The END of Erwin Putts AND Leica ?

[Godfrey]

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. ...

Leica is a privately held company again now, and there's no demographic information available to the public on who exactly is purchasing their products. However, their annual profit and loss statements show that they are amongst the few camera equipment companies that are not only turning a profit on their camera and lens offerings, but are growing.

I would venture to say that people on a "rangefinder forum", regardless how few or how tenuous the relationship, DO actually constitute a substantive portion of their customer base, however. I am one of those people. So you are, in fact, referring to me, and to many people in this forum {and presumably on this discussion thread}.

Similar to you, the majority of the Leica gear I have purchased, aside from a few bodies and a couple of lenses in the past decade (most of which have been resold already as my needs/desires changed) is equipment that is all more than twenty years old. The exceptions to this of the gear I have now are the CL body and two lenses, a Summicron-M 50mm and a Summarit-M 75mm. The most recent piece of Leica gear in my current kit past those two is an early '90s R6.2 body. Everything else is far older ... no need to replace it, it all works to my satisfaction.

The qualities of Leica products that you mention, aside from their reputation— correlated with motorcycle, car, and other products—are exactly the same qualities that I enjoy ... So I suspect that we are both quite representative of Leica buyers even regardless of the rangefinder forum relationship.

...
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?

Having owned a plethora of Sony equipment over the past 20 years, including the A7 series bodies, I wouldn't buy such a copycat bodge unless Sony actually learned how to make a shutter that was worth calling that name. And Sony will NEVER have the temerity to invest such a camera the way Leica did, that is, with lens profiles that ensure to the greatest degree possible that all the lenses ever made by the company for their lens mounts continue to work and render with the same qualities and fidelity as they did for the cameras of whatever era they came from. That's how Leica values their customers investment in ancient equipment like you and I have, and why I dumped my Sony A7 kit as soon as I could manage to get a Leica body with a lens and an appropriate viewfinder to use with my ancient M and R lenses.

I value the M and R lenses I have much more than the premium price it takes to buy a new Leica digital body that allows them to perform the same as they always did on my film M and R bodies... because I value the quality of the photographs they make beyond anything else when it comes to photographic equipment. 🙂

G

 

[giganova]

Some people get bitter when they get old.

 

[airfrogusmc]

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?

If they were to make a camera just like the M 10 and exactly the way it functions at half the price I would buy it. But if they (Sony) were to produce the same functionality that they do now only in the shell like a Leica M I'll stay with my Ms.

 

[Bille]

Putts is spot on, only that Leica lost it´s soul years ago when they started to take the path from working photographer's tool to "rich man's accessory".

The M is still cool but not ten-thousand $ cool. Thanks but no.

 

[d_c]

At the core of their business Leica make stuff to make photographic images.

I think what Leica are doing by getting more into the software behind image creation is anticipating the changes that are coming in the industry from developments like the Lytro and L16, and trying to get ahead of them and keep the company relevant. In this business model the cameras and lenses are not the main business, the image sensors and software processing behind them are the main business, and in this respect maybe Leica feel that having a platform of world class hardware technology to support the software is where they perhaps have an advantage. Frankly, if Leica stick to only making cameras based upon historical typologies then they risk going the same way as Kodak.

From my own selfish perspective, as long as Leica are able to continue making really nice usable cameras like my M262 as a result of their current strategy, then I'm content.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Guitars aside, I suppose we're done with Mr. Puts. Cheers.

 

[rhl-oregon]

...And clearly there needs to be a guitar café thread on RFF. (I have the gear to be a noxious and enviable presence there, ha ha. Though why aren’t some of you members of Jazz Guitar Forum?)

An RFF guitar thread, for Leicaphiles and Leicaphobes alike, who think nothing of spending as much (or more) as on the latest M for niche jazzer instruments like luthier archtops, or big-ad celebrity-promoted marques like Collings. Oh delicious irony! I propose that everyone who has name-dropped a guitar here post images of it in the existing Guitar thread, which may be in W/NW (?). I’ll show mine if you show yours.

Re Mr Puts—Loss of an intelligent resource on Leica and rangefinders is regrettable. But the richly varied anecdotal and critical Leica-testimony here is entertaining and mostly well-informed, especially when you subtract ad hominem content.

 

[willie_901]

1] ...

2] With all this talk about Huawei potentially allowing Chinese spying ... I take it for granted that everything containing anything by Microsoft is potentially read by the US counterpart. Pick you poison or grab a paper and pencil and use old fashioned snail mail🙄

...

I happen to have an immutable grudge against Microsoft.

But to compare the Microsoft to Huawei is absurd.

Huawei is under indictment by the US. Huawei illegally violated US sanctions on Iran. This article published in the Guardian contains details.
.
It is true no operating system and, or on-line device is 100% safe from advanced cyber spying tools used by governments. Very few individuals need to fear cyber spying because governments don't waste resources intercepting data from ordinary people.

Individuals who are not committing Federal crimes and particularly individuals who are not conducting illegal activities in concert with foreign governments have nothing to fear.

 

[Calzone]

I happen to have an immutable grudge against Microsoft.

But to compare the Microsoft to Huawei is absurd.

Huawei is under indictment by the US. Huawei illegally violated US sanctions on Iran. This article published in the Guardian contains details.
.
It is true no operating system and, or on-line device is 100% safe from advanced cyber spying tools used by governments. Very few individuals need to fear cyber spying because governments don't waste resources intercepting data from ordinary people.

Individuals who are not committing Federal crimes and particularly individuals who are not conducting illegal activities in concert with foreign governments have nothing to fear.

Willie,

I am very fearful of the data mining that goes on. After the credit crisis somehow I was profiled and mistaken as a very elite and wealthy guy just because I bought some expensive luxury items and paid them off right away.

Somehow I received a free subscription to Forbes, just in case I wanted to buy a small Island in the Caribean or buy into a developing country.

In one year I got 4 invites to meet then Mayor Bloomberg. I only met with him once and the other three times I snubbed him. LOL. While all the other men wore suits to this event I went ghetto and wore a Hawian shirt looking like a surfer on the porch of Gracie Mansion.

I got invited to join "The Hudson Society" where I could meet with influential wealthy people and attend meetings with Generals, Heads of State, and Prime Ministers.

The Internet is not secure, and I would advise to keep a very small digital footprint.

Cal

 

[Deleted member 65559]

...And clearly there needs to be a guitar café thread on RFF. I propose that everyone who has name-dropped a guitar here post images of it in the existing Guitar thread, which may be in W/NW (?). I’ll show mine if you show yours.

Good idea RHL heading there right now!

 

[aizan]

So what is going on in Wetzlar? How is "a renewed interest in classical products" the result of the "eradication" of "the soul of Leica products"? How is the M-system "sidelined"? What are "the ghosts of Huawei and Panasonic"? Why are the SL and Q the "hopeful products of the future"?

 

[CameraQuest]

...And clearly there needs to be a guitar café thread on RFF. I propose that everyone who has name-dropped a guitar here post images of it in the existing Guitar thread, which may be in W/NW (?). I’ll show mine if you show yours.

Good idea RHL heading there right now!

Yep, but this thread is NOT about guitars.

Keep ON Topic. start the other guitar thread.

Guitars will soon be gone from this thread.

 

[rhl-oregon]

The camera division of Leica is nothing if not gradualist and conservative. Very few design changes over a century in LTM and M—a century where many camera companies went boom and bust. And once the digital (r)evolution began, Leica took measured steps to integrate the old and new. And is still doing so, it appears to me, rather than cramming more computing power, auto-everything, and another row of Fn buttons into a design Roger Hicks described as “melted plastic ashtray.”

My M246 and MD 262 are not my only user cameras*, but they’re my first call cameras, and they sit quite comfortably beside my M3 in the bag and on the shelf. (But one of these days some youngsters who are still babes in arms are going to covet my Leica T, even if Mr Puts didn’t care for Leica going that way.)

————————

*A7II Kolari, RX1, SD Quattro, DP Quattro 2, DP Merrill 3, GR

 

[james.liam]

So what is going on in Wetzlar? How is "a renewed interest in classical products" the result of the "eradication" of "the soul of Leica products"? How is the M-system "sidelined"? What are "the ghosts of Huawei and Panasonic"? Why are the SL and Q the "hopeful products of the future"?

All mysterious allusions, probably to some conversations he much have had at Wetzlar. Someone must really have pissed him off.

"A renewed interest in classical products"? He writes extensively on emulsions and developers. Maybe he's leaping back into film but how then does the SL hold the hope of the future? The Luke Skywalker of Wetzlar? Lenses the size & weight of small children...

And "eradication" of "the soul of Leica products"? The M10 is about as close as I can fancy the "spirit of Leica" as can be embodied in a digital Camera. As the 4th digital iteration it finally coincides with haptics, size, basic controls, silent shutter of a film Leica. There are hundreds of thousands of older M lenses with unique personalities out there to experiment with instead of spending your children inheritance on a 28 Summilux and 50 + 75 Noctiluxii.

What are "the ghosts of Huawei and Panasonic"? I guess he's not into consumer-grade rebadged "Leica"? OK. But the bills must be paid.

Huawei is an organized criminal operation absconding with everything it comes into contact with, so I get that concern. Shame they didn't bond with Apple for iPhone lens sets.

 

[Bike Tourist]

This seems to be valid. I took a different path to his actual website and read the same message. I helped him out recently by buying his latest book. It doesn't change anything for me. I have my Leica and my Nikon and, between them, they keep me in the game at my advanced age.

 

[Sonnar2]

" The most recent event is the evolution from a manufacturing company to a software-based company. While a commercial success, this change of heart has accomplished a, perhaps not intended, impact: the soul of Leica products has been eradicated. A renewed interest in classical products is the result. The SL and Q are currently the hopeful products for the future. The ghosts of Huawei and Panasonic can be seen all over the campus and while the M-system is still being promoted as the true heir of the Leica lineage, it is now sidelined. Once upon a time, Leica followed its own path, guided by gifted and pioneering engineers and keen marketeers. Nowadays its products are as mainstream as every other camera manufacture.
The company has sketched a future and follows a path that I am no longer willing to go. "

I always like Erwin Puts articles and technical views, but disagree sometimes in philosophy. Leica has tried all these things for decades. I don't see any *new* paths here, except that they finally seem to succeed in digitalization, which is the only way to save jobs and stay alive. They don't can survive as a service center for M3, M4, M6 and M7, with so many in the world keep working well that it lasts for the next 100 years.

Personally the only thing I dislike in Leica's path is their unwillingness to bring a Q2 with M-mount on the market, in a vain attempt to save a camera series with an anachronistic finder. But this would be the first LEICA I would buy new, and probably some other people as well… Maybe they could even pass the display for the purists if it saves money. I haven't tried the Q2 display, but my M240 display isn't worth one half of my Fujis'.