Leica is actually pretty good. www.drywallmarietta.com recommends it!

None so far.

I still have this, and it's perfectly fine. It has sharp shot, zoom good etc. I still using it when I'm working at junk hauling portland. It's been 3 years now since I bought it.. - pressure washing

Hopefully the battery will last.. I don't know if I can buy a original battery now a days.

Perfect! Excellent quality. view here

None so far.

>lack of needless features >straightforward layout of controls >a minimalist's dream come true >good value over a lifetime of ownership Highly recommended withtree doctor.

prohibitively expensive up-front price tag

Love the quality Emergency Towing Service

None so far

The almost perfect Leica M for film.

The shutter release is not smooth like the mechanical M series due to the intermediate pressure for the light meter. The meter failed at minus ten degrees and I had to take it back to the Leica service centre, where they fixed it, but it has not been so cold since then.

Viewfinder
ease of focus
heft
fit and finish
feel in the hand
the photos

None.

I have owned 4 Leica M6's and a Leica CL as well as Leica SLR's. And I have to say that the Leica MP is without doubt the best Leica ever made and that includes the M3 upon which it takes it's design cues. It is solidly built with excellent fit and finish and is clearly meant to be, and succeeds at, being the final flower of the Leica M brand. Any complaints about this camera (Leica buyers are NOTORIOUSLY fussy and curmudgeonly, griping about the smallest details) will have to do with aesthetics. The heck with them. It's a beauty. I would not change a thing - and that goes for the covering, which feels fantastic!!

Customer Service

None, yet but Leica is pretty good. You can always reach someone - a real person.

Similar Products Used:

Leica M6
Hexar
Leica CL
Rollei 35

Manual operation / Great Center Weight Meter - Exposures are great starting points that I can adjust from & It actually made me realize that this is all you really need. / Construction - I never realized that a 35mm camera of this size could weigh so much! / Lens system is excellent. / Looks -Amazing style I love it. / Very Quiet - One of the strong points that drew me to Leica. / Leica offers education discounts. / Leica's commitment to film. / Images are outstanding with proffesional film. Blow ups are very clean. You just need to make sure you get good scans for digital blow ups.

Very Expensive & the prices keep going up. I only buy new because I never sell & I use the hell out of my cameras. Collectors are driving the prices up. Lenses are very expensive. This is not an camera system easily justified from a dollar perspective, especially for a 35mm system. Rangefinders are not great for close ups. Dependent on good scanning to get images into computer.

This is my first tru Rangefinder. Best camera I have ever owned. I love film and what it offers, and the MP takes full advantage of that. I love the convience of digital and the convience of what technology offers these days, but the manual operation of the MP is a breath of fresh air that turns your brain back on and freshens up your skills. Using this camera actually brings me joy. It is very reaffirming in a photographers abilities. I have always photographed with SLR medium format cameras. I needed something smaller and more descreet. I hated the idea of going down to 35mm. I believe in the bigger neg, but hte MF cameras are too big to take with you everywhere & they draw a lot of attention to yourself. Leica was my answer & I have no regrets. I made the transition in an evening. The results met my expectations.

Customer Service

None needed at this point.

Similar Products Used:

Ricoh GR1, Fuji 645Zi

Its called a "Mechanical Precision". I could not have thought of a better name!
Fast intuitive and confidence inspiring.

All of the limitations of a rangefinder, i.e, limited focal length, no reflex view, no flash TTL, but in its niche applications it can not be faulted.

Prior to purchasing my MP I had a long and fruitful relationship with the Leica R8. Using available light for portrait photography it was a natural progression for me to switch over to the rangefinder. I spent some time trying out used M6's and then my dealer got a near mint MP. It was no contest. The M6 wins on TTL flash and this may be an important factor. Also the MP's flash sync of 1/50 might seem a tad slow. This does not really bother me because as soon as you stick a flash onto a Leica M you are already compromised. What really struck me about the MP was the quality of the viewfinder and the absence of flare from the focusing patch. It was also noticeable that damping of the shutter is more effective on the MP than on the M6 and in theory this should improve picture quality at slow shutter speeds. It would be very difficult to actually demostrate this though as an M6 performs pretty well any way. I was also attracted to the updated electronics in the MP and in practice I have found the metering to be more consistent than on an M6.

I have had the MP for well over a year now and the images from the MP have been absolutely faultless. Image quality with my 50 f2 'cron and 90 2.8 elmarit are very close to medium format at up to 16x12" enlargements. Close but not quite!! The real pleasure in using the MP is in its no fuss smooth quiet and efficient operation. It is very quick to use and inspires confidence.

Others have siad all that has to be said about build quality. It is better than contemporary M6's and the current M7 but both of the latter are by no means badly designed. You simply have to juse an MP for a week or so and its limitations soon appear to be its greatest strengths.

Customer Service

Not tested

Similar Products Used:

Contac G1, Leica M6TTL, Leica R8, Hasselblad 503CW

mechanical precision
quiet operation
lack of needless features
straightforward layout of controls
a minimalist's dream come true
good value over a lifetime of ownership
simplicity

prohibitively expensive up-front price tag
film loading is slow and tedious at first

The Leica MP will be the last camera I ever buy, so long as film remains available.

The mechanics of the Leica MP are completely intuitive in use for anyone familiar with manual, mechanically controlled cameras. The viewing system is intuituive for those familiar with rangefinders, but is totally different from the viewing system of an SLR. If you like the nuances of rangefinder photography, there is no better camera.

The strength of the Leica MP is not what it does, but everything it does not do.

Metering. There is no automation save for the meter. The meter need not be functional to photograph with this camera; the mechanics of the camera will work without a battery inserted. However, the on-board meter is useful and quite accurate for a photographer who is accustomed to old-fashioned, center-weighted metering technique. Think of the reading from the MP's meter as a starting point to assess your exposure settings, then adjust as necessary according to your desired result. That's how I tested the camera's meter, and it performed flawlessly. If you do not understand, or simply don't like using, center-weighted metering then this is not the camera for you.

Mechanics. Leica claims that MP stands for Mechanicam Perfection. Its no boast; its the truth. The feel of this camera in use is more precise than even that of the Leica M4 that I'd used prior to purchasing the MP. I opted for an a la carte version of the MP because I wanted some features not available on the stock MP. I opted for the M7 style rewind crank in place of the standard knob rewind. The standard knob rewind was the one feature which kept me from purchasing the MP when it was first introduced, and now I'm glad to have waited. I chose the standard 0.72x viewfinder magnification. I opted for the 35/50/90 individually activated framelines instead of the full set of framelines which are reflected into the viewfinder in pairs (in my opinion, this clutters the viewfinder). I use only a 50mm lens on this camera, so I don't not need all the extra framelines. The precision of the camera's construction is evidenced best in how quiet the camera is in use. The shutter whispers a muted click of incredibly short duration. For my photography that is not terribly important, but it is still quite impressive. Film loading is a bit tedious. It gets easier each time you do it. In fact, it is in no way difficult, just cumbersome and slow at first. The film loading will never be as fast as that of a modern auto-everything SLR. I do find it easier than loading an old manual SLR, though. Film advance is beautifully quiet and smooth as silk; there is NO ratchety mechanized action.

Viewfinder/rangefinder. The rangefinder-viewfinder is crisp and snappy. I have not experienced any rangefinder white-out with this camera, but have with my M4. There is no doubt when using the MP rangefinder patch that your subject is in absolute, critical focus. The 50mm framelines are tighter on the MP than on the M4 and older Leica models. Leica calibrated their modern framelines to show the viewable area of a mounted tranny at the lens' closest focus distance. At first I was not keen on the tighter framelines, but soon found the difference to be more troubling conceptually than in actual real-world use. I now find I actually prefer to work with the tighter framelines of the MP than the "more accurate" framelines of the M4. Framelines can only be accurate at one focus distance anyway, on any rangefinder.

In conclusion, the strength of any Leica rangefinder is as a platform for those amazingly good Leica lenses. The MP is no different. The Leica MP is an example of technological minimalism at its finest. The main "feature" of the MP is that it stays out of the creative photographers way, and is standardized enough to be able to be used quickly "on-the-fly". I really don't think much about the camera while I am using it. The MP is all about the picture. Is the Leica MP worth the small fortune I paid to have it? I believe I got a camera which is refined a little bit beyond all other cameras on the market, but will last alot longer than any other camera I could have chosen. I find the MP price to have been money well spent. "Worth it" is relative to alot of conditions, the least of which is not if you have the money to purchase it. I put off buying a new car for a couple of years so I could get the MP. I realize that I am very fortunate to have been able to make that choice. So, for me, yes, its worth every penny I spent.

Customer Service

Very good both from Leica and from Tamarkin, New York. Leica customer service can be odd and quirky, but always professional and ultimately staisfying.

Similar Products Used:

Leica M4