Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2024/06/06/with-a-new-app-leica-essentially-admits-that-film-is-dead.html
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The new film camera market is basically dead. For 35mm you can get a 20-40 dollar plastic point and shoot, a refurbished AE-1 or K1000 for 300 dollars or a Leica M6 for 5600 dollars. The Medium format world is worse either a 40 dollar Holga or a Linhof Technikardan on special order for 8000 once you factor in the cost of the film back.
The good news is the used market is still alive and well and I’m often fighting myself not to spend thousands on a Bronica SqAi. I don’t see film itself going away anytime soon. It’s getting fairly expensive but there’s still people coating glass plates for dry plate cameras.
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Film is as dead as vinyl. In that it’s a niche market and not mass market.
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Film may be dead, but Leica’s bread and butter is cameras and lenses. An app still can’t change the physical constraints of your phone’s tiny cameras.
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Yup. And I believe Leica have never been a “mass market” camera. My experience: Only one friend over the years has owned a Leica. It was one of my two professional photographer friends (the other’s workhorses were a Nikon and a Hasselblad).
Now I’m curious how much the decline of camera ownership has affected Leica. Leica was never something you bought when you wanted “a camera”. You bought it when you wanted either what a Leica could do, or a status piece, or both. That doesn’t feel like a market that would be as affected by “my phone is good enough” (which includes me).
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ah leica.
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I wonder if they have specialist brand flensing drills in suit school; or if it just comes naturally to some of them?
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This is a bit off topic, but my late father had a collection of vintage cameras, everything from kodak instamatics, to a Busch Pressman, Ocean OX-2, argus, retina, etc. No idea about their working condition and some look like they could use some TLC.
However, they’re not something my sibling and I really care to keep, with our space being limited. Would be happy to sell or even donate them to someone or some organization that would be interested in such stuff. Any suggestions? I have pictures of what we have that I can share.
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Depending on where you are it might be worth donating them to a school that has a good film photography course, and hopefully they might get fixed up. But wherever they go i hope they all find good homes. I saved my dad’s Canon 35mm camera and my plan is to take it to a camera shop to get serviced and have a few parts replaced, i don’t see myself using it a lot but it does mean a lot to me.
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You don’t have to–you could easily get such a camera in decent shape for under $1000. I had a whole pile of Mamiya RB67 gear that I got dirt cheap. But I traded my Mamiya stuff for a Hasselblad.
True, I’ve also just been looking mostly at KEH. Just because I don’t feel like playing the ebay lottery.
Many millions of good quality film cameras were sold while film ruled the world. Olympus sold 10 million Trip-35, for instance, and Nikon sold 30 million standard Nikon mount lenses for their various SLR bodies.
A lot of this equipment is simple, well built, and has a lot more years of use in it than it ever got. The Nikon FM shutter was built to run over 50,000 cycles. People with the right tools and skills can easily repair mechanical cameras. You can get a Trip-35 completely refurbished for £100.
Some of the more prized outfits, which were manufactured in small quantities originally, are getting rather expensive. I had a Hasselblad X-pan II setup, which I was forced to sell during a time of financial difficulty. They are now worth $4,000 plus second hand.
There’s a lot of good medium format stuff on eBay in Japan, but it’s expensive to ship.
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I have an M2 and the Monochrom typ 246 (I think I have that right, it’s from the time Leica lost their mind naming things). The premium is in the process rather than the end result. The lenses are way more compact. The size of my 90mm f/2.4 Summarit is jarring compared to my Fuji XF 90mm f/2. Nothing beats the feel of metal on metal threads for focusing. Rangefinder focusing isn’t the best but it is refreshing novelty compared to the sameness that most other digital cameras.
Is it the best tool in the world? No. There’s a ton of trade offs the most glaring is the lack of close focus, ease of missing focus, metering is iffy and so on. Overrated? Yes, but if it’s your thing, it’s an absolute joy to use.
Honestly the digital age hasn’t been kind to them. German manufacturing in general hasn’t been great with digital technologies. Their first digital offerings were clunky and inelegant and they were trying to sell them to a customer base willing to pay a premium for elegance. They are starting to finally make some gains, and if you ask me Leica, Fuji and Hasselblad are the only companies producing digital cameras that are interesting. Maybe not the best or most appealing technically but at least interesting.
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Thanks. I’ve never used a Leica range-finder but my friend who did said it really did a great job of “getting the camera out of the way”, which sounds like what you’re describing, and why photojournalists loved them.
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I remember, ages ago when the film to digital transition was starting, a startup company appeared that offered a film-canister-shaped digital receiver. So basically you could turn any film camera into a digital camera and keep everything else the same.
As I recall, they were bought out and I never heard from them again. I still don’t understand why someone hasn’t emerged to fill that market in that fashion. Maybe someone has and I just haven’t googled in a while. Perhaps I will right now…
Well, okay! Glad I googled. What a pleasant surprise!
Followed through to their site, it looks like they’re taking preorders for delivery this very July 2024.
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If you don’t mind spending 8k and the crop to 33x44mm you can get this digital camera and back for your film Hasselblad. https://www.hasselblad.com/v-system/907x-cfv-100c/
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Having a film Hasselblad I need to do that to, would be a problem I’d like to have. 
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The new app does the same thing they tried to do with the FOTOS app. There’s a free tier which does about 1/4 of what the paid app will do…except the paid app is by subscription for about $9/MONTH. The Leica forums are documenting a palace revolt about that one. I predict a volte-face, sooner or later.
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Agreed. And Leica has had high end digital cameras for over 20 years.
The new thing isn’t that it’s not film, it’s that they’re putting their name on a set of digital filters that presumably aren’t much different from plenty of other apps in the app store.
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Dunno how it’s defying rent gravity, but there’s a brick 'n mortar photography shop in Overland Park towing the ‘film only’ line. Maybe their line of whole-body whole-family radiographs (which I am imagining) fill that holiday card to the MD niche? They do a DIY ureter colonization stain set and labile illuminator and 50 mm mounts lens kit for Goop?
[Keeps accruing OnePlus and thus Hasselblad phone cameras for later use in multiverse quantum photography, microscopes from directions in Science articles, and particulate commentary on passing cars.]
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