The Nikon That Failed Its Diet, The Leica Lost in Naming Chaos — Which Retro Camera Has the Most Style?

Living in the digital age, you can’t help but feel nostalgic for the past. And so the “retro camera” was born.

A retro camera has a crisp, angular silhouette, top-plate dials, a vintage-style shutter button, and exquisite leatherette. Yet it also carries all the telltale marks of the digital era: an LCD screen, a discreetly tucked-away TTL pop-up flash, and control dials made for digital convenience.

If a camera were a person, a retro camera would be that youthful, cultured rebel — all stern, old-school composure on the outside, restlessly alive on the inside. One word sums it up: sexy.

So today, let’s take a stroll through the gorgeous retro cameras that once had us all itching to pull the trigger — and see where they stand now.

Nikon Df

Back in the film era, the Nikon FM2 and F3 were royalty. A 1/4000s mechanical shutter, a long, lean body, that satisfying heft, silky-smooth film advance — pair one with a razor-sharp Nikkor prime, and it felt like falling in love.

And so, after who-knows-what internal battles within Nikon’s product strategy division, the company finally released a compact full-frame camera in 2013: the Nikon Df. Back then, full-frame was still a luxurious fantasy, and this camera — packing the same sensor as Nikon’s flagship D4 — was predictably expensive. It was also, frankly, a bit of a chunky boy.

The front says “pure retro.” The back? Straight-up Nikon D800 vibes.

The top plate is crammed with dials — it’s obvious they were running out of real estate. And yet, amid the chaos, there’s still a dedicated dial engraved with “PASM” just for shooting modes. But the real head-scratcher? This camera can’t shoot video. Nikon’s line: we want people to use this camera to take their time and focus purely on photography.

Next to the petite, artsy FM2 on the right, the Df on the left looks like the Rock doing street photography.

So how’s this little chunky boy doing today? No question, it captured the hearts of diehard users sitting on a stash of vintage Nikkor AI lenses. But a market can’t sustain itself on a niche crowd alone. At launch, the body alone cost roughly ¥17,000. A year later, a 24K gold limited edition emerged. Today, the price still hovers around ¥15,000, though stock is scarce — the secondhand market is actually more active.

But seriously: how many Nikon fans are still willing to drop that kind of cash on a 16-megapixel slow-shooting camera?

Fujifilm X-Pro2

Fujifilm is practically synonymous with retro. I’ve already broken down Fujifilm’s market strategy in an earlier piece: without going retro, there’s no way forward. The short flange distance of mirrorless cameras allows for much thinner bodies, and that’s where the rangefinder form factor becomes crucial.

From a product positioning standpoint, the X-Pro and X-T are Fujifilm’s twin flagships: the former leans toward street and documentary work, the latter toward speed. But the moment you veer into “documentary” territory, a big problem rears its head — slap a telephoto lens on the X-Pro, and not only does it look hideous, but the hybrid optical-electronic viewfinder becomes half-useless. And “rangefinder” notwithstanding, the X-Pro2 isn’t exactly light; the grip gets fatiguing after a while, and you’ll end up buying accessories.

The X-Pro2 is still selling steadily, though it trails the X-T2 in volume. Its audience? Street and documentary enthusiasts who love the rangefinder aesthetic but can’t afford a Leica.

Olympus E-M1 Mark II

Olympus also enjoys a well-earned reputation as a “retro manufacturer.” The current lineup includes the OM-D series (7 models), the E-PL series (3 models), and the latest PEN-F — 11 retro cameras in total. Let’s focus on the flagship: the E-M1 Mark II.

Olympus has the most formidable in-body image stabilization on the planet. But it’s trapped inside a circle of its own making — M4/3 users in China are, and will likely remain, a niche crowd. This creates a weird paradox: no working pro is going to show up to a PR event, a wedding gig, or a commercial shoot wielding a retro camera, flagship or not. And the average M4/3 hobbyist is rarely willing to invest that heavily in a body — with that kind of budget, they’d rather chase down those equally pricey F1.2 Pro lenses instead.

It’s got speed that borders on the obscene, yet it’s the least favored camera in its price bracket — like a master swordsman whose talents no one recognizes.

Leica M10

Word is Leica made quite a bit of money this year. But the M10 definitely wasn’t the one footing the bill.

After the baffling naming detour of the M Typ 240 and M-P Typ 240, the M-series rangefinder has finally returned to a sane numbering sequence — though it took a full eight years to get from the M9 to the M10.

Left: M9; Right: M10

In the interim, Leica churned out the M9-P successor, the black-and-white-only M-Monochrom, the screen-free M-D, the actual film cameras M-A and MP, and the stripped-down M262… You could say Leica is running on nothing but nostalgia — but then they also dropped the genuinely impressive Leica Q, and even experimented with the all-touchscreen Leica T.

Even Chow Yun-fat in the movies couldn’t resist showing off his M-Monochrom and the 50mm f/0.95 Noctilux.

Against this backdrop, the M10 arrived to restore the M name — or at least to rescue Leica’s product line from its scattershot chaos. It’s the thinnest digital M ever made. It’s also the most expensive — averaging ¥46,500. As for the reviews? Quite positive. The people who’ll buy one will buy one no matter what. The people who won’t can conjure up ten thousand reasons to sneer.

Polaroid

2017 was the year film staged its comeback. Dead-and-buried Kodak resurrected Ektachrome. The film brand ADOX ambitiously opened a dedicated film store. Young people started treating retro cameras as toys — after all, when friends gather for a house party, snapping a photo that costs ¥20–30 a pop on an instant camera has quietly become the new understated flex. So Polaroid couldn’t sit still any longer.

Can you believe it? With Fujifilm commanding over 70% of the global instant-camera market, Polaroid — to “celebrate” its 80th anniversary — released a ¥959 retro camera: the One Step 2. Worth emphasizing: the film is called i-Type, the colors are rich and saturated, and a pack costs ¥125 (with 8 shots inside).

i-Type film

It’s undeniably good-looking. But based on early adopter feedback at the launch events, the cool factor comes with a sting: not only is the viewfinder wildly inaccurate, but the film occasionally jams. The manufacturer’s response? The One Step 2 is sold out globally, and the factory is running overnight shifts.

A high-end toy that costs over ¥10 per shot. What do you make of it?

Polaroid in the ’70s

Polaroid in the ’80s

Polaroid in the ’90s