And now it may be coming backkinda.
Asecond round of credible rumorspoints to a new, cheaper film camera from Leica.
But Leica used to be a workhorse brand, no less affordable than the top-of-the-line pro cameras of today.
Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona / Unsplash
And this may be a welcome return to those times.
No mangled film, no stuck advance levers, no unresponsive shutter buttons, no dead batteries.
Manual focus, manual exposure, and manual film advance.
Markus Spiske / Unsplash
Depending on your chosen model, you might not even get an exposure meter.
But these limits didn’t matter.
At the time, people were used to using manual cameras.
And once you got used to it, the M6 was super fast to use.
Leica’s rangefinder focusing is still the fastest way to focus manually.
The M6 really embodies everything that makes a Leica so great.
As you twist the lens, this ghost image moves.
Line it up with the main image, and you’re done.
Once you get accustomed to it, it’s absurdly fast.
The M6 has a couple of competitors if you’re looking for a model to remake in 2022.
The other was the M7, which introduced aperture-priority auto-exposure.
The problem with the M5 is that it diverged visually from Leica’s typical M designs.
And thecheapest film Leica costs $5,595without a lens.
Perhaps Leica sees that its collectors' pieces are not a sustainable business.
The M6easily costs up to $3K used.
At anything less than that, a new M6, or M6 derivative, would fly off the shelves.
The M6 is already at least as full-featured as those almost-$6K models.
Although, adding in a match-needle for the exposure wouldn’t be unwelcome.
I suspect many people feel the same.
If Leica does this right, it could clean up and make a lot of photographers very happy.
Either way, we won’t have to wait long to find out.
TheLeica Rumors site expectsan announcement in October.
