This is my Leica M6, its the classic rangefinder camera; mine was one of a batch of 4000 made in Germany in early 1988; and at the time the M6 model had been in production for 4 years and would continue for a further 10 years.

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Like most of his cameras my Dad bought this camera new, and it is still like new; even now, 30 years on, it still has the plastic protection strip on the base-plate! It is by far the most valuable camera I own, (in monetary terms).

 

In its pristine A+++ condition and with its box etc., the camera body alone is worth over £2000. This is a bitter-sweet fact.

 

Sweet, because I know I am very privileged to have inherited this wonderful camera (and many others) in its excellent and almost unused condition.

 

Bitter because, simply put, as a family we never seemed to have that much money, and I think there could have been a lot of holidays and things we could have done together as a family instead of the money being spent on cameras, particularly cameras of this value that were then never used.

 

Until the 'big attic sort out', this camera had not seen the light of day for over 20 years, and like many of the others, no one was really aware Dad had them. We knew Dad had cameras, and sometimes collected them, but never what they were, or their value; he never shared his passion or, as it turns out, did he use many of them.

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However if one leaves all the emotional baggage behind, this is a fantastic camera, the classic 'street photography tool'.

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The M6 combines the silhouette of the earlier Leica M3 and Leica M4 with a 'modern', off-the-shutter light meter with no moving parts and LED arrows in the viewfinder. Informally it is referred to as the M6 'Classic' and is a mechanical camera; all functions save the light meter work without batteries.

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There are a lot of reviews written and opinions expressed about the Leica M series of cameras and particularity the M6; perhaps more than any other; it's the Marmite of the camera world, either loved of loathed. Loved for its total simplicity and loathed for the same reasons. 

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Despite how this camera came to me, in spite of all the negative connotations I could assign to it, I love this camera. I love it because of its simplicity, its quality and its usability, and the way that (being a rangefinder) it keeps you connected with the subjects you photograph, and I love the lenses small enough to stuff into a jacket pocket, and the camera's lack of obtrusiveness, near silent shutter and fast film change.

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Yes, being a manual film rangefinder, this camera appeared to me compromised in so many ways, but when I started using it, and began to really understand what it does, all those compromises fell away. It's the best camera I have.