Leica are definitely where it's at for the point and shoot photographer who wants more. We updated you on the Olympus Pen a couple of weeks ago and more recently with the supposed Canon G11 (now exposed online as a hoax) update.

But we thought it high time to showcase another little genius bit of German engineering, the Leica M9. I'm not going into specifics about its technological wrangling because I'm an absolute hack and it would simply be a cut and paste job, but reading the collected letters of Hunter S. Thompson I discovered a neat little reference to Leica and indeed photography in general, which I think any shutter bug would get a kick out of.

I'm not sure how much I can quote without infringing copyright so I'll add a link to where you might buy the book as well as it's bibliographic peculiarities (go easy on me Bloomsbury).

On February 26th, 1962 Hunter S. Thompson wrote a letter to James Zanutto, features editor of "Pop Photo" magazine in NYC. It was in response to a piece by Ralph Hattersly regarding "Good and Bad Pictures". Thompson, as per the case for much of the early '60s was an outta work journalist consistently pitching story ideas. This letter to Pop Photo was a pitch to write the story "The Case for the Chronic Snap-shooter" or something like that. What's amazing is Thompson's revealed knowledge on the mechanics of photography...

"...there are damn few things you can't shoot at a 500th of a second, so why get an inferiority complex if your camera doesn't go up to 1000th? Anybody who can afford that extra nickel for Tri-X can shoot indoors at night with any camera that has a 3.5 lens and shutter speed down to 50 or 25. Why give up because you can't afford a camera with a 1.8 or 1.4 lens? First push 3.5 to its absolute limit, and if it still bus you, you'll find some way to buy that other camera. If not, you don't need it anyway.

"After all, the best way to appreciate fine equipment is to shoot with some that isn't so fine, and then move up. But no man will learn an inferiority complex quicker than he who starts out with a Leica and consistently gets poorer stuff than his buddy with an Olympus Pen. And the man who starts out with an inexpensive buy adequate camera will soon learn its limitations, and he'll appreciate his Leica when he gets it." 

Yep. I sure as heck would appreciate a Leica. Thank you very much.

- josh

Hunter S. Thompson
The Proud Highway: Saga of a Desperate Southern Gentleman 1955 - 1967
Bloomsbury Publishing, London (1997) pp. 323 - 324