In my field report on shooting with theLeica M8 in Marrakech, in January, '07, I made a point of the frustration I had with that camera's power switch, which is positioned around the shutter release. It has four positions – OFF, SINGLE FRAME, CONTINUOUS, and SELF TIMER. My problem was that I found the switch to be too easily accidentally moved to an inappropriate position simply though the normal handling of the camera.

This is the second M8 which I have used, the first being an early production camera with a serial number around 300, while this one has a serial number around 1,700. I have also handled an even more recent camera in the mid-2000 range. All felt essentially identical, with this control being far too easy to move to the wrong position.

Curiously, after the article was publish there was quite a bit of discussion online about how some people had camera with much stiffer switches. I was also told by a senior Leica representative that the people that hand-as...