera is mostly what gets M users labeled as "snobs" who only buy the brand to show off. To publicly exhibit their buying power and their knowledge of popular "luxe" brands. 

Okay. I can go with that. There are very few aspects now concerning camera selection that make any sense at all. And most contemporary camera purchases are plainly overkill for the actual use (as opposed to their intended use). 

But...there are some reasons that make an M series digital camera acquisition mildly logical. 

I think I'll try to tackle them. 

A commenter posited that the appeal might be about the superiority of the lens optics. That Leica lenses are uniformly a cut above the competition. Hmmm. Might be true if one is splashing out for the $10K+ 50mm APO Summicron. But I have to say that I've seen very, very few copies of that lens on the M cameras I usually see out in the wild. Leica can build some lenses that do have amazing performance but if that's what you are looking for you might be better off exploring Leica's lenses designed and made for their SL series of cameras. Leica takes advantage of the wider throat of the SL and SL2 cameras to make much bigger lenses in each focal length that those made for the smaller M mount. They also have decided that while the M series lenses need to be smaller and lighter the SL lenses can be as big and heavy as they want to be commensurate with achieving the highest performance. Simpler said, the bigger SL lenses have fewer optical design compromises and can deliver the best results. 

The trade off is in the size difference. And the weight difference. And, as you can see, I'm not doing a great job rationalizing the value of an M camera so far....

There are three or four remarkable Leica lenses in the M line-up but there are certainly a number of mid-level M lenses that are more modest performers. In fact, when I compared the Leica (non-APO) 50mm Summicron to the Voigtlander 50mm f2.0 APO-Lanthar lens I found the V lens to be at least as good as it's German rival but at a far lower cost (perhaps one third the cost?). But, be aware that if you use non-Leica M lenses, and Leica M lenses made before Leica started to add a coding feature to their line around the turn of the century, you won't get any sort of electronic information transfer. No exif info. No way to add focal length information or lens correction profiles in camera. 

Oh gosh, again, I'm doing a piss poor job of explaining the appeal of M series Leicas. I did this so much better in my 2000 A.D. article on the Leica M6 cameras for Photo.net. Here's a saved version: https://visualsciencelab.blogspot.com/search?q=Leica+M6 Thanks Dave Jenkins for the save! The article is hard to find these days giving a lie to the idea that what's on the web is on the web forever..... But maybe bear with me.

I'd like to tell you that Leica M bodies through the ages are built like tanks. And, for the most part it's true. But throughout the ages (with the exception of the M2 and M3, and the original M4) the M bodies have had an embarrassing "Achille's Heel." The focusing mechanisms, the optical triangulation that makes focusing a rangefinder work, often gets knocked out of calibration from rough handling. We're not talking about tossing the camera around and dropping it on the pavement (although that's one way to change rangefinder calibration). We're talking about just daily use bumps and camera bag rides. 

So while I'd love to be able to say that the robust body construction nearly guarantees a long working life I'd have to add the caution that during this "long life" the camera will probably be returned to the mothership for rangefinder recalibrations at least once or twice....

Whew. Not doing a good job here pumping up the brand. Might be why I don't get invited to represent...

Let's talk "feel." I started shooting M cameras with various M3 and M2 cameras around 1980. My favorite moment was the day I could actually afford to walk into Precision Camera and lay down cash money to buy a very well preserved but still previous owned, M4. Not an M4-P or one of the later variants, but the original M4. I felt like I had arrived. 

I carried these camera bodies around for the next twenty years. Other brands came and went but the Leicas lasted right up until we decided to jump into digital cameras via a complete immersion. Everything film-y was replaced by digital cameras and their attendant lenses. It was a wild time. A time when even the shittiest 6 megapixel cameras were priced at levels much higher than the Leica M cameras we'd bought just a few years earlier. In fact, you just have to blame the transition to digital for the wild inflation in camera prices over the last twenty years...

So, I carried at least one Leica M body with me everyday, everywhere. And I got used to the handling. "Got used to..." is the operative phrase. Why? Well, because while the sides of the a Leica M are nicely rounded the bottoms and tops are hard, unforgiving metal edges. Handling one for long periods of time is a masochist's delight. And most of those experiences I had with film Ms long preceded the introduction of things like thumb grips and hand grips. It was a good camera to use with a strap because the strap was your safety leash for a camera that....in your early days of using one.....is almost uniformly uncomfortable and hard to hold compared to the lush, jelly bean camera designs of most cameras now. 

I'm beginning to feel just now like I've suckered myself into an expensive reunion with an ugly girlfriend....

But here's where I'll take a turn to a more positive direction. Looking through the optical viewfinder is wholly different than either looking through an EVF or a DSLR mirrored pentaprism. You see the world directly. There is no black out at time of exposure. No electronic interpretation between what your eye sees directly and what the representative file looks like. Nothing is added because you are not even looking through the taking lens. 

If you are using a 50mm lens, which is mostly my intention, you'll see a bright line frame indicating the boundaries of that focal length. But the entire finder shows an angle of view similar to a 28mm lens. That means the 50mm frames "float" in the center of the finder and allow you to see outside the edges of the frame. You get to see what is about to come into the frame and what is about to exit the frame. You can better predict photographic events. 

Because the optical finder never blacks out during exposures you can actually see the direct effect that a flash has on your photograph. You see the actual flash splash across a subject's face. It's confidence building when shooting stuff like events. You "know" that your flash went off and you know if your subjects' eyes were open --- or closed. 

Also, without all of the required optics that make a DSLR work or an EVF camera work, you get a cleaner, clearer and brighter view of the subjects in front of your camera. Think about it. If you are using a DSLR the image first hits whatever filter you've decided to put in front of your lens, then the light goes through anywhere from 7 to 22 optical glass elements, some smushed together with adhesives, before hitting a semi-silvered mirror which reflects the light up into a silvered glass pentaprism and then through mostly plastic optical finders, modified with adjustable diopters before exiting and registering the image on your eye. A direct optical viewfinder skips almost all those steps. A Leica optical viewfinder does so with a sophisticated emphasis on making any glass in the eyepiece out of real, very high quality glass. And, in addition, the image forming light is going through maybe five or ten fewer air-glass interfaces before you evaluate it. A big nod to greater clarity? A cleaner appraisal of your scene?

The real reason to use an M series Leica is the combination of the optical finder and a preference for focusing with a rangefinder. Remembering back 25 years ago I recall being able to focus much faster and with much greater confidence with a rangefinder. The patches line up or they don't. No gray space. No missed targets. Especially with standard and wider angle lenses. The focusing is binary. 

In all kinds of light. I'm pretty sure that's why I've become re-interested in having an M. It's the different feeling and mental process of viewing, composing and focusing directly through the optical finder that I remember liking. 

So, for me it's not necessarily the Leica lenses. If I need the ne plus ultra of optical performance for a job where I have complete control over lighting and camera movements I'll be reaching for some of that Leica SL glass. Or, better yet, pull out the medium format camera and use some of those great lenses. But...one thing I do like about the M series lenses is that almost to a lens they are half the size of DSLR or other mirrorless lenses. The lenses also lack all mechanical complexity (no I.S., no aperture automation, no motors) so I can convince myself that they will be longer lived and more reliable. 

A large part of my current attraction to the M is to use smaller, but still high performing lenses on a simpler body along with the very good feeling of using a direct optical finder coupled to a rangefinder that can be very accurate in focusing normal and wide angle lenses.

The M would not be my choice for most portraits. Not my choice for exacting work. Not my choice for most advertising jobs either. But consider how much time I spend walking around the streets taking casual photos. The M and the small 50mm lens is perfect for that. 

And here's where the M240 gives me a leg up compared to all the previous generations of Leica M cameras. It's the first Leica M to implement live view. This means that using the camera in the dirty baby diaper hold is now possible. As is checking focus after the fact. As is focus peaking on the rear screen.  You can use longer lenses and punch in to focus. You can even put an EVF on the hot shoe if you want to screw up all the reasons I just lauded as being significant and worthwhile....

I'll probably never use the video capabilities that also arrived for the first time in this M camera. I don't use the truncated video features on the Leica CLs either. But it doesn't bother me that they are there. 

Finally, let me toss in a modest amount of honesty about why I bought a camera I definitely don't need and don't have a pressing use for.... When I was growing into photography, working late night shifts as a short order cook at a local restaurant so I'd have time to show my portfolio during the day but still have enough income to feed myself and pay rent, the idea of buying a Leica was a lofty aspiration. Those cameras were a symbol of a kind of photography I think many in my generation aspired to. Famous photographers might have a brace of Nikons over their shoulders but the best of the best had a Leica rangefinder camera on a short neck strap, hanging down at sternum level. Ready with a 28mm or 35mm that could be focused much quicker than the same focal lengths on manual focusing SLRs. 

They were the cameras of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Frank, William Klein,  Josef Koudelka, and so many others. They represented a certain freedom from the bulk of "system" cameras. They connoted that the user had evolved up to the camera.  They were and still are the antithesis of "spray and pray" photography. 

When we bought film Leicas back before the turn of the century you could buy a brand new M6 camera for around $1295. Lenses were mostly priced under $1K. But when Leica finally entered the digital market with M cameras the prices started to double and quadruple. It didn't make sense to buy one while running a small business, saving to send a kid to college, paying off a house and taking care of parents. 

Even now, having a good sense of financial security, I would have a hard, difficult, hard time justifying spending over $10K on a Leica M10R black paint edition camera. The biggest "benefit" being more resolution and less noise on the sensor. All else being mostly the same.

I can "reward" myself for a lifetime of frugality and diligence by rekindling the good feelings I had working with an M series camera. Especially with a nicely preserved camera that cost me only $2800. Half of what I paid for much inferior cameras in the early days of digital. Toss the Voigtlander 50 APO on the front and I hope I'll have a fun documentary camera package to play with. Complete with the brass tops and bottoms and the shiny, black paint finish. And this will be the very first M I've ever owned with a black paint finish. 

Would I have it as my "only" camera? Probably not. I get bored quickly. I like the big Leicas (SL, SL2) for use with zooms and longer lenses. I like the MF for its ability to shoot squares and still have lots and lots of detail in the bucket for large black and white portraits. But for those days when you've got all your work done, your calls returned, your bills paid and you want to lace up an old, worn pair of boots and walk through some interesting spaces with nothing on your agenda it seems like it would be a pleasure to do so with a camera like the M. Even if the lenses aren't demonstrably better than those from other makers. 

Before I go I will also make the point that simplicity of operation, concision on the menus, the minimalist design of the interfaces all add up as well. Design for design's sake is not a fault. Not a weakness. It's about clarifying your mental and visual space. Leaving more room to let stuff in. 

While I am not a "writer" per se this blog post required 1.5 hours to write and proof. The advantage is that the material was created using decades of daily photographic experiences and much tenure with M cameras. Not a glancing blow.

P.S. To Gary. You nailed it.  Bottom Line:  I wanted it and I can afford it. Thanks for the inspiration!!!