M9 articles (updated thrice)

Articles about the new connoisseur-camera Leica M9: an English photo journalists tests it.
And M Reichman tries it as landscape/hiking camera.
In general it's fair to say that apart from the very high price (with a lens or two it approaches $10k), the M9 is the digital Leica everybody has been dreaming of for ten years.
[Update: here's another review by Jason Schneider, who is the author of many books about cameras.]

Hehe, just looked up the very fast (lets in a lot of light for low-light shooting) wide-wide-angle Leica 24mm lens. An amazing piece of engineering it is. And $6,000 too! If that don't make your balls pull up...
The friggin' lens hood is $240! :-)

The famous but controversial Ken Rockwell writes:
The Leica 35mm f/1.4 ASPH is made exactly like every other Leica M lens, which is superbly. This is why Leica has the problem of some men buying these lenses as if they were jewelry, instead of tools.
In any case, this lens is made to last far beyond any of our life times. It will be taking pictures longer than I will.
I know: I've bought other lenses made like this that were bought 50 years ago by guys who never thought that the lenses they were buying to take photos of their kids would be inherited by those same kids and still used long after they were dead.
This of course brings us back to the jewelry problem: Leica lenses really are heirloom-grade, so the glitter boys give Leica cameras a bad name.

Are the collectors unfortunate for Leica? I can see how they may make some think that Leica gear is not serious tools. But on the other hand, maybe Leica would not survive solely on the tiny market of photographers who can afford their gear and also uses it to photograph? I'd not be surprised if collectors are essential to Leica's survival, particularly in a time where if you go by numbers only (megapixels and so on), Leica does not appear to be good value for money.

Me, I dunno. I like top-grade shit, but... well, it's a bit anachronistic, innit? Why have a rangefinder instead of AF these days? And why the BS cover on the bottom, which was unhandy even on film cameras, and serves no purpose at all on a digital camera.

Doug said:

"A camera in the hand is worth two really gourmet ones back at the flat"

-famed English photographer Randolph Hughes

Very funny, and very true. And I'll bet virtually nobody can tell pictures apart from a $9000 Leica and a $500 Nikon.