"Demand for film cameras is greater than the production capacity" - Leica

[HHPhoto]

Nowhere does this article articulate what the 'production capacity' per month of Leica M film bodies actually is.

I visited the Leica store in Wetzlar some weeks ago and had a longer talk with the staff there about the increasing demand for film in general, and film based Leicas in special.
They had information from Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, Adox etc. that film demand is increasing for years. Kodak photo film sales have doubled in the last five years. Kodak and Fuji have difficulties to keep up with increasing demand for certain very popular films (like C200, ColorPlus). Therefore these films are regularly sold out at film shops. Demand for chemicals and home processing equipment is also significantly increasing. The Leica store in Wetzlar is meanwhile offering film, too, because of customer demand.
Leica has also started to offer events for film photographers last year ("Analog Days"). More customers visited that event than expected.
They said that the demand for their film M cameras is increasing for about seven years now. The production capacity is in the four digit number range p.a..And their most popular camera model with the highest demand is their Leica Sofort (for instax instant film).
My local camera shop told me that demand for the Nikon F6 is recently increasing significantly, too.

Cheers, Jan

 

[David Murphy]

Thanks for the inside info - that's good news!!

I visited the Leica store in Wetzlar some weeks ago and had a longer talk with the staff there about the increasing demand for film in general, and film based Leicas in special.
They had information from Kodak, Fuji, Ilford, Adox etc. that film demand is increasing for years. Kodak photo film sales have doubled in the last five years. Kodak and Fuji have difficulties to keep up with increasing demand for certain very popular films (like C200, ColorPlus). Therefore these films are regularly sold out at film shops. Demand for chemicals and home processing equipment is also significantly increasing. The Leica store in Wetzlar is meanwhile offering film, too, because of customer demand.
Leica has also started to offer events for film photographers last year ("Analog Days"). More customers visited that event than expected.
They said that the demand for their film M cameras is increasing for about seven years now. The production capacity is in the four digit number range p.a..And their most popular camera model with the highest demand is their Leica Sofort (for instax instant film).
My local camera shop told me that demand for the Nikon F6 is recently increasing significantly, too.

Cheers, Jan

 

[zuiko85]

Many would gasp at the price of MA or MP and used Leicas. However, to produce a lesser camera today would not be that cheap either. Before they were discontinued the Nikon FM10 with a kit zoom was over $500 and that was what, 10 years ago. Even to reproduce a basic SLR with specifications such as a Ricoh KR5 to be sold with a 50 f2 lens would probably need to sell for at least $750 in todays inflation adjusted dollars.
Too expensive for the starving young folks and not appealing to those who have the money to pay for the prestige of having a Leica.

 

[Forest_rain]

I like the analogy With the Urbino Duke and Duchess...

And yes I agree with you when you say few people desire to learn how to critically engage with any image. I noticed this also in my circle of acquaintances.

The ease of digital makes everyone think to be a photographer, so what is more to learn? I shoot, publish and get likes, wow 🙂 many are happy like this !

It seems like the photo has become more deeply immeshed in our lives, to where it becomes almost seamless as a form of expression. We don't even have to think about it because of the ease of taking a picture and sending it, the same goes with social media.


So there's not much to think about in that context, and the "success" of an imagine on social media is mostly measurably by its popularity (since that's the only real metric available) and comments which are often short, or of such volume that it's impossible to respond to each one in great depth.


I've found more success in sending photos individually to friends, via phone number based text message than any sort of app.


It's funny to think that the retrograde "text message" was so novel only 10-12 years ago.


Images are now mostly used to share moments and memories (mostly happy/fun ones) with friends and family. It usually doesn't go past this and I think this is fine, though.


The problem is when you try to give some social commentary on an image and this is sometimes not well received, especially with the wide audience you are exposing your image to, it's going to be controversial so I usually try to avoid this.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

"Images are now mostly used to share moments and memories (mostly happy/fun ones) with friends and family. It usually doesn't go past this and I think this is fine, though."

The problem with this trend though, is the loss of the photo in a historical timeline.....even within one's life, family or social context.

 

[splitimageview]

Thanks for the inside info - that's good news!!

Except that’s not really inside info, it’s just anecdotal.

increasing demand

Doubling demand doesn’t really mean anything if the initial demand was minimal.

Ditto with stores running out of film stock; that’s bound to happen since they carry little to none as it is...

Isn’t the Sofort discontinued? It’s not listed on B&H or Adorama...

 

[jsrockit]

So, when will we see new professional level 35mm and 120 cameras introduced?

 

[Godfrey]

So, when will we see new professional level 35mm and 120 cameras introduced?

Of course, likely never. The sales volumes are just too tiny to warrant the development costs of a new, professional level 135 or 120 camera except at the farthest edge of niche uses.

Or perhaps that's ALL we'll ever see, and the products will then sell at the kinds of very dear prices that only the very few who value such things and can afford them are willing to pay (kind of analogous to the renaissance of mechanical watches ... what might have once been a very expensive $100 watch in their heyday can often now translate to being a $500-$1000 luxury piece).

Another thought that occurs to me, that this article does not at all make clear, is that, well, Leica and everyone else long ago downsized their film camera production lines to suit the greatly reduced demand for film cameras and put that development money and facilities towards producing digital cameras. So there's a little resurgence of interest in film cameras happening now ... that's nice, but I strongly doubt that Leica or anyone else has re-upped film camera production to anywhere near what it was in the 1990s. With all the money, space, and effort principally devoted to the main line of digital cameras that are a necessity for the company to survive nowadays, it is likely impossible for them to do so in any realistic way, so that "demand for film cameras is greater than the production capacity" is little other than an inevitable result—if you downsized film camera production to meet the 95% fall off in film camera sales a decade and a half ago, it should not be surprising that a bump in film camera demand outstrips the production capacity by something now.

Interesting stuff still, as I said before. I have as many film AND digital cameras as I'll ever really need already, and none of them are in danger of breaking anytime soon as far as I can see, so whether I can purchase a new Leica MP or a new Nikon F6 tomorrow is mostly irrelevant to my photography. I wish, however, that I could get some parts for some Hasselblad V system lenses and such that are long, long out of production.

G

 

[aizan]

Whenever Hasselblad H and Rollei Hy6 get upgrades.

The more relevant question to me is when we’ll get amateur level cameras like the Zeiss Ikon ZM, Bessa R/Bessaflex, Fujifilm GF670, etc.

 

[Deleted member 65559]

I have as many.....

I have as many.....

I have as many film AND digital cameras as I'll ever really need already, and none of them are in danger of breaking anytime soon as far as I can see, so whether I can purchase a new Leica MP or a new Nikon F6 tomorrow is mostly irrelevant to my photography.G

I think you've struck on the key point Godfrey. There are people for whom a camera is primarily a tool for taking photographs, and those who keep the photo industry moving by constantly buying the next latest and greatest.

 

[David Hughes]

^^^^ or the mobile phone industry.

How about this: we end up with Serious Digital Cameras for pro's and mobile phones for the riff raff. Then the camera makers think about it and go over to film camera making.

Regards, David

PS "Film Cameras" is what we used to call "analogue" ones...

 

[markjwyatt]

...

PS "Film Cameras" is what we used to call "analogue" ones...

I have a quite clear memory of when we just called them "cameras". 🙂

 

[Godfrey]

...
PS "Film Cameras" is what we used to call "analogue" ones...

Yes, I know. I never felt that was a proper way to describe them. Cameras record images either with photosensitive materials like film, or with photosensitive devices like image sensors.

Both of these genera of devices are analog in their capture operation, but film cameras present an image as varying densities in a semitransparent matrix, rendered by chemistry, to be read by light passing through it where image sensor cameras present an image in a digital representation rendered by the use of computational machinery. So "film camera" and "digital camera" are more logical names to describe the difference between the two genera.

To me, they're both just cameras in my common usage when referring to them. 🙂

G

 

[DennisM]

Demand for Film Cmeras

Demand for Film Cmeras

I receive e-mails from KEH just abut daily almost begging me to sell my cameras to them; virtual appraisals and "safe" pick-up right at my front door. I can't help but believe that there is a healthy demand for film cameras, perhaps some used digital as well.

 

[gavinlg]

Here's an idea -

- Leica and Cosina should do joint development on an entry level film M mount rangefinder. Leica markets it as the new entry level M - or modern CL, and Cosina as the bessa R5. Put some higher quality magnesium top and bottom plates on the Leica and charge 1.5x the price.

- Co-develop a new set of entry level primes with cheaper aluminium construction in 28 f2.8/40 f2/75 f2.5 to suit it.

This could be done fairly cheaply if development costs were shared, and would sell like hotcakes if the bodies were placed in the ballpark of $1200-1800usd. This would make it cheaper than any of the popular metered M's on the used market.

 

[Godfrey]

I receive e-mails from KEH just abut daily almost begging me to sell my cameras to them; virtual appraisals and "safe" pick-up right at my front door. I can't help but believe that there is a healthy demand for film cameras, perhaps some used digital as well.

A healthy demand for USED film cameras, for sure. New film cameras, I'm not sure other than the high end niche once (like a Leica MP).

This is inevitable if there is a small bump in the audience for film cameras. Part of the reason for the bump is that once-high-end film cameras now sell inexpensively on the used market. I know that in 2011-2013 bought three R system bodies and a dozen R system lenses for a fraction of what ONE of those R-system lenses would have cost me new. That's what enabled me to buy and enjoy them, and I still use them with my digital cameras as well.

G

 

[Ko.Fe.]

I read about bad new film M cameras at another forums. For some time now. Kind of next to late FSU film cameras experience. I guess, due to Monday hangover after beergarden on factory and Lada like demand outside.

 

[gavinlg]

I read about bad new film M cameras at another forums. For some time now. Kind of next to late FSU film cameras experience. I guess, due to Monday hangover after beergarden on factory and Lada like demand outside.

I laughed.

But maybe you guys should go and visit the reddit leica page and see for yourself the demand for leica M gear. Just a few days ago a young photographer I follow on instagram bought a brand new MP to go with his m10 in my hometown in Aus. Most estimates put total m6 production at about 160,000 cameras - these are all now approaching NEW leica film camera money on the used market, and they're routinely selling for that. The demand is there. Production scale doesn't have to be mass market level for a product or market segment to be successful - look at the boutique watch companies that are now everywhere like Autodromo or Yema, or Nakaya fountain pens, or modern turntable and vinyl audio equipment, or Singer Porsches.

No one is stating film cameras are going to be mainstream and sold in Wal-mart to non-camera people en masse, and neither would most of us want that.

As for the recent film M's problems - it seems leica have done some incremental modifications to the MA's and MP's that had issues, and have sorted them.

 

[intangiblethings]

I've watched the Leica subreddit subscriber numbers grow at a steady clip. It's not adding hundreds a day but given it started off in the low 9000s, it's added quite a few in the last month.

People are over sneakers it seems, and the next area of interest are more durable hard goods like a Leica or a mechanical watch.

 

[Guth]

Clearly the thought of young people with money developing an interest in film photography in general and Leica cameras in particular is quite upsetting to a number of you. I for one have never been under the impression that Leica cameras were looked at as "the people's camera". Consider that Leica's branding efforts are focused on cultivating an air of exclusivity. While that extends well beyond film photography, the impacts obviously carry over to anyone considering film camera purchases be they new or used. By all accounts this strategy seems to be working out well for Leica, regardless of whether it rubs some the wrong way.

As far as the overall trend goes when it comes to the rising interest in film photography, I personally am reminded of this every time I visit my local film lab. Just last week in the time it took me to drop off my film I discovered five other individuals had arrived that were waiting behind me, all quite a bit younger than myself (58). To be fair, my visit was somewhat extended as I was expressing my concerns to the owner with regards to some quality control issues that I wanted to bring to his attention. The lab is overwhelmed with business right now (my choice of wording). The reality is that they are busier now than they have been for many decades (the owner's choice of wording).

I am in disagreement with those who feel that this renewed interest in film is a fad that will by dying down soon. As others have mentioned, there is a growing interest in all things "analog" amongst younger people and film photography is just one facet of this behavior that more and more young folks are finding to be rewarding.