Thom Hogan, a very wise man

I dunno. Hold a 150 HP outboard motor and it just feels like it has more value than that little M9. You can actually FEEL where all that money went into making it. ;)
 
Keith said:
And being a photographer is well within the reach of far more people than the suffering souls who actually think they need a Leica to be such, if they could just see past that delusion. :)
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Indeed. Everyone needs to decide if the money spent on a Leica is proportional to the pleasure and value derived from owning it.

The hostility some feel toward Leica is perplexing, and smells of class resentment. It's a company selling their products. They have no obligation to provide a Camera For The Masses. I wonder... If Nikon and Canon only made one or two top-end DSLR's, would they be subject to the same emotional criticism?

For me, a more interesting discussion would center around Leica's production techniques and how those contribute to the quality of the product, and if less costly alternative techniques could be employed, by Leica or someone else, to produce cameras of comparable quality.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
I think the "hand assembled" cachet is a significant factor, even if the same quality could be achieved through cheaper means.
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Similar quality, certainly.

Imagine cosina and kodak making a high-end dRF

or Nikon or Canon, if they could avoid all of the plastic.
 
Pickett Wilson said:
I think the "hand assembled" cachet is a significant factor, even if the same quality could be achieved through cheaper means.
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As it almost certainly could, IF they could sell enough cameras. Indeed, there are areas in which quality could actually improve through greater automation, again IF they maintained the same level of inspection (every piece) instead of batch testing as most manufacturers do.

The reason I used capital letters for both IFs is that they are, literally, big IFs. The cost of installing additional mechanization is almost certainly prohibitive relative to the number of cameras they could sell.

At a broad guess, based on a modest acqaintance with the size of the rangefinder camera market, and a still more modest acquaintance with manufacturing costs (my step-mother's family owned a factory, and my sister in law owned a machine shop), the size of the market for M9s at anything resembling a realistic machine-made price is probably no more than 3x to 5x what it is at the moment, and to achieve that price, they'd need to make 10x as many cameras. Which also addresses Bill Gerrard's point.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
As it almost certainly could, IF they could sell enough cameras. Indeed, there are areas in which quality could actually improve through greater automation, again IF they maintained the same level of inspection (every piece) instead of batch testing as most manufacturers do.

The reason I used capital letters for both IFs is that they are, literally, big IFs. The cost of installing additional mechanization is almost certainly prohibitive relative to the number of cameras they could sell.

At a broad guess, based on a modest acqaintance with the size of the rangefinder camera market, and a still more modest acquaintance with manufacturing costs (my step-mother's family owned a factory, and my sister in law owned a machine shop), the size of the market for M9s at anything resembling a realistic machine-made price is probably no more than 3x to 5x what it is at the moment, and to achieve that price, they'd need to make 10x as many cameras. Which also addresses Bill Gerrard's point.

Cheers,

R.
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Roger: I will give an example in support of your point. I can buy a factory machined Colt 45 ACP for around $900 USD, but if I buy the same gun refined by a gunsmith, this involves hand working all the edges, trigger work, a more accurate barrel, and better gun sights. The cost will be $3000 USD. A significant difference between something that is CNC machined and assembled vs something that is hand worked and refined after the CNC machining.

Kindest Regards,
 
A further thought. I've just been thinking about how many principals I've met in the camera manufacturing business, and how many top management. It's surprisingly many of the former (the majority, it's true, in large format), and a modest number of the latter. In fact for a short while in the 80s I had a small business manufacturing LF cameras myself (Imperial -- we made fewer than a dozen, in 11x14 and 8x10 with one 4x5).

Anyone who's been there will probably tell you the same thing. It ain't as easy as it looks. Just about EVERY photographer thinks he can design a better camera than anything else on the market. A few may be right. Most aren't.

Cheers,

R.
 
biggambi said:
Roger: I will give an example in support of your point. I can buy a factory machined Colt 45 ACP for around $900 USD, but if I buy the same gun refined by a gunsmith, this involves hand working all the edges, trigger work, a more accurate barrel, and better gun sights. The cost will be $3000 USD. A significant difference between something that is CNC machined and assembled vs something that is hand worked and refined after the CNC machining.

Kindest Regards,
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Ah, yes, well... Frances and I have a 1934 National Match, blueprinted at the factory. My late father-in-law bought it new.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
A
At a broad guess, based on a modest acqaintance with the size of the rangefinder camera market, and a still more modest acquaintance with manufacturing costs (my step-mother's family owned a factory, and my sister in law owned a machine shop), the size of the market for M9s at anything resembling a realistic machine-made price is probably no more than 3x to 5x what it is at the moment, and to achieve that price, they'd need to make 10x as many cameras. Which also addresses Bill Gerrard's point.

Cheers,

R.
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I think that chain of assumptions is broadly correct. The market for Leica-comparable rangefinders is too small to warrant creating an automated facility. Remove the market realities surrounding rangefinders from the equation, and it becomes a different question.

At some volume of production, it doesn't make sense to hand-build every item because the market won't absorb the products at the required price. Presumably, Leica has reached a happy equilibrium and has no motivation to increase production to a level requiring automation.

I stand by my prediction of EVF's offering optical capabilities, as well as earlier predictions of cheaper, large sensors. Given those two commodities, the potential will exist for someone's automated factory to make very high quality cameras with the characteristics of rangefinders minus the actual rangefinder mechanism.
 
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Harry Lime said:
The solution would be to introduce a digital CL. The camera that many people want, but Solms is unwilling to build for god knows what reason. The X1 is not this camera, but a P&S with a very big sensor. Nothing more and nothing less.
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While you are correct that the X1 is not a digital CL, it certainly isn't a point and shoot... outside of auto-focus, it is fully manual.
 
wgerrard said:
I think that chain of assumptions is broadly correct. The market for Leica-comparable rangefinders is too small to warrant creating an automated facility. Remove the market realities surrounding rangefinders from the equation, and it becomes a different question.

At some volume of production, it doesn't make sense to hand-build every item because the market won't absorb the products at the required price. Presumably, Leica has reached a happy equilibrium and has no motivation to increase production to a level requiring automation.

I stand by my prediction of EVF's offering optical capabilities, as well as earlier predictions of cheaper, large sensors. Given those two commodities, the potential will exist for someone's automated factory to make very high quality cameras with the characteristics of rangefinders minus the actual rangefinder mechanism.
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Dear Bill,

Probably, sooner or later, though I doubt the market for a FF M-mount EVF camera is big enough for it to be worth anyone's while to set up a production line. We'll see, I suppose.

Cheers,

R.
 
so the question becomes whether leica can survive by maintaining the status quo. the people who wrote the three articles think the rangefinder needs further modernizing, and i have to agree. the beat generation and baby boomers aren't going to be here forever. what if the leica m dies with them? could the m9 be the last m? can leica survive without the m system?
 
aizan said:
so the question becomes whether leica can survive by maintaining the status quo. the people who wrote the three articles think the rangefinder needs further modernizing, and i have to agree. the beat generation and baby boomers aren't going to be here forever. what if the leica m dies with them? could the m9 be the last m? can leica survive without the m system?
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I'm quite a bit younger than the beat generation and the baby boomers and I discovered rangefinders after many years of shooting SLRs. I don't want Leica to change a thing about the M except to refine the image quality. I believe there are many others like me.
I wouldn't object to Leica bringing out an entirely new system with the features on others' wish lists, but I want the M to remain a manual focus rangefinder, thanks.
 
leica undoubtedly has new, younger customers who are attracted to the m leica as it is. i'm one of them, too. on the other hand, the contax g and t series also have a strong following among the younger generations. i think bridging the gap between the leica and the contax is the best way forward.
 
EVF(as descibed by Thom)No Worky

EVF(as descibed by Thom)No Worky

Unfortunately, the M lenses are not auto-diaphragm; therefore, the EVF will have to work at the set aperture. In dim light or stopped-down situations, this will mean jacking-up then gain on the amp between the sensor and finder. Result: Godawful, grainy, noisy, buzzing, bad EVF view. No way around the laws of physics. Sorry. Maybe in ten or twenty years...maybe.
 
EVF no seriously ! that's really a big not. A Live view from the back lcd... why not that's cost nothing and can help for long lens and macro for sure.

If I want to go extreme I will love to see a M9 with a foveon X3, sometime I just thinking that if Kokak push the millions of dollar for a foveon X3 as It did for the bayer... Nobody will regret analog film.

Yvan.
 
pluton said:
Unfortunately, the M lenses are not auto-diaphragm; therefore, the EVF will have to work at the set aperture. In dim light or stopped-down situations, this will mean jacking-up then gain on the amp between the sensor and finder. Result: Godawful, grainy, noisy, buzzing, bad EVF view. No way around the laws of physics. Sorry. Maybe in ten or twenty years...maybe.
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No-one else seems to have thought of this one, which certainly seems unanswerable at the moment. But then, when it's pie-in-the-sky, you can have any flavour you want.

Cheers,

R.
 
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