I've written before about Leica obsession. It has many colors, including one of my favorite terms (somewhere just below "chimping"): "Leica Jewelry." That's the dismissive term used by either working photographers or camera afficiandos (the two are not mutually exclusive -- I feel a Venn diagram coming on) for those who know just enough about Leicas ("They're the very best!") to want to carry one around for the prestige, but not enough about photography to truly make use of it. Or perhaps know just enough about photography to think they deserve to use "the very best."
Anyway, one of the prestige factors is price. I'm not revealing anything by saying that Leicas are very expensive. At the last Leica Historical Society of America annual conference I was able to attend (that was 2009, before the game-changing M9 was released), I watched Director of Product Management Stefan Daniel field question after question about price. Finally, he came up with what I thought was an impressive answer: the Leica M now costs less in relation to the average income than it did in the M3's heyday in the 1950s.
So now they've released the X Vario.
"Leica has always been known as the Mercedes-Benz of cameras," said FStoppers' posting on the announcement. "With their unparalleled quality of build, and beautiful designs, they’ve been able make and sell cameras at the premium price tags exceeding $7000. With their latest creation, the X Vario, Leica looks to bridge the gap with Leica’s quality, zoom lenses, and a sub-$3K price tag."
Oooooo-kay.
Even inside the cult of Leica, there have always been complaints with each digital product release, and not just about price. They want live screens, electronic viewfinders (another favorite term of mine: the acronym EVIL, though I don't think I take it the way it's meant), video, etc. Techno-geeks who want cameras that do the very coolest new things, or photographers that think this tool or that firmware is the most useful thing since the pan-tilt lens post in the Leica Users Forum, usually with paragraph of careful reasoning supported with charts and statistics and sample photos. I think the X Vario is the camera for those guys.
They can have it.
Not that I'm a Luddite. Far from it; nobody's happier than me that the new M(240) shoots video. I fantasize the way other guys do about the Playmate of the Month about what I could do with that video function. But that's not why I use a Leica. I like it for the M experience, if you will.
It's something I've tried to articulate before. Put simply: there is a unique experience, a special feeling that comes when one handles a Leica M, when one brings that rangefinder to the eye. When one becomes used to the controls, the camera falls naturally into place -- to the point where I catch myself pantomiming holding the camera while thinking about making a picture. I'm fully confident that, should someone catch me at it, they could slip the M body into my hands without moving them, and everything would slide into place.
The ultra-smooth, almost cylindrical body of the M8 just didn't seem quite right to me, though I understood it as a valiant effort. The M9 was, in my mind, the turning point. As I said to friends, I think it is the digital camera that Cartier-Bresson would finally buy.
The EVIL system, I believe, is just that. I know there are people who think it's wonderful, especially for something like street photography, where people are less likely to catch you at work as they would with the camera up to your face. I just have a really hard time working with that screen.
And frankly the whole thing smacks of a point-and-shoot. It's a really nice point-and-shoot. (For just short of $3,000, I should hope so.) It has, I have no doubt, a great lens and a great chip and a good, solid Leica construction, and I probably would be impressed by the pics made by an able photographer with it, but still ...
No, I'll stick with the M, while I wish Leica godspeed and massive profits with cameras like the X Vario, my main concern is that they be the support for my preferred system.
