I had an M5 when they were new, and right out of the box they were great, except that with the squared off ends it never felt quite like a Leica. The meter repeatedly became untrustworthy, and even after repeated repair it would drift off too little to notice in the field, but slides would come back virtually useless. What do you think killed it? The size, the shape, the baseplate rewind, the loss of 1 sec shutter speed, the lack of a winder, or simple disgust with Leitz for lack of ingenuity by making a bigger clunkier camera when the trend was toward smaller, clever designs such as the Olympus OM 1&2.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), March 30, 2001

Answers

What killed it was it was a too-radical departure from the historic Leica M, and Leica had not yet realized they were in the business of producing icons as much as cameras. Buyers voted decisively with their wallets that they didn't want the M to change (much). It was a lesson Leica took to heart and which is very much still a part of Leica's thinking 30 years later.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), March 30, 2001.

What killed it?

E. All of the above.

Think about it: in many ways the M5 is the most "advanced" M camera Leica has produced. (Minolta put TTL flash control and AE in the CLE, so in some ways it remains the most advanced M camera *anyone* has ever produced.) The M5 had a selective-area meter (with the metering area shown in the finder), shutter speed readout in the finder and a shutter speed dial that hung over the front edge of the camera sot that it could be turned with the index finger of your right hand. Oh, yeah, it would even do multiple exposures, if you like that sort of thing. More than 20 years down the road and we again have an M camera with a big shutter speed dial (that turns the wrong way). Still no speeds in the finder, still no spot meter. When the M5 and the CL were introduced, I remember thinking how cool the concept of the CL was and what a beast the M5 appeared to be. I still can't warm up to the M5 much, it does strike me as too big for what it is, but it seems ridiculous that it's taken Leica so long to reintroduce some of its best features.

-- Robert Schneider (robslaurat@earthlink.net), March 30, 2001.

For the record, the CL didn't fail. It was killed. Sales figures for the CL show a production and sale of something on the order of 60000 units in 3-4 years. Leica would do well to bring out a CL/M6/CLE hybrid with a longer RF base, more standard frame lines AE etc. I would buy one tomorrow.

-- mark (mramra@qwest.net), March 30, 2001.

Its also funny now that a good used M5 sells for more than a M2, M3, M6, and even all but the most mint M4's. I wonder if the people that are paying $1750 (one just sold for that on ebay) now for a clean M5 body know it was a failure. I agree, the CL was not a bad seller, it may have been discontinued because it sold too well. I can imagine an updated camera with modern electronics and standard finder lines that would make people forget about Cosina in a hurry. I wonder if Leica is afraid to have more than one type of M body out at the same time for some reason. From reading the M7 thread, its obvious that they will never please everyone with just one camera.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), March 30, 2001.

Isn't there already an updated CL available, this time by Konica and without Leica's cooperation?

-- Chris Henry (henryjc@concentric.net), March 30, 2001.

The CL was a much more compact camera than the current Konica Hexar.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), March 30, 2001.

I agree that the change in the size and shape of the M5 was too radical for Leica nuts to accept which led to its failure. As an M5 user and coming from a family that owns several M3/4/5/6, etc. (we owned a camera store) I feel the M5 is the best user camera. I like being able to see the shutter speed in the view finder and the fact that it hangs over for easy use. The size feels great in my hands and not too dainty to handle. The meter on mine works great but no meter made to date is 100% accurate and shouldn't replace our own judgement and experience. I guess the design of the M6 was to return to the classic look to satisfy the consumers' taste. Catering to the consumers' taste is wonderful. More companies should do that. I would hope to also see some real improvements to the camera as well though. The M6 offers no substantial improvement over the M5. A TTL flash for what is essentially an available light camera? Maybe that's useful for some Leica users but not me. A 0.85x viewfinder? Why not the M3 viewfinder. I think even the collectors are realizing that the M5 was and is a great camera and are willing to pay for them. But you can't have mine.

-- Bill Lee (bill_lee@telus.net), March 31, 2001.

If one follows the various Leica user groups, there's a definite impression that there's a resurgance (or, given it's first round, perhaps a "surge") of enthusiasm for it. People now, looking back, see it as a M6 with a better finder, and more comfortable in some hands. I remember when it came out, though, and I wouldn't have touched it with a ten-foot pole: Leica users didn't use meters, and I still think it's too big and boxy, myself, but that's just me, and I can understand why people like it now.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), March 31, 2001.

I have an M5 - the 339th one produced. I love it but I would like 28 and 75mm frame lines. I guess I could pay leica and have them installed but I could also buy a lot of film and shoot more I guess too. It's definately bigger and more angular but it appears to be the recipient of a lot of respect from other photogs. They see the M5 and often remark about how under-rated it was as a fine camera. They only built about 33500 of them, I don't know how that ranks amoung leica production but It wasn't one of their better sellers. I would seriously recommend every M collector/shooter have at least one in their collection.

-- mark (mramra@qwest.net), April 01, 2001.

The M5 seems to me to be good camera - in many ways preferable to the M6 - it is larger, but that is no bad thing as larger things are often easier to hold and to hold steady. Shutter read out in the viewfinder seems a no-brainer good thing to me. The meters are reliable, but, like the CL, the cell does need replacing eventually, otherwise you get the issues that Bill alludes to. Leica will still do this for you. Leica are very loath to put out a "cheap" Leica again, since, I assume, that many more CLs were sold than M5s - and this cost them a great deal of revenue and profit. For the same reason Leica are probably wise not to embrace a cheaper M6-type camera - they might well cut into the bread and butter sales of the M6. Of course, some people believe that there is a rangefinder renaissance. Personally, I doubt it, most people like reflexes (with good reason I might add - they have formidable advantages), so adding to the pot of available cheap r/fs might be seen to be very unwise from Leica's perspective. We shall see what happens with Konica and Voigtlander, of course and whether they really will expand the r/f market as they hope. A worry, perhaps to those of us who value what Leica stands for, is that they will cut into Leica's profits so much that Leica goes under which would certainly be the end of an era and to me a shame. Of course if "the customer is always right" then this does not matter - but I am not so positive. Leica does represent some kind of pinnacle of quality most of us agree.

It depends a bit on how you see Leica Camera - either as an old fashioned company lacking in good innovative (read digital) ideas who just needs a kick up the backside, or a small company in a world of huge producers where a foot wrong could break them. I tend to see them as the latter.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), April 02, 2001.

About 1970 or early 71, while on an engineering assignment, I flew in the cockpit of a Pan Am 707. I listened while the pilots talked about their reaction to their first time flying the 747. They would nod approvingly, and say "Yup, it's still a Boeing." A year or so later, I again found myself in New York, this time at a camera counter, handling an M5. My reaction? "Yup. Still a Leica." I sort of liked the size. I thought it was easy to hold. I loved the built- in meter display. I didn't have the bucks to buy it then, so I stuck with my M2.

Years later, sometimes I feel the desire to get one, but I remind myself that it doesn't have 28mm framelines, and my 21mm Superangulon won't work on it. The M6 meter is much better, even without a shutter speed display. I don't need to see the shutter speed in my finder, unless the camera is in autoexposure mode. So when I see an M5, I just think, "That's a nice camera, but I'll leave it for someone else."

BTW, the M6 shutter speed dial only turns the wrong way if you are thinking of the front edge of the dial. Think instead of which way the rear of the dial is moving, and suddenly it's going the right way.

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), April 02, 2001.

Well the M5 failed because of the new realities of the camera market and the CL. In the market before the M5's introduction, the SLR was just coming into its own. More and more people were switching to SLR cameras or starting out with SLR cameras. The M5 sold at a rate of about 7500 cameras a year; not that much less than the present rate of about 10 000 to 12 000 M6s a year. The CL sold at about a rate of 16 000 a year. Unfortunately, Minolta, not Leica, made the most money on the CL. The CL took sales away from the M5 on which Leica did make money. So Leica was forced to discontinue both cameras, the one a victim of the others success. Rationalisation within the company almost meant the end of the M line completely. Fortunately the M was saved by the transfer of production to Canada. Leica is now a much smaller company than it was in the glory days of the late fifties and early sixties. Remember Nikon and Canon got their start after the war by making Leica copies and lenses!

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), April 04, 2001.