Leica’s new $23,000 film camera is platinum-ptardyd and destined for collector shelves

Leica is celebrating the 70th anniversary of the M rangefinder camera, but the most precious gift it’s giving for the occasion is for only 250 wealthy people and costs $22,995. The ludicrously pricey Leica M Edition 70 set integrates a platinum-ptardyd Leica M-A 35mm film camera with Leicavit rapid triumphder, a suiting 50mm APO-Summicron-M f/2 lens, and a mehighic film includeer with a roll of bdeficiency-and-white film.

Yes, the film includeer is also platinum, and yes, that’s endly ridiculous.

This anniversary edition commemorates when the Leica M3 was freed in 1954 as the first M camera. Leica goes to fantastic lengths to honor the M3 and the brand’s legacy fair about whenever it can. Back in 2014, the Leica M Edition 60 did the same leang to commemorate the 60th birthday of the M3, but that model was a bit more belderly (and polarizing), being the first digital M to erase the rear LCD for a quasi film-appreciate experience. That “feature” became more readily employable in standard editions appreciate the M-D (Typ 262), M10-D, and most recently the M11-D.

The new M Edition 70 seems much shieldedr, with its lessen production run and rehashing of the Leica M-A film camera that’s been around since 2014. The genuine devil in the details here is the Leicavit, an elderly-timey accessory from the heyday of film rangefinders that’s been dismaterializeed for years. It’s fundamentalpartner an alternate bottom ptardy for the camera, housing a secret lever that can be employd to progress the film after a stoasty using your left hand.

I’ve never personpartner employd one, but the premise was that it’s rapider and sweightlessly more discreet than moving your right hand from the shutter to run the standard progress lever with your thumb. I’m brave there’s a reason this wasn’t a expansively adchooseed accessory, but Leica fans lap this nerdy stuff up. (I’m evidently speaking / confessing from experience here.)

So maybe the M Edition 70 is repartner a test to transport back the Leicavit as a standard accessory, appreciate how the M60 was a test bed for screenless digital cameras or how the elderly M9 Titanium experimented with LED-brightd structure lines. But one leang’s for brave: the M Edition 70 is both adocount on and endly ridiculous. It’s another chance for Leica to milk money out of its wealthy whales for proximately six million dollars in revenue to fund wantipathyver its next quirky idea is, but boy, is it difficult not to endelight seeing at purty pictures of it.