First, the elegance.

Having won many design awards over the years, the Leica M rangefinder camera is itself a work of art. It is a joy to look at and a pleasure to hold.  It has a solid feel ("brick" comes to mind) but weighs less and is far less bulky than a digital SLR or most film SLR's for that matter. The controls are simple and intuitive even in the digital version. The photogapher need not waste time mining through a labyrinthine menu structure. The camera truly becomes an extension of the photographer's eye and brain.

Because it has no mirror, the M offers a number of advantages. It is relatively quiet in use. The shutter of a film M is as soft as a kiss. The digital version is a tad noisier due to the electronic shutter cocking mechanism. Focus is achieved througha large, bright viewfinder rather than the pentaprism of an SLR that can often be dim depending on the widest aperture of the attached lens. The M's lenses, furthermore, are smaller than their SLR counterparts because they need not be designed with mirror clearance in mind.

Although relatively small, M lenses, like the camera body, have an assuring solidity that bespeaks quality. They are gemlike in both form and function and are reknwoned for their optical near perfection. They "draw" superbly and distinctively. In the "old" days slides taken with M's would stand out clearly on a light table beside chromes taken with other cameras.

Now, for the eccentricity.

While the viewfinder is quite large, bright and always in crisp focus, image focus is achieved using the tiny rectangle that is the rangefinder. It is difficult to see with presbyopic eyes whether one employs eyeglasses or the available screw-in diopters. Furthermore, the viewfinder offers pop-up frame lines that are to be used in composing the picture. These are paired in groups of two for various focal lengths out to 135mm. Mounting a 50mm lens, for example, will cause the frame lines for the 50mm and 75mm lenses to appear in the viewfinder. There is a lever that can theoretically be employed, as an aid in lens selection, to shift through the frame lines without a lens being mounted.

Having two frame lines in the viewfinder might appear to be confusing. Never mind. As far as I can tell, the frame lines are there for amusement purposes only. They are optimized for specific camera to subject distances and any subject at a different distance will result in a picture that only roughly resembles what was contained by the frame lines before the shutter was reeased.

Another quirk is that rangefinder cameras max out at the 135mm focal length, at least as far as the rangefinder's focus is concerned. Longer lenses result in parallax error. If you've ever wondered why 135mm prime lenses exist, now you know. There is another reason why lenses longer than 135mm are impractical - they fill most of the viewfinder. In fact, all lenses intrude into the viewfinder to some degree. This is something that the photographer just learns to deal with. With an M, or any other rangefinder camera, what you see is not always what you get.

Is the M worth the extra effort and considerable extra cost? That depends on the photographer. Despite the occasional focusing and framing frustrations, I enjoy using an M. My usual kit of an M body, three lenses, a polarizing filter and a Billingham Hadley Pro bag weighs less than a pro DSLR with a zoom lens attached. For me that makes the M the quintessential walkabout handheld camera.

There is one more thing. Although it is not listed anywhere in the camera's technical specifications, whenever I shoot with an M, magic often happens.

(I have no affiliation with Leica and have received no compensation whatsoever for this piece. The opinions expressed are solely mine.)