The Leica M8 is the best marriage of the old school film world and the new digital era that I can think of! If I was a rich guy I would buy this in a heartbeat! Â Really to have the camera that was used by the early photography gods is cool enough! To have it digital is beyond awesome!
In fact if the R&D wasn’t so much, I would develop replacement digi-backs for all kinds of old cameras! Like the Pentax K1000, or the Canon AE1 and such! I wouldn’t spoil the fun however by putting any sort of LCD or preview screen on it! You would still have to wait to get to a computer to see what you took photos of!! Or maybe I would ship them with the Eye-Fi card! So it could upload them to your PDA or Wi-Fi enabled device or something!  That would be fun!! In fact think of your lomo or your Holga with a strap on CMOS sensor!! That would rock! Alas it would be a venture that would be guaranteed to fail financially so would be an awful business idea!  Would be fun though! If i was rich!
I played with a leica m8 in a store.. it was really really crazy nice and I wanted it
Which store had an M8 to play with? I so wanna play with one!
I was stunned when I read an article about Leica going digital. I need. I need. I need.
Oh god. I have never wanted a camera as bad as I want two of every Leica model. One to lock in a climate-controlled safe, one to use. :)
Quality is legendary, and the design…*drool*
I have the pleasure of having two friends that own this camera (and the one in all black) Its sooooo fun to use and the rangefinder is so much more smoother and precise than my (affordable) Cannonet q17 GIII. The quality is just amazing, one of the few modern day cameras that feel as solid as some of the old film favorites.
The image quality seemed to be good… but like you mentioned… 5000$ for something that i’d still take after my 5D doesn’t make a lot of sense…
but its sooooo freakin’ fun!!