A potentially daft question

So I'm new to film. Loving it. And I saw a hideously expensively Leica online somewhere, and now I'm wondering is there a point in the price tag besides desirability?

For digital you're paying for the sensor, image processing, etc etc. "Computer things". But as long as you have decent glass, surely a film camera is sort of just a means of getting a shutter out of the way for the film, isn't it?

(not to knock beautiful cameras in anyway. I understand that and I would love a Leica! Just ruminating on the price tag justification for non-digital bodies.)

British Jonathan wrote:

So I'm new to film. Loving it. And I saw a hideously expensively Leica online somewhere, and now I'm wondering is there a point in the price tag besides desirability?

For digital you're paying for the sensor, image processing, etc etc. "Computer things". But as long as you have decent glass, surely a film camera is sort of just a means of getting a shutter out of the way for the film, isn't it?

(not to knock beautiful cameras in anyway. I understand that and I would love a Leica! Just ruminating on the price tag justification for non-digital bodies.)

The cameras a light tight box .

The lens , film and photographer make the image what it is .

If your interested in a Leica film camera , would you not be better off asking for recommendations on either the film forum for an unbiased response or on the Leica forum for a fanatics response ?

The red dot on the camera seems add an extra few thousand to the price without adding any extra to the camera .

Well made , but are they worth the price ?

Just a thought , as your asking on the Minolta forum .

Minolta did collaborate with Leica on occasion including making a compact M-mount rangefinder and an SLR plus some lenses with them . But I don't think that's what your asking ?

Oh I should clarify. My whole film kit is Minolta... I'm just using Leica as the cliché luxury camera example. Substitute Hasselblad or whoever.

I'm really just wondering if I'm missing something obvious that staggeringly expensive mechanical film cameras have that my beloved $50 SRT 201 does not, besides the name.

Some of the reasons to buy a premium camera is for the build quality and satisfaction in using a well engineered piece of kit .

That's not going to make any noticeable difference to the images you produce from it .

If the lenses you have are good quality and in good condition , they will give you good results .

I started with Minolta with the Minolta 7000AF long before digital was around and still use Minolta lenses on my Sony A mount gear along with manual focus gear from the SR to X models .

I also have a lot of other cameras , 35mm , medium format and large format .

Even my pinhole camera has it's place .

If your buying into such as Leica , your buying into a different photography experience , especially being a rangefinder camera rather than SLR .

But don't expect the resulting pictures to be different from your current kit on an image quality basis .

Your style of shooting might change , rangefinder or medium format SLR , large format especially etc tends to make you work a different way to 35mm SLR .

You might prefer the results you get , but that would be down to how you worked rather than because of the name on the camera or lens you were using .

Leica was in many respects the company that made the 35mm format what it is. To that end, they have a lot of collectors that love them, and that always drives up prices. The best argument I have seen for Leica is that (probably because of their prices) older models are often still supported. If you have the money laying around for such a camera, perhaps your time is more valuable than what they charge for this premium.

There are tons of old rangefinders out there - some of them Minoltas. In my limited experience, the models built in the late '50s seem to be the most solid, though lacking in metering. After the '50s, SLRs sucked all the air out of the market and rangefinders in general lost their brief reign at the top of the food chain.