Making a digital camera with no rear screen is a pretty dumb idea. Isn’t it?

The Leica M Edition 60 declares bells-and-whistles-free zone for those who can easily afford bells and whistles

Most devices have some element or other about them that is critical for the way they work or indeed for making them work at all. An engine in a car is an obvious example, as is perhaps a flame for a barbeque, ink for a printer and a door on a refrigerator. If we were to remove that critical element, the function of the device may become so undermined that it would become ineffective at performing the tasks we might reasonably expect of it.

Unpredictably unpredictable, Leica Camera has just launched, albeit on a limited, collectable production run of 600 units, a digital camera that does not have something we might all think essential in a digital camera: a rear screen for viewing menus or images captured. The Leica M Edition 60 comes with a Summilux-M 35mm f/1.4 ASPH lens, and comes to us as some sort of Lenten celebration of the 60th birthday of the Leica rangefinder system, at which hair-shirts are compulsory attire. I can’t wait to see what they do for the 100th anniversary in 2054 – no imaging sensor perhaps.
A forward step backwards

Of course this isn’t the first LCD-free camera, but those that existed before have been left on the hillside to die, as technology has progressed and consumer acceptance of dysfunctional digital products has diminished dramatically. To read the rest of this article head to Techradar’s camera channel