Slightly OT: How Much Is That M9 In The Window

Walking past our local Jacobs in Manchester today, I noticed a very small part of the shop window is worth arm plus leg: A Leica M9, valued at £4495 (yes, that's those British Pounds) and several small lenses. Some of these lenses had a price tag of less than £1000 so I'm guessing these must be the slower models (I forget the Leica nomenclature for completely unaffordable vs merely very expensive).

So, why only a little OT? Well, with the m43 kit being more or less right next to the über pricey Leica kit in the shop window, some random thoughts sprang......

• How close both Olympus and Panasonic already are in terms of delivering a small system camera system (it's almost complete if you accept 4/3 lenses as part of the system and can live with the slow AF)

• The M9 itself is quite a bit bigger than the Pens but still far smaller than any DSLR, baring perhaps the E-4X0 (oh, and the M9 is full frame to boot)

• How nice it would be if either Olympus or Panasonic were to produce a high end model of a similar size and form factor to the M9, perhaps a "steam punk a la mode" spiritual successor to the Panasonic L1?

Am I thinking of a camera with a market of one (Me)? Could such a camera be a success for whoever makes it? Given sufficient improvements in AF, could such a camera be the upgrade to Olympus's low end DSLRs that the current Pens, in many respects, really are not, at the moment?

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Regards
J

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