Buy what works and forget the name.

I recall an elderly American relative once remarking “Grandpa Francis, he was always a Dodge man.”

Seems that old Frank only ever bought cars from Chrysler’s Dodge division, but quite why this was remains a mystery. I always suspected he got lucky in the back of one. There was no question, it seems, of comparison shopping or of buying the best vehicle for the money. It was Dodge or nothing, which meant it was Dodge every two years given the 1950s middle class belief in changing cars ever so frequently. And while every Dodge bore fealty in its nameplate to the Dodge brothers who gave it life, it always seemed to me that ‘Dodge’ was an especially peculiar name for a car. Still, I suppose there are people who revel in the last name of Schmuck or Fink or Twit. Why, there’s even an English Member of Parliament named ‘Balls’, which has to be the first honest description I have heard of a politician. OK, second. ‘Member’ is pretty accurate also.

And I must confess that you could fairly accuse me of like shortsightedness. For some three decades, flirtations on the side (the English have a ‘Bit on the side’; I had a Rollei) coming and going, I was pretty much a Leica man. It’s not that there really were any alternatives. The Contax was long gone, and Nikon and Canon no longer made their excellent rangefinder bodies. So while I would argue that I was a rangefinder man, rather than an SLR type, the reality is that Leica was the only game in town, though I have a suspicion that had there been others I would still have been a Leica man as it’s hard to think of anyone surpassing the quality of the body and optics.

And while the M body’s screw mount predecessors were true ergonomic nightmares, some of the worst designed (if best made) machines of the past century, the M got it dead right and was far ahead of anything else in the rangefinder world, remaining so until digital came along. Now, to all intents and purposes, the Leica interchangeable lens M body is a rich collector’s toy with very limited functionality. And any day now it will be completely obsoleted by exciting designs like the Fuji FX100 and maybe a viewfinder equipped GF2 body from Panasonic. Who on earth saw the Fuji coming? Which means there may be something even more exciting on the drawing boards of Foxconn in China (no, not the US TV network, though that would be an accurate description).

Rich man’s toy. Or, if you prefer, a ‘Bit on the side’.

Nor is it any longer an issue of affordability for me. Sure, a keyboard click or two and the M9 will be on my doorstep tomorrow with a bunch of lenses but simply being able to afford one is no reason to actually buy it. On that basis I would never fly commercial either. Any issue of affordability, for all but the profligate, cannot be divorced from considerations of value, and it’s the value part of the equation which likely means that I will never own another Leica, having abandoned the marque some 4 years ago. The thought of carrying around $10-15,000 of gear for the occasional snap is one which causes deep revulsion in my soul and will continue to do so even when I surpass Gates and Rockefeller in net worth ….

No, brands are meaningless and brand loyalty is impossible to understand, though doubtless much loved by the manufacturer. I would like nothing more, for example, than a computer tablet from someone other than Apple to put some competitive heat under Steve Jobs & Co. and allow me to watch Flash animation, much used in the business world for charts and diagrams. Should it come along and if it offers decent application support, I’m there and the iPad is on Craigslist.

The Nikon SP – the closest to real competition for the Leica M,
but not close enough.

One final thought. With technological change accelerating it’s foolish to regard any camera as a keeper. It’s just a piece of characterless gear, soon to become recyclable junk when something better inevitably comes along. And that’s a good thing as it makes the modern camera a tool rather than a collectible object.