Thank goodness for Leica.

Sure they make good cameras, but I think the real blessing they give the photography world is the way they function as a sponge, soaking up a lot of money so it's not going around and inflating the price of the other vintage camera stuff I want to buy.

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synicalx 7 months ago | parent | next [-]

> not going around and inflating the price of the other vintage camera stuff I want to buy.

I don't think I've ever seen the vintage camera market this inflated, stuff that would have been <$50-100 5 years ago is going for $400+ and that's if you can even find stock of it. Even film has skyrocketed in price, despite more of it being produced now than any other time in the last decade or two.

	▲	mullingitover 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		It's somewhat encouraging that there's more of an interest and that it's driving prices up. It means there's less chance that film will die completely as a consumer product. You can still afford some professional grade gear that's in excellent condition for peanuts, as long as what you're after isn't particularly trendy. I paid about a hundred bucks for a Canon Elan 7 that's in perfect working order and works with all my modern EF mount lenses and flashes. That's about the price of shooting and developing four rolls of film! Just stay away from the rangefinders and you're generally fine.

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gaws 7 months ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> not going around and inflating the price of the other vintage camera stuff I want to buy.

Thanks to social media, namely TikTok and Instagram, the secondhand film camera market has seen prices skyrocket. Cameras that roughly $100 have seen their value triple, sometimes, quadruple. It's never been more expensive to get into the hobby.

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10729287 7 months ago | parent | prev [-]

Uh ? Vintage Camera market never been that inflated with people paying hundreds for a Mju II and hyping every single camera one after another, from the best to worst. Film is expensive as hell, same for processing. Plus, leica is not making bucks with film but their digital cameras, especially Q3 as stated in the article.

	▲	mullingitover 7 months ago \| parent [-]
		I'm not saying Leica is profiting directly, just that the brand's cameras soak up an inordinate amount of revenue in the used market. And yes, the used market in general has been in a rising tide lately (especially for perennial niches like rangefinders) but you can still get into very high quality vintage gear for peanuts if you shop around a bit. Hopefully the surge in demand will get more manufacturers looking at making film bodies again so we're not sifting through the dwindling supply of used gear.