What difference will Steven Lee's Departure make?

[Ben Z]

Well I came over to Leica from a Pentax Spotmatic so downgrading from 1/60 to 1/50 flash synch wasn't that much of an inconvenience 😀

But seriously...I'm not one of those guys who sits on the edge of his chair waiting for the next upgrade so I can dump my "obsolete" camera for a couple more MP or a bigger LCD or a little less noise @ ISO 3200. I continue to use my Canon 20D past the 30D and 40D, not to mention the 5D, despite the shame of being seen in public with a paltry 8MP 4 year old camera 🙄 because it works for me as good now as it did then. However I resisted buying an M8 rather staunchly at first. $4800 seemed like a ripoff for a cropped, 10MP camera (my 20D was $900 as a refurb). The IR filter thing did, and still does rattle my sense of what makes sense, and then there was the string of DOA's and all that hullaballoo. To this day, you can string me up by my thumbs, I don't see anything WOW in the M8's IQ over the 20D. Maybe it doesn't need as much post sharpening. But once I've sharpened the 20D raw's (thanks, Fred Miranda) I couldn't ask for better print quality. I know others will disagree. I'm not a crackerjack post-processer, I'm still learning this stuff. So maybe they are right. But in my hands with my skills, the difference isn't significant. What the M8 gives me is a camera which, with lens removed, slips into the inside, zipper pocket of my Travelsmith sport coat, and the lens slips into the opposite pocket, with no telltale bulge. I don't have to look like a tourist all the time. I can get on a metro or sit at an outdoor cafe without a big camera bag in my lap. I can't do that with the 20D, or even a Rebel. I'd have to go to a tiny-chipped pocket-sized digital with unlimited d.o.f. for that, and sacrifice any possibility of selective focus. The M8 was an extravagance to be sure. Fortunately I'm comfortable enough I could buy it without a major sacrifice somewhere else in my life. If not, I'm sure I wouldn't have considered it, just as in my wildest dream I don't see myself owning one of those 39-MP medium format digitals.

 

[Trius]

The median HOUSEHOLD income in the US in 2006 was $48,000 dollars.

This tells me there's enough disposable income in the US to make it possible for Leica to expand its market. It is getting harder in the US to do so due to deteriorating economic conditions, but the middle class is growing in the rest of the world.

 

[Trius]

The median HOUSEHOLD income in the US in 2006 was $48,000 dollars.

This graph (2006 figures) seems to tell me there's enough disposable income in the US to make it possible for Leica to expand its market. It is getting harder in the US to do so due to deteriorating economic conditions, but the middle class is growing in the rest of the world.

 

[tom_uk]

In my very own city, hundreds of "young adults" are purchasing EVERY WEEK photographic kits that cost a couple thousand EUROS. Buy a Canon 40D, stack a 24-105 and a prime or a tele,

Even more are buying 400D + 18-55 for a lot less than €2000.... and the way Canon have agressively enhanced that range, and the kit lens, who can blame them?


Here's the issue, it seems to me. Last weekend I bought a Leica camera & lens from a premier dealer. In the end it turned out to be a s/h M6ttl and a new Summarit, but if they'd been a Zeiss dealer it might well have been 100% ZI kit, and it very nearly was s/h Leica al the way - I could have had a s/h Summilux for a bit more than the Summitar; in the end it was the size & weight that put me off. So I joined the ranks of RF users but the only money that went to Leica was for the cheapest of their lower-tier lenses, and it could easily have not even been that. Not at any moment did I contemplate buying a new Leica camera: the ttl, although 8 or 9 years old, is 90% of a new Leica at 40% of the price. That must be a serious problem for Leica.

Digital cameras: The link between Leica & Panasonic is not good for Leica, in my opinion. Why buy a Leica when for rather less money you can have an identical Panasonic? Here's an example (in the uK) of the same thing at work: Jaguar's image has gone downhill since Ford took them over. Everyone knows that the mid-range Jags are basically Ford Mondeo's with different skin; the Jaguar brand has been hopelessly devalued.


However, if Leica would produce a compact digital camera with an APS-C sensor, a manual-focus/manual adjust exposure and a good quality fast mid-range zoom - 24-85 equivalent, say - I'd buy one.

 

[tbm]

Leica R products...

Leica R products...

I use my R8 far more often than my M6 TTL because I often need focal lengths longer than the M6's limitation of 135mm. I did not buy the DMR for my R8 because of its huge price and how it increases the size and weight of the R8 so much. I love the results the R lenses give me and I would buy an all-digital R10 quickly if it were perhaps half the price of the DMR, although as long as film remains purchaseable and chemicals to process it are still buyable I will never give up using it. There are times when I need digital access for quick e-mailing, and an R10 would please me so much. Nevertheless, with Mr. Lee gone Leica had better not disappoint R users like me by not ever releasing anything "R" again, for if they do I will desert them and never buy any of their products in the future again.

 

[Sam N]

Maybe you guys should actually talk to some of these "kids" you're always referring to 🙂

I'm a high school senior, so I hope that's close enough. I've used my Canon 7 quite a few times at school, and get quite a bit of "oh wow how old is that" and "is that a Leica?", and lots of people are interested in learning more about the camera.

It tends to go downhill from there. "Wait, you can't zoom? You have to focus manually? It's so heavy! Why would you use something like that, you have a digital camera."

I can't see a single one of my classmates ever buying a manual focus digital rangefinder. Even my DSLR toting friends who often manual focus their lenses aren't particularly interested in rangefinders, and especially not at Leica prices. Note that these are the kids whose parents buy them Macbooks and so on - they could probably afford a hypothetical Leica, but there's no reason for them to want one. Apple has successfully persuaded that you are getting your money's worth when you pay extra for a Mac, but I can't imagine Leica persuading us to pay extra to lose AF and zooming and a screen.

I guess I'm the only one who stays up at night dreaming about the ressurection of the RD-1.

Exactly! Apple's only cost at most 10% more than a directly competing non-Apple model, not 150% more.

The fact that people are worried about Leica keeping its identity tells me that if anyone makes a popular digital RF, it won't be Leica.

 

[Trius]

So I joined the ranks of RF users but the only money that went to Leica was for the cheapest of their lower-tier lenses, and it could easily have not even been that. Not at any moment did I contemplate buying a new Leica camera: the ttl, although 8 or 9 years old, is 90% of a new Leica at 40% of the price. That must be a serious problem for Leica.

Yes, but I think we're talking about how Leica can change that.

 

[Sam N]

...I love the results the R lenses give me and I would buy an all-digital R10 quickly if it were perhaps half the price of the DMR....

Buy a 5D and an adapter. You'll have to do stop-down metering, but it will cost less than 1/2 as much as the DMR.

 

[Thardy]

Hmm if I had $8k to spend it would be on a ZD back, which I would then mount on about five of the cameras I currently own.

Interchangeable backs=the future. Leica had the idea, then gave it up.

With $8000, you'd have the ZD back and $1001 left over. 😛

 

[KM-25]

I'm talking about thinking in creative ways.

Right now the M8 looks like an M Leica but isn't one. You could build all sorts of options into cameras that accept M lenses. They all don't have to look like M Leicas, but they need to be "cool". You need a design department that's in touch with reality.

Build it and they will come. Retro is very big. Young people will buy manual focus cameras that have the right "aura".

OK...I'll bite:

In my opinion, there is a *vast* untapped market for a M sized camera that not only will use traditional M manual focus lenses, but perhaps use state of the art AF lenses as well. I for one would love to have an M that would use my current stable of high end M glass and yet, I could put on a shorter than normal range zoom that had AF.

The problem is that I think Leica worked this the wrong way around, the M8 that is. What the M8 *should* have been was a brand new design M that used an entirely new crop of lenses like a 18-24, 35-50 and a 50-100 AFS type lens. Then, you could also use a traditional M lens on the same body. Even David Alan Harvey thought the base plate was silly.

I don't think it was a good idea in the long run for Leica to try to continue the M camera lineup in the digital arena, I think this held them back and created engineering and design problems for the long haul.

I also think that there is a demand for a less expensive but very hip Leica that may or may not be a R/F design.

Last night, my mother called and wanted to get advice on a camera to bring to europe that was not as big as her D70 / zoom combo. She also said that she wanted high image quality and the ability to makes images at night. Zoom range not nearly as important as optical quality.

After explaining the laws of light, optics and physics to her, we decided that the camera still does not exist and that the best bet would be the Canon G9 for now.

So there is a market for this camera, I too want one, many of us do, but it does not exist in any of the point and shoots nor in the M8.

 

[Al Patterson]

Anything is silly when it costs too much.

Or too little: how many would take a $8000 price tag seriously on a new SUV?

"Cheaper" usually means "cheaper", not "reasonable". Since everybody has their opinion on what "reasonable" is, the bumper-sticker-reduction to all facts is: "not too expensive = reasonable", "too expensive = unreasonable".

We all know how unreasonable $1.00 for a bottle of water is. Yet, it's a hot seller; because people assume that it's pure, clean, and healthy.

Many people are happy to drink from the tap; they couldn't care less. To them, it gets silly when you have to "pay" to drink it, and $1.00 may be too much.

I, on the other hand, like pie. And I would pay $200 if it were personally made by Liv Tyler, in lingerie, in my kitchen. I would pay $2.50 for a slice at Perkins --you'd have to drag me in there first.

Many will have an opinion on how ridiculous $200 for pie is. I think it's a bargain for the satisfaction of having Liv Tyler in lingerie in my kitchen. 😀

I get your point, but something tells me that for $200 it would be a Liv Tyler look alike in your kitchen, not Liv herself. I bet her price would be even more unreasonable.

And, I had to pay $3.50 once for a bottle of water at "The Happiest Place on Earth" on a REALLY hot day. I was NOT happy...

 

[bobkonos]

Cloudy skies and about to rain, but just came in from shooting some black & white with my MP. This thread still active? Steven who???

 

[tbm]

Buy a 5D and an adapter. You'll have to do stop-down metering, but it will cost less than 1/2 as much as the DMR.

Sam, what technique are you referring to by stop-down metering with a Canon camera and Leica R adapter? Please describe with some details. Tnanks.

 

[newsgrunt]

Leica would not be competing directly, imo, with Nikon or Canon for the pro photographer. The shooter who chooses to use rf is doing it for specific reasons which for me would be size, discretion, film etc..An analogy I like would be: as pro dslrs are to leica rf's , tae kwon do is to tai chi. The end result is fundamentally the same but tai chi takes a softer, subtler approach.

 

[infrequent]

dilute the brand?! please...

i guess selling rebadged panasonics doesn't dilute the brand?

 

[Sam N]

Sam, what technique are you referring to by stop-down metering with a Canon camera and Leica R adapter? Please describe with some details. Tnanks.

http://photonotes.org/articles/eos-manual-lenses/#what

Basically you focus wide open first then use the aperture ring to set your aperture before taking the shot.

 

[tom_uk]

Yes, but I think we're talking about how Leica can change that.

There's an example: Canon in the late 1980s, when they introduced the EOS range. They did the following:-

a) introduced a new camera with a completely different mount which none of their existing lenses fitted;
b) this same new camera had a lot of radical new technology: focusing motors in the lenses, unltrasonic motors;
c) they continued to develop the range and the technology aggressively;
d) they dropped their old systems as quickly as they could, even the latest model (the T90) which everyone said was a superb camera;
e) there were no further new non-AF lenses.

At the time I remember Canon taking a lot of criticism for the absence of backwards compatibility in the EOS range. But it turned out to be the right decision, and Canon moved from being #2 to being clearly #1 within 10 years.

That's the sort of thing Leica have to do.

 

[Roger Hicks]

That's the sort of thing Leica have to do.

Dear Tom,

Leica and Canon are (and are likely to remain) rather different manufacturers, volumes and cultures, I'd have thought.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

What difference will Lee's departure make?

To threads like this, absolutely none.

They will still consist of more or less uninformed opinions.

(I do not exclude myself from this).

Cheers,

R.

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

I get your point, but something tells me that for $200 it would be a Liv Tyler look alike in your kitchen, not Liv herself. I bet her price would be even more unreasonable.

And, I had to pay $3.50 once for a bottle of water at "The Happiest Place on Earth" on a REALLY hot day. I was NOT happy...

Hey: we're talking about paying what we want, not what we ought to! 😉

What you need at that "place" is a thermos with a mix of vodka and Kahlua, not water! It'll help you endure "It's a [tiny planet] after all!" (bracketed to avoid the wrath of the Mickey lawyers)