hi,
No, I haven't really decided on the DMR, at least not quite yet. I like many things about it, but the price tag for an entire new system is a bit too much.
However, there are many variations in the Leica system as far as lenses go, much like in the Nikon system (NAI, AI, AIS, etc). I don't necessarily have to go for an entire pile of new stuff, and can use older lenses from the used market.
But, I don't know quite what I'm getting into here. I quickly figured out that I can adapt any Leica lens to a Canon body via an adapter, just like I adapt my older Nikon glass. So, it makes a lot of sense to buy a lens here and there, and use them to decide which particular ones are keepers and which ones to throw back *before* I spend a pile of cash on a new R9 body and a DMR.
Once I spend all that money on the camera, I'll want to have a decent set of lenses, and thet would induce me to go buy the latest and greatest, and spend way, way too much in the end.
This way I can ease my way along. Besides, all of us on this board know all too well what happens to the price tag of these digital SLRs. I have an E2 and an E3s that cost, what?, $10k each and a Kodak 560 that cost $25k when they were the latest and greatest things to be had. Now they're worth quite a bit less. So, too, will it be with the DMR.
From my following of the DMR, I have figured out that a lot of R-system/DMR users are really waiting for the digital M to come out. I have a suspicion that once that becomes available, there will be quite a few DMRs on the used market. That's when I intend to get one.
In the meantime, the demand for used 1Ds-I units has gone up as some of the switchers to the 1Ds-II found out that they preferred their older units over the newer one for certain uses. I sold the 1Ds-I I had back to the friend that I bought it from so it could keep his 1Ds-II company. He had taken my old 560 as a backup, so we essentially reversed our earlier deal.
One of the things about the 560 over the 1Ds-I is that the Kodak CCD colors more closely match those produced by the Kodak CCD in the DMR than the CMOS sensor in the 1Ds-I did, so I can benefit from that as well when evaluating used Leica lenses for 'keeper' status.
The only drawback is that the 560 is really an ISO 80 only camera. The 1Ds-I was able to be boosted to ISO 800 without too much of a noise issue, but the 560 becomes unhappy evan at ISO 200. For most of my shooting these days, ISO 80 is good enough.
I also sold my D2H as well, and am currently looking for a decent D1H at a decent price to handle anything I might need to shoot at higher ISOs. It seems like I'm going backwards, doesn't it?
It's also quite probable that I'll pick up a D200 along the way as well. I'm just sitting back and waiting to see what it's really like, but everything I've see so far looks good.
A lot depends on just how long it takes before there are enough DMR units on the used market, but I suspect it'll be a year from now before Leica actually comes out with the digital M. Leica is not the fastest in the world when it comes to getting new products to market.
Regardless of how it all plays out in the end, it's all fun, and that's the important point.
Stan