Four Great Leica Cameras That Are Affordable

It's not often you associate Leica cameras with being affordable, but if you do some digging, you can find some very attractive options.

For a long time, I always wanted to have a Leica camera in my collection. I was drawn to the craftsmanship and the immaculate reputation they carried around the globe. I also loved that unmistakable red circle that denoted Leicas. In truth, it was more a status symbol and ego than anything else, but as I got older and saw more and more celebrities waving Leicas around in their hands, I went off them a little. I also amassed student loans and traveled as a backpacker for many years, which kind of put the idea of Leicas well and truly out of my mind.

These days, however, you can pick up some Leica cameras for very reasonable prices. And that brings us to this great video by Kai Wong, in which he introduces four affordable Leicas. To be sure, these are not new models like the Leica M11 Rangefinder, which goes for a tad under $9,000. They are older models, but like anything that's built well, old doesn't mean bad. A good example here is the Leica M8 Rangefinder, which you can find on eBay for under $2,000. These models have their own quirks, most definitely, but if you've ever wanted to become the proud owner of a Leica, then give this video a look and prepare to be pleasantly surprised.

Iain Stanley's picture

Iain Stanley is an Associate Professor teaching photography and composition in Japan. Fstoppers is where he writes about photography, but he's also a 5x Top Writer on Medium, where he writes about his expat (mis)adventures in Japan and other things not related to photography. To view his writing, click the link above.

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3 Comments

Really? What is affordable to some is not to others. I do not comment very much, but this article was a waste of precious time.

That's surely relative, but a M240 in good condition goes for little above 2000 euros these days - about the price of "prosumer" fullframe mirrorless (or Fuji X-Pro3, for that matter).

C-Biogon 35 or Planar 50, both really competent lenses, are about 600-700 each. (And no, you don't have to use a Leica glass on Leica body, these ZM lenses are about as good.) Summarit goes above a grand, unfortunately, but Summarits are good. It's not cheap, definitely not, but the digital M is certainly quite affordable these days.

(Most such articles linking to YT videos of questionable quality, often recycling a trendy topic all over again, are a waste of precious time, at least in case you waste your time on them.)

The best thing about the M8, M8.2 is it has a CCD sensor. The CCD sensor is excellent. Looks a lot like film. The crop factor is .3 like the Sigma SDQ-H