The END of Erwin Putts AND Leica ?

[Godfrey]

I'm sorry, but I don't care about branding or red dots or any of that foofawraw. I buy Leica gear because it works well for me, better than the competition. I don't know why folks would consider Leica's branding to be a significant reason to purchase camera equipment.

Why do you buy Leica gear? It's probably best to consider most Leica owners to be like you. 🙂

G

 

[presspass]

Some of us appreciate him for what he is rather than criticizing him for what he is not. Over the years I have found some of his information useful. I do not expect Mr. Erwitt to be Mr. Puts or vice versa. Like him or not, he has had a place in the rangefinder world.

 

[Calzone]

I`m not so sure. It enables great photographs to be taken. Although not relevant to the type of photography on this board , the advancement of sophisticated AF systems has made a big difference in sports photography .

Michael,

In my case I ended up doing lots of fashion photography for my gal's blog over the past 5 years.

At first I used my M-Monochrom starting out because it was the only digital I owned. Funny thing is that because all the photography was in B&W "Maggie's" website stood out and got lots of "traction." Pretty much this was one key to her success.

Doing fashion and capturing movement isn't so easy. Autofocus surely helps. The SL is a great camera for this.

I rarely see SL's "In the wild" in NYC while I happen to see a good amount of M-bodies "In the wild."

One thing I learned from my gal is that if you want to stand out, don't do what everyone else is doing.

Cal

 

[Michael Markey]

Hi Cal

I must admit I`ve only ever seen SL`s in a Leica shop.
I would imagine fashion not being easy …. movement /lowlight.
As far as technology goes ,I use what I have and then decide it its useful for the types of shots I take.

Currently using an A7R2 .
I use some of what`s available but don`t need the eye AF (for example).
Thing is I have to live the technology to assess it …. sometimes it makes me change my MO other times not .

Michael

 

[Guth]

I'm sorry, but I don't care about branding or red dots or any of that foofawraw. I buy Leica gear because it works well for me, better than the competition. I don't know why folks would consider Leica's branding to be a significant reason to purchase camera equipment.

Why do you buy Leica gear? It's probably best to consider most Leica owners to be like you. 🙂

G

I am sorry that you took my comments as if they were directed at yourself. More to the point, I don't think that Leica's target market will look like it has in the past. Nor will the industry look like it has in the past for that matter. Just because I feel that Leica has positioned itself such that the Leica name and the red dot are their most important assets does not mean that I am pointing fingers at anyone here. Halo products like the M-system don't stick around forever and Leica will likely come up with a replacement at some point.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I`m not so sure. It enables great photographs to be taken. Although not relevant to the type of photography on this board , the advancement of sophisticated AF systems has made a big difference in sports photography .

And if you do sports then use a camera better suited for it than a rangefinder. Noting is better suited for fast paced candid work and street work than a rangefinder. Proper tool and all. If I made my living doing sports then I would have the proper tools but for what I do the tool I use is perfect.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Halo products like the M-system don't stick around forever and Leica will likely come up with a replacement at some point.

Nothing is forever but Leica M has seen a lot of others come and go over the decades it has been around and it's still around.

 

[Michael Markey]

And if you do sports then use a camera better suited for it than a rangefinder. Noting is better suited for fast paced candid work and street work than a rangefinder. Proper tool and all. If I made my living doing sports then I would have the proper tools but for what I do the tool I use is perfect.

I do .
I thought that your comments about technology were made in a general sense .
I would have to disagree though with the assertion that nothing is better suited for fast paced candid and street work than a rangefinder.
There are plenty of alternatives out there .

 

[Huss]

Technology doesn't create great photographs. How long did it take Leica to put a meter in an M? I things like auto focus on the M would drive me away. I mean the M is a camera that separates Leica from the herd and everything else that is out there already. You want all that stuff on a camera there is a lot of room to move around. You want something that is like an MM or an M 10 you have Leica. And the M is still their flagship camera.

Not disagreeing w u just stating y it makes no sense from a financial POV to discontinue the M series.
Profitable and iconic.

 

[Huss]

David,

My gal returned to me a Leica CL (digital) with an AF 23 Cron because as you say a cell phone does what she requires, and know that she is a big time blogger.

Cal

And that is exactly why consumer digital cameras are dying. U gave ur gf a freakin Leica but she prefers her phone.

 

[airfrogusmc]

Not disagreeing w u just stating y it makes no sense from a financial POV to discontinue the M series.
Profitable and iconic.

AGREE. Did you see the waiting list when the M 10 first came out? It was a year long. How many companies would love to have a years worth of sales when their product is first released.

 

[airfrogusmc]

I do .
I thought that your comments about technology were made in a general sense .
I would have to disagree though with the assertion that nothing is better suited for fast paced candid and street work than a rangefinder.
There are plenty of alternatives out there .

There is nothing faster than to be pre focused (DoF scales) and have your exposure pre set.(most auto focus lenses do not have good DoF scales) I've owned and tried most of the other stuff. I guess I am lucky that my professional photography work allows me to have whatever I need to do my job. Out of all the cameras out there I have found that Leica M is the best for me and that the type of work I do and that includes fast paced candid work and my personal work is street.

 

[Godfrey]

I am sorry that you took my comments as if they were directed at yourself. More to the point, I don't think that Leica's target market will look like it has in the past. Nor will the industry look like it has in the past for that matter. Just because I feel that Leica has positioned itself such that the Leica name and the red dot are their most important assets does not mean that I am pointing fingers at anyone here. Halo products like the M-system don't stick around forever and Leica will likely come up with a replacement at some point.

If you didn't point your comments at me and other photographers on this forum that buy Leica equipment, who were you pointing them at? Really... 😀

It is of course a given that the audience is/has been changing. As well as the industry. Both have done so time and time again since the invention of photography in 1839. Neither has been static for anything other than a few years at a time. Successful companies adapt to change.

The M has had a very long run and is still a perfectly viable, satisfying camera to use. It is obsolete, but obsolescence has no impact on usability or whether people like a thing. There's evidently enough market for it, despite the high prices and, by some, "obsolete" components in the digital models to remain profitable to manufacture and sell. Nothing wrong with that ... I like and use plenty of obsolete things.

The difficulty with the M is that, like other long in the tooth highly refined things, improvement comes at great expense and with some risk. It only takes a little bit of too much change (technical change for the better) and the audience's expectations of such an archetype is broken and sales plummet. Leica doesn't change the M much because it is successful in its niche the way it is and, in fact, they have very little freedom to improve it without major risk to sales. They are wise to be very conservative about the M and not go too far in any direction beyond the archetype, put their larger development money on newer designs that compete directly with others in the attempt to gain market share and new audience.

G

 

[Calzone]

The difficulty with the M is that, like other long in the tooth highly refined things, improvement comes at great expense and with some risk. It only takes a little bit of too much change (technical change for the better) and the audience's expectations of such an archetype is broken and sales plummet. Leica doesn't change the M much because it is successful in its niche the way it is and, in fact, they have very little freedom to improve it without major risk to sales. They are wise to be very conservative about the M and not go too far in any direction beyond the archetype, put their larger development money on newer designs that compete directly with others in the attempt to gain market share and new audience.

G

Godfrey,

Well said. As long as film is around even old film M's will be around, and even new film M's.

Perhaps not the most popular, but like Huss says "iconic" and somewhat of a cult camera.

Cal

 

[Guth]

AGREE. Did you see the waiting list when the M 10 first came out? It was a year long. How many companies would love to have a years worth of sales when their product is first released.

Such interest would likely revolve much more around the overall quantity sold than it would the length of the wait list.

Using a guitar analogy, a luthier might have a wait list a couple of years long but might only produce a dozen guitars over the course of each year. This would be a drop in the bucket for a company like Martin Guitars who have many employees to pay. The luthier’s work is in demand because of the painstakingly nuanced approach taken with each and every instrument. This approach is a big part of what the customers are paying for. To me this relates more to what Leica cameras used to be. Moving forward there will be less and less to separate the cameras made by Leica from the others as they become increasingly dependent upon electronics like everyone else. Moving in this direction Leica will continue to need to find new ways of doing things and new people to sell to in order to survive.

 

[css9450]

The difficulty with the M is that, like other long in the tooth highly refined things, improvement comes at great expense and with some risk. It only takes a little bit of too much change (technical change for the better) and the audience's expectations of such an archetype is broken and sales plummet. Leica doesn't change the M much because it is successful in its niche the way it is and, in fact, they have very little freedom to improve it without major risk to sales.

Example: the M5.

If the M5 had looked exactly like an M4, it would have been a huge success. An M4 with a built-in TTL meter? That's a can't-miss sales success.

 

[Guth]

I would guess that the real value to Leica is not the profit made on the M-system itself but the impact (influence) it has on the sales of their other product lines.

 

[Ronald M]

There is nothing faster than to be pre focused (DoF scales) and have your exposure pre set.(most auto focus lenses do not have good DoF scales) I've owned and tried most of the other stuff. I guess I am lucky that my professional photography work allows me to have whatever I need to do my job. Out of all the cameras out there I have found that Leica M is the best for me and that the type of work I do and that includes fast paced candid work and my personal work is street.

My AF Nikons have no scales.
M lenses with fast focus helical have a scale so "squished" as to be not usable. But my 75 2.0 APO
is a favorite anyway scale is 3mm each side.

Depth of field is an illusion anyway because I can certainly tell the focus plane from that which is supposed to be in focus.

 

[Guth]

If you didn't point your comments at me and other photographers on this forum that buy Leica equipment, who were you pointing them at? Really... 😀

I was/am speaking in terms of Leica’s customer base overall, not just as it relates to the few people discussing this topic here. I do not believe that the active member base discussing this topic is representative of a majority of Leica’s customer base. Moving forward in to the future I imagine this will be even less so.

I use Leica gear but it has been almost twenty years since I last bought any. While I do not use it all that frequently but I do like what I have and it works just fine for me. I will admit that I was drawn to Leica in part because of their reputation. The overall level of quality combining the outer simplicity with the inner mechanical complexity appealed to me. In my case this extends beyond cameras — I have similar preferences when it comes to things like motorcycles and cars for example. In some ways I suppose that I might be more representative of Leica’s overall customer base than yourself and others here.

Here is a thought that does relate to the members active in this discussion. I do wonder for example amongst those of you who use digital M cameras just how many takers there would be if a company like Sony were to wrap one of their top of the line cameras in the same exterior packaging as a Leica M, selling it for significantly less money. Make it a M mount to boot. Would you be likely to buy it over Leica’s offerings?

 

[Michael Markey]

There is nothing faster than to be pre focused (DoF scales) and have your exposure pre set.(most auto focus lenses do not have good DoF scales)

I photographed for over ten years just like that both with my three M bodies and my Rollie 35S.
I know the drill but I no longer use my M bodies like that these days .
These days a fast AF is good enough for me .
My two AF Batis lenses do have DOF scales by the way.