Would You Buy SAME Quality Leica Gear NOT made in Germany!

[wgerrard]

First point: absolutely. If you can find somewhere else with a workforce skilled in fine engineeing, the cameras will be as good.

I'm not inclined to give much credence to simple tradition. Roger. Germans, the Swiss, etc., are quite capable of making bad products, regardless of tradition. What really counts, I think, is the specific Leica tradition that has encapsulated how one company make cameras. If that is lost, then I wouldn't count on it being revived, even by fellow Germans working with complete awareness of their engineering traditions.

Second point: not sure what you mean. What 'unnecessary bumps and inefficiencies' have you in mind? (I've been around the plant).

First, I'm envious of your factory tour. Second, I was thinking that it's not unheard of for businesses built on tradition to eventually become complacent and become bound by tradition. That can lead, for example, to staff taking 2-hour lunch breaks because... it's tradition. Or to ignoring a new guy's suggestion because 'it's not done that way here'. Tradition is to be valued, until preserving it and adhering to it becomes the primary goal.

 

[iridium7777]

Some of us would not buy a Leica, period.

Kiu

unless im mistaken and this is specifically not the "leica" section of the forum, some of "you" shouldn't post your comments in here, period.


on the other hand, could someone explain to me what is so holy about "german engineering" anyways?

 

[ferider]

Roland, I've spent time talking with Leica CEO's. As a result, I am fairly sure Leica management does indeed regard German labor costs as high. This is not an ethnic stereotype comment, just a comment of business, like China's labor costs being low. And yes I am talking about the M system price increases. That is only the Leica Camera line that has substantial sales. From what Leica dealers tell me, Leica 4/3 sales are so low as to be insignificant. And of course R sales are even worse. And no, price increases are not "Because they can." Leica management is very bright and dedicated. They want the long term success of the company, just like loyal Leica customers.

Thanks for the answer Stephen.

In their last publically available report (for business year 2005) Leica Camera AG made 1/3rd (only!) of their revenue with the M line. This might have changed with the M8 of course. Other products are important.

I am not critizing Leica management. But like other executive teams, their primary objective will be quarter-to-quarter increase of stockholder
value. And in that context brand improvement.

I agree wrt China. And the role of the Euro, etc. Location can not explain the huge price differences to CV and Zeiss though.

Roland.

 

[Avotius]

Being in china I can tell you that the lust for leica is strong as ever as people are being able to afford them now. That said Leica still needs to go the route of Zeiss, lower prices, made in japan or the sort, and release lenses in other mounts. Zeiss is a huge company who kept their doors open, Leica did not, and now guess which one has the smell of death lingering around it?

 

[aizan]

with the crop factor, we're talking about the 35/1.4 ($3,595) or 35/2 ($2,395), so the price goes up $600 and $700 respectively (50/1.4 being $2,995, 50/2 $1,695). there's a 40% increase from the unmetered m3 kit ($447 = $3250.93) to an m8 and 35/2 ($7890).

the m3 was cutting edge at the time, which can't be said of the m8. computers in a camera are a given nowadays, and the computer in the m8 is nothing to write home about. it was really weird comparing the m8 and 5d after i read the post on TOP. johnston hit the nail on the head when he wrote that the m8 is not a great digital camera when it comes to digital cameras, and the clerk at samy's was not amused when i said it seemed more like a russian copy! long story short, i think it's a bad deal.

 

[Roger Hicks]

From this argument, the most unlikely optical manufacturing nation to come into being would be Japan.

Not really. Everyone has to start somewhere, but it took many years before Japanese cameras were taken seriously -- basically, the 1950s, and Konica was founded in the 1870s, I think. I'm perfectly prepared to believe that Leicas could be made in, say, Albania, given a run up of a few decades. But I'd not buy one in those first few decades.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[Roger Hicks]

I'm not inclined to give much credence to simple tradition. Roger. Germans, the Swiss, etc., are quite capable of making bad products, regardless of tradition. What really counts, I think, is the specific Leica tradition that has encapsulated how one company make cameras. If that is lost, then I wouldn't count on it being revived, even by fellow Germans working with complete awareness of their engineering traditions.

First, I'm envious of your factory tour. Second, I was thinking that it's not unheard of for businesses built on tradition to eventually become complacent and become bound by tradition. That can lead, for example, to staff taking 2-hour lunch breaks because... it's tradition. Or to ignoring a new guy's suggestion because 'it's not done that way here'. Tradition is to be valued, until preserving it and adhering to it becomes the primary goal.

Well, for the first point, Leica themselves reckon it's important to have the workforce on which to draw, and the revived Alpa wouldn't have been revived without Swiss engineering. If the M-series Leica died, it might not be revived, but another camera of the same standard could be designed and built.

For the second, no, complacent and tradition-bound is the last thing you could accuse modern Leica of being. The nearest to a problem I saw was the M8 production line, which is a bit convoluted because they had to reconfigure it to produce 50% more cameras than they had expected, because of demand.

Incidentally, why are two-hour lunch breaks necessarily a problem? For many businesses, normal working hours where I live are 0900 to 1200 and 1400 to 1900. Not that you get 2-hour lunch breaks at Solms -- and the canteen (where everyone eats) does not exactly serve gourmet food.

What puzzles me most is a point made not by you but by someone else, about the 'smell of death' hanging over Leica. It's just not so. They're doing very nicely thank you, selling as many cameras as they did in the 1960s. Both Leica and Zeiss (I visited Oberkochen as well) made the same point: going public nearly killed Leica. Now they're privately owned by someone making a commitment to the company, they are much less blown by the winds of short-termism. Zeiss, by contrast, is owned by the Carl Zeiss Foundation, again, not blown by the winds of the stock market.

Finally, I've realized the essential flaw in this whole thread. Leica is a camera, not a brand. You can't just write 'Leica' on something and make it into a Leica. This is 'designer label' thinking, and nothing to do with true quality or luxury.

There might be sense in a 'second string' line, just as Nikon used to have Nikkormat; but when they dropped the second string name and called 'em (or indeed EM) all Nikons, they cheapened the brand. My own belief is that Kobayashi-san has already sopped up that 'second string' market, so that there'd not be much demand for a cheapo 'Leicamat'.

It's true that sports optics are a major part of Leica, but the M8 has really turned the M around (about 70% of Ms sold are M8s) and as for those who say it isn't a very good digital camera, I simply reply, well, it's good enough that a lot of people have bought them and are continuing to buy them, for very large sums of money. No, they're not perfect; but if you want a digital rangefinder, they're brilliant, and I'd rather have an M8 than any other digital camera on the market, including many that cost a lot more (Hasselblad, for example).

Cheers,

Roger

 

[yoyo22]

Stephen it's called a Zeiss Ikon, zeiss ZM lenses and the answer is yes. CV lenses also excell!

My first 50/1.5 Zeiss - originally sealed, fresh from the distributor - had severe scratches on the front element. I got a brand new replacement directly from Zeiss then. It had a giant, dry fingerprint on the front element. Again the lens was originally packed and sealed.

But to come back to the 'everything made in Germany is expensive, build it somewhere else and it becomes more cheap'-attitude. The work for hand assembly by highly qualified professionals plus the adequate quality assurance is expensive anywhere in the world.

 

[sanmich]

Would you buy SAME quality Cosina gear if it WAS made in Germany?

 

[Vickko]

Absolutely, I would absolutely buy Midland gear.

...Vick

 

[Finder]

From this argument, the most unlikely optical manufacturing nation to come into being would be Japan.

Not really. Everyone has to start somewhere, but it took many years before Japanese cameras were taken seriously -- basically, the 1950s, and Konica was founded in the 1870s, I think. I'm perfectly prepared to believe that Leicas could be made in, say, Albania, given a run up of a few decades. But I'd not buy one in those first few decades.

Cheers,

Roger

As you said, it was not until the 1950s that Japanese cameras were taken "seriously", because they were late to the industrial party. They do not have a long manufacturing history - in many things. It was those farm laborers you shun who were making the cameras. (BTW, Cosina's manufacturing center is in the country.)

Konica opened in 1873 as a pharmacy. A little shop in the street. In 1882, they started importing photographic gear and materials. 1902 came their Cherry Portable Camera - Japan's first camera. Now, where did they get the workers? Japan was opened to Western influence in 1854. It was a feudal and agricultural society then! Minolta opened as a camera importer in 1927. A year later they releaed their first camera - a folder. If I remember my company history, in 1937, they opened the first lens coating plant in Japan.

Contrast the west which had its industrial revolution a century earlier. Carl Zeiss started making optics in 1846. Kodak was giving folks simple cameras in 1888 - they would just have to press the button and George would do the rest.

Sorry Roger, I am not buying your argument. Quality is about ability, not social background.

 

[Finder]

and the revived Alpa wouldn't have been revived without Swiss engineering

I assume you are refering to the medium-format cameras which are under the Alpa name. Milling forms out of metal blocks with CNC machines can be done in many places around the world. The Swiss do not have the monopoly on that.

 

[varjag]

Before cameras, Japan was successfully making bombs, machineguns, fighter planes and cruisers. Perhaps war industry develops enough precision mechanics skills.

 

[wgerrard]

Location can not explain the huge price differences to CV and Zeiss though.

Perhaps not, but as anyone who's recently traveled to or lived in western Europe, the region is even more expensive than it has been all along. Many things determine the cost of producing a product, things tat are out of the control of a company. No doubt Leica's particular approach to building cameras raises their costs, but no doubt those costs would drop significantly if they picked up their entire facility, employees and all, and sat it down in the middle of another, non-European, country, even the U.S.

If Leica is not, in fact, inflating their prices to engage in some profit taking, then their management certainly does need to consider ways to keep their prices under control while maintaining both the reality and perception of quality.

 

[wgerrard]

Incidentally, why are two-hour lunch breaks necessarily a problem? For many businesses, normal working hours where I live are 0900 to 1200 and 1400 to 1900. Not that you get 2-hour lunch breaks at Solms -- and the canteen (where everyone eats) does not exactly serve gourmet food.
.
.
.
Finally, I've realized the essential flaw in this whole thread. Leica is a camera, not a brand. You can't just write 'Leica' on something and make it into a Leica. This is 'designer label' thinking, and nothing to do with true quality or luxury.

Nothing wrong with a two-hour lunch, as I will happily affirm from personal experience. Just that if you budget for one-hour lunchs, your cost per production unit goes up if eveyone starts disappearing for two hours.

You're very correct about the camera vs. brand thing. It would be interesting to know how many new Leica buyers are serious photographers who can afford Leicas and buy them because they know how good they are and know how they will use them versus how many new Leica buyers are people looking to buy a good camera who can afford a Leica and make their purchase based on the brand's reputation. Maybe Leica has a notion.

 

[PHOTOEIL]

I am not the kind of person to shoot or European craftsmen, the men and woman working in factory's, in the back. They have the right to earn a good life too.
This is why I bought leica, Hasselblad, Linhof, Schneider, a MAC (assembled in Ireland) and a Volvo (made in my very beloved Gent) and work on Ilford, use Belgian made Fuji-Hunt chemicals...
It is worth to pay more and, perhaps, to buy less.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I assume you are refering to the medium-format cameras which are under the Alpa name. Milling forms out of metal blocks with CNC machines can be done in many places around the world. The Swiss do not have the monopoly on that.

No, they don't.

Nor have they a monopoly on assembling CNC components.

Nor have they a monopoly on near-obsessive accuracy, which has made the new Alpa far more successful than its owners expected.

Nor does anyone else make a comparable camera, not least because others try to cut corners and make a cheaper product.

Why 'under the Alpa name', incidentally? The owners bought the old Alpa company, but got less than they expected in the way of parts and machinery, so they made a new Alpa. This is a bit like saying that Leica no longer exists because it is no longer run by the founding family.

Edit: a further thought. A manufacturing culture is not just how you make something. It's what you think of making, too, and how you think of making it. When I first tried the NPC Pro Head, I asked if the patented design on which it is based was Russian. The manufacturer said yes, it was, but how did I know? I couldn't fully explain. It felt Russian. Not the manufacturing quality (which was superb, in Boston) but the design. The manufacturer had seen the potential and licensed the patent.

This is far from a rule set in stone, but most engineers I know (and I am not an engineer) do, very much, buy the idea of different manufacturing cultures.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[Roger Hicks]

It would be interesting to know how many new Leica buyers are serious photographers who can afford Leicas and buy them because they know how good they are and know how they will use them versus how many new Leica buyers are people looking to buy a good camera who can afford a Leica and make their purchase based on the brand's reputation. Maybe Leica has a notion.

They reckon about 50/50 between 'hard users' and 'people who baby their Leicas', which is probably as close an approximation to your question as can readily be answered.

On the lunches, if anyone took 2 hours, it WOULD be budgeted for!

Cheers,

R.

 

[Finder]

No, they don't.

Nor have they a monopoly on assembling CNC components.

Nor have they a monopoly on near-obsessive accuracy, which has made the new Alpa far more successful than its owners expected.

Nor does anyone else make a comparable camera, not least because others try to cut corners and make a cheaper product.

Comparable cameras? You mean by Linholf, Horseman, Silvestri, and Cambo? Interesting idea of "cheap." Where are you getting the idea that these companies are cutting corners?

Why 'under the Alpa name', incidentally? The owners bought the old Alpa company, but got less than they expected in the way of parts and machinery, so they made a new Alpa. This is a bit like saying that Leica no longer exists because it is no longer run by the founding family.

Cheers,

Roger

Well, I did not know they bought the company. But unlike Leica or Contax (bought by Kyocera), they did not to continue to manufacture the same type of camera line. I don't think the tradition of 35mm SLR Alpas are being continued under the new Alpa so continuity of the old company to the new one seems cut. It does not seem to be the same company.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Comparable cameras? You mean by Linholf, Horseman, Silvestri, and Cambo? Interesting idea of "cheap." Where are you getting the idea that these companies are cutting corners?

Try fitting a digital back, and you will find out. With film, it doesn't matter so much, not least because of poor film flatness (Zeiss has done a lot of research on this). With digital, it does matter.

Cheers,

Roger