Partisans of other camera makers sniff that Leicas are rich men's toys, beautifully crafted and outrageously priced to attract novices with more money than skill who think they can buy their way to artistic excellence by shelling out for the camera that Cartier-Bresson lived by. The Leica M9 Digital Rangefinder, with Summilux-M 50mm f/1.4 lens attachedīut that feel-extremely well-crafted luxury-also brings to mind the biggest knock against Leica. The goods themselves emerge with an authoritative heft: everything weighs a ton, and the markings, all of them engraved and then hand-painted, pop out. Then come terrace after terrace of slick accessories: genuine leather carrying cases, padded neckstraps, rubber eyepiece caps. Inside that gleaming outer layer, the first thing the buyer sees is a matte-black prüfzertificat ('test certificate') and an instruction booklet in six languages (beginning with a 'nomenclature' section). Everything I've sampled from Leica comes in a shiny silver box with diagrammatic, technical-looking drawings on the outside.

Of all the brands I've sampled this month, I think Leica best understands what people want to experience when they open a box containing something expensive and German. I'll feel a little empty, stare at some photos I took with it, perhaps, and then join my friends at a bar where I'll whisper, hunched over a beer, of a time when I used a Leica. Now I'm a convert, despondently anticipating the day I'll have to return my review sample to the manufacturer. But when I started to like it, I started to like it deeply. I was quick to dislike the Leica M9 digital rangefinder camera: my first maddening days with the luxurious assemblage of glass and brass made me question the sanity of anyone who would pay to subject himself to the annoyance of manual focus and 1950s ergonomics.

Leica m9