douglas_hagerman

I wouldn't buy a new IIIc even if it had a meter. The separate viewfinder and rangefinder window setup is frustrating, the rangefinder baseline is too short, the speed setting system is a hassle, etc. If Leica fixed these problems they'd have a CL (except the rangefinder baseline is still too short). And if I wanted an unmetered IIIc I would just go out and buy one--they're cheap even if you have to pay to get them cleaned up.

What is nice about the LTM and CL/CLE cameras is that they are compact, unlike the M camera with any of the latest generation of lenses. The LTM cameras can easily fit in a coat pocket, partly because the cameras are small and partly because the lenses are small.

The current nostalgia-theme M cameras make business sense--apparently, because there's demand for them--and what's missing now is a range of lenses to match the cameras. The new fast wide angle lenses are great, but they're TOO BIG. What's needed is a set of newly computed compact lenses to go on the MP:

- f/4 90 collapsable

- f/2 50 collapsable

- f/1.4 35 SMALL like the pre-ASPH Summilux and Summicron

- f/1.4 28 SMALL, not like the current f/2.0 ASPH

- f/2.8 24 SMALL

- f/2.8 21 SMALL

"which will obviously be unsuitable by itself"

I think you have succumbed to hysteria. Just put the lens on the camera and take some pictures... it will work fine.

...and why the current crop of digital SLRs will be obsolete soon.

When you add digital processing capability to the imaging system,

then the lens design requirements change dramatically...making

existing lenses irrelevant.

http://www.sciencenews.org/20030329/bob9.asp

I've left my M2 unattended in the bottom of a closet for up to a year at a time, depending on what else was going on in my life. It still works fine.

Hello, these cameras are tough. I can see keeping a "K" type LTM camera in a museum, but everyday M2s and M6s were made to be dropped, stepped on, bashed into rocks, dropped in mud, etc...

Part of what makes collector's items into collector's items is that they have some history, or some connection with history. If the only connection that the M6TTL model every gets with history is that there are a lot of people who bought them as museum pieces, they won't ever be museum pieces, if you see what I mean...

I have a 90 Summicron, 50 Summilux, and 35 Summilux, with an M2 body.

The one I use the least is the 50. The 90 is good for portraits and

isolating subjects in a crowd, and for general outdoors stuff, and

the 35 is good indoors and for street photography. Also, the 35 is

compact. The 90 is gigantic, but the 50 is big enough to be

noticeable, especially with the lens hood on. I'm thinking about

getting a 21, resulting in a 21-35-90 kit... On the other hand, if I

could only have one lens, it would probably be a 50 Summilux.