if leica went out of business...

[johannielscom]

Still saying Sony would be the most logical choice if they want to prove being serious about their photography branch. But they would likely need Zeiss on the front and are not known for selling their stuff with the name of another company on it.

Nobody's going to invest in tooling metal parts of Leica precision, it would either be made of stamped sheet metal or plastic. The feel of quality would suffer greatly from that. I'm still convinced that the Voigtlander RFs would have been much more successful had they been made in metal.

 

[Matus]

Digital rangefinder like M9 is a very specific camera and part of its success is that it IS Leica. All that heritage and large user base (fraction of which has the means to get the M9).

Once Leica would be gone so would be new Leica M-lenses and who would pick that up? Many of those who buy M9 actually also buy new Summilux lenses - and want to be able to buy them (there are long waiting lists on many Leica lenses - they sell well obviously)

Leica is in a very unique position on the market and I think that an attempt to replace that would probably fail.

If Leica would be gone - maybe Cosina/Fuji/Zeiss could come up with a product like M9 and would have very har time to live up to the expectations ...

 

[Keith]

No one. It is a niche market.

Manufacturing precision mechanical cameras and assemblies such as the RF mechanism is almost a lost art. Nikon lost a lot of money on the S3-2000 and SP-2005. Would they or Cosina do a digital RF? If so, almost certain it will lose money for them.

Nikon were never expecting to make money from those cameras ... especially in the quantities they made them in. It was purely an exercise in proving it could be done and establishing their heritage as one of the world's premiere camera manufacturers.

If they were to build a digital RF fairly obviously they would approach it with a very different attitude in regards to cost af manufacture and inserting electronics where mechanicals had precided previously would be a given I would think.

 

[thmk]

Noone would. Anything more than a mirrorless M-mount camera with electronic viewfinder I consider a miracle. But why should any company bother? There are all kind of adapters for several mounts already floating around. So no business need to produce a true M-mount camera.

 

[jsrockit]

Why would Leica go out of business when they are selling more than they can make of most items?

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

...who would begin production on a new digital rangefinder?

"Rangefinder" technology has man fatal design flaws, haven't you heard? It's not in line with Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, touchscreen P&S, and of course, God's-gift-to-men Nikons (as evidenced by the "but my Nikon takes better pictures" responses in virtually all Leica-related threads).

We are all in a "niche" (which I find funny, because "niche" means dog house in French).

This market will never take off. Etc. etc.

 

[panerai]

If the company did go out of business. Easy for a large company like Panasonic or Sony to step in and buy with little outlay.

The factory is still there along with the dies and workers.

New owners may do things to to make the factory more efficient and bring prices down.

Could also be a purchase in which no one knows and business as usual

There's always a willing buyer to take over when it comes to companies producing quality items.

DON

 

[btgc]

New owners may do things to to make the factory more efficient and bring prices down.

yeah, high quality optic resin would make those summicrons and such a bit cheaper. Just enough to make them attractive to masses.
🙂

 

[keytarjunkie]

It's simple.

A group of hardcore RFF members would start a company called "The Possible Project."

They would raise funds and after a year, put out a paper mache camera with a point-and-shoot sensor and charge $9000 for it. And it would be hot s***.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Why would Leica go out of business when they are selling more than they can make of most items?

This struck me as the fundamental flaw in the entire premise of this thread.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

It's simple.

A group of hardcore RFF members would start a company called "The Possible Project."

They would raise funds and after a year, put out a paper mache camera with a point-and-shoot sensor and charge $9000 for it. And it would be hot s***.

Who says the word "Leica" doesn't bring out the best out of the forum's discussions?

 

[Gary E]

Nikon were never expecting to make money from those cameras ... especially in the quantities they made them in. It was purely an exercise in proving it could be done and establishing their heritage as one of the world's premiere camera manufacturers.

If they were to build a digital RF fairly obviously they would approach it with a very different attitude in regards to cost af manufacture and inserting electronics where mechanicals had precided previously would be a given I would think.

The difference now is that I would buy one and not make the same mistake when the SP-2005 came out. A digital SP would make Nikon devotees quite happy, or so I would think 😕

 

[shadowfox]

...who would begin production on a new digital rangefinder?

No one.
Those who own a digital RF would hang on to it, used market prices will go even crazier. And for others, they would simply go back to using film with film M bodies.

 

[willie_901]

What Brian Said

What Brian Said

+1 For all the "no one" responses.

 

[Archlich]

If the company did go out of business. Easy for a large company like Panasonic or Sony to step in and buy with little outlay.

The factory is still there along with the dies and workers.

New owners may do things to to make the factory more efficient and bring prices down.

Could also be a purchase in which no one knows and business as usual

There's always a willing buyer to take over when it comes to companies producing quality items.

DON

Big companies lack the nerdiness. Even Ricoh won't.

Cosina would be more likely, but there are already too many good posts on RFF explaining why they won't .

One thing is sure: RFF users will continue posting "will you buy it if Cojisonilm produces a FF digital rangefinder in M-mount that costs below $2000" and "I can't believe there's still no one jumping into such a market" 😀

 

[bwcolor]

Leica will adapt to the market over time. Perhaps, you will have Leica, in name only. Unless they are totally disconnected from the market, they will evolve rather than cease to exist. By the time Leica ceases production of mechanical rangefinders, you will all own museum pieces. At that point, you might have some low volume, high cost replacement, but I suspect that the market will not support such a move. That said, the market segment served by the small rangefinder camera will still exist and some new, or morphed technology will exist... ie.. electronic rangefinder.

 

[back alley]

i know nothing...

my question came from a thought about digital rangefinders...first we had epson and i applaud them for their effort but they left the rd1 in the dust...

that leaves leica and my thought about IF something happened to them...who might take up the gauntlet?

personally, i doubt that anyone would...even if someone made a first run of a drf they likely would drop it - same as epson.

i can see something along the lines of an x100...maybe a system camera...or a continuation of different 'freak' digitals that will take an adapter for m lenses...

 

[gavinlg]

Canon or Sony would get my vote as the 2 companies most likely to create a digital (full frame 35mm) rangefinder style camera, besides or in the absence of leica. It's important to emphasize that it would be a rangefinder style camera, not an actual rangefinder, because honestly AF is at the point where it's the quickest, most convenient, most accurate and most reliable way of focussing.

 

[Chris101]

Duh, Panasonic. Aren't they already in a relationship?

 

[cosmonaut]

Why would Leica go out of business when they are selling more than they can make of most items?

Because in today's world if you don't sell units in the millions like Apple, Canon, Nikon ect it is hard to cover the cost of operation, R&D, advertisement ect.