I've ordered a brand new
Leica R9 about 15 days ago. I think it should be delivered to me in the next two weeks. I did some google about Leica in Internet. I was searching for some reviews and people who use Leica. There several good forums related to leica and things related. I've also fond a very
high traffic mailing list named "LUG" . I did not post anything yet. But just sitting and watching people chatting, showing their photos, selling the unwanted equipments, and asking for information and
other things makes me feel good .( although many of the things which they are dealing with is not related to me. I'm living in very isolated country with very little communication to the outside world.)
One thing that makes me mad is The way people handle the threads there. Sometimes you think that this is the beginning of a thread, but when you read the mail, you'll understand that this was a reply to another message that was started 2 days ago. many replays are also start of a new thread, The author just didn't bother him|herself to the write the address for the new mail, and just pressed the reply button. If this happen in other mailing lists, you get angry replays from other persons, but here things are different, although you can see many complains in the archive that some members can not cope with high volume of mails.
I've also done a little bit of unsuccessful search for some Iranians who use Leica. As I've spoken to my Dealer, He told me that Leica did not have any official resellers in Iran after the
revolution until two years ago. I don't know if there was any before that too. So it is not surprising that we don't have a well known Leica community here. But the figures are increasing. He told me that since 2005, sales are growing up at a very slow rate. When I was there he was going to deliver two M8s and some lenses. Leica is a very expensive brand compare to the others. So when the income for an average Iranian is about 600$. this camera is out of reach of many of iranian photographers. But as other luxury brands like Rolex are coming to Iran, I thing leica will have it's place here too.
