What difference will Steven Lee's Departure make?

[Sam N]

I agree that Leica could use its name and heritage to become a hip popular item that they could charge a "coolness premium" for (like Apple products).

The public is NOT dying for these cameras. People on this forum are, but you have to realize that we are a very small niche. Most people want AF and at least the option of zoom lenses. Film-plane AF is not a good idea engineering-wise, so they'd have to ditch the M system (which really is what defines the company's image) altogether. This would alienate the people who love the "M experience".

If they did ditch M and go with something like a digital Contax G, it might actually do well, but prices would have to be low enough to compete with Canon/Nikon. If these cameras aren't going to be handmade they won't have that mystique/cachet over the Japanese competitors, so they won't be able to charge so much for the lenses.

There's a VAST untapped market for Leica M digital cameras. Leica is clueless on how to reach them. They need "cool" serious cameras that people aspire to, a rung above Canon mass market "Rebels".

...

Make Leicas what they were in the 1930's.....astonishingly cool gadgets that are adopted by the avant-garde to create art.

The public is dying for them.

Nikon could pull it off. I even think you could make one that has AF by a movable "film plane" ala the late Contax SLR's.

 

[Sam N]

Believe it or not the very poor accuracy of the frame lines is the biggest turn off for any pro I have spoken to. I know people who actually bought the camera and sold it again for this very reason. They all wanted to like it, but the framing problems were a deal breaker.

With digital photography, Live-view and extremely easy cropping in post can basically put an end to this problem.

 

[Pablito]

With digital photography, Live-view and extremely easy cropping in post can basically put an end to this problem.

Not for those long-time M users for whom cropping in post is as distasteful as cropping under the enlarger. I will confirm what Harry Lime says, I have heard complaints from photojournalists who bought them, some have kept the camera but point to the framelines as the biggest probelm, other have sold them.

 

[BillP]

Al, go for the G9 - you will always regret that you didn't otherwise. I have owned a G7 for over a year and switched to the G9 just recently and the difference is quite remarkable. For one, the G9 offers RAW, which the G7 doesn't. Once you have tried RAW you do not want to go back to JPEG only. The noise characteristics at higher ISOs has alos improved with the G9 - yes, it is not a 5D or D3, but pictures taken at ISO1600 after some quick NoiseNinja clean-up are absolutely usable - not so with the G7. For the minor price difference between the two cameras, the G9 is by far the better deal.

Shame you switched, given that you can have Raw on the G7...

http://www.mycanong7.com/html/g7_chdk_soft.html

Regards,

Bill

 

[RF-Addict]

Shame you switched, given that you can have Raw on the G7...

http://www.mycanong7.com/html/g7_chdk_soft.html

Regards,

Bill

It's not just RAW - noise control is much better. Plus, I did not want to go for those boot-camp RAW plug-ins. I rather have a camera that works😉

 

[35mmdelux]

Mr. Lee came from Best Buy, if I am not mistaken Dave.
He did start out at IBM.

Therein lay the problem. Best Buy is to Leica what Mazda is to Porsche. I am sure he had good plans BUT was he able to EFFECTUATE this plans. I bet not.

 

[Tom Diaz]

The details of Steven Lee's departure may be interesting gossip,
but the real story is Leica's future.

What difference will Steven Lee's departure make?

The good, the bad?

We can make guesses, but as the answers play out, it will write real interesting Leica history.

Stephen

Does anyone here know what it was about Lee that made him unpopular with dealers and so on?

Anyway, I hope the "upgrade" program survives his demise. I hope to own a second digital M body at some point, because I like to shoot with two bodies, but I also would like to be able to upgrade the one I have now.

 

[Rayt]

Does anyone here know what it was about Lee that made him unpopular with dealers and so on?

Imagine a business plan that does not include dealers in new products and that old products can become current products via a direct relationship with a customer bypassing the dealer? I'll wager the upgrade program got him removed. What is the most powerful part of any corporation? If the sales department thinks you are a loser then you are gone.

I also wager he had plans to built the next R digital in Japan and that was the last straw. (just speculating).

 

[jbf]

The problem is that Leica no longer can see out of the box as far as marketing is concerned. There is money in its current marketing system (to pro photographers and well-to-do baby boomers, etc), but not the type of cashflow that it needs to really become a known brand name with the sales to prove it. Market an M for the masses... for the young crowd, such as M. Valdemar mentioned and Leica would flourish.



The parallels between Leica and Apple are abundant... Leica really does need a younger and forward thinker, who has the tact and relationship building ability to give the dealers what they want, make people happy and move the company forward.


What they need are individuals not diallusioned by their own pedigree.

 

[M. Valdemar]

Absolutely not true.

The Leica is an iconic item that can be very successfully marketed to the younger demographic.

Give them an alternative, position it correctly, and every young student who has ever asked you "is that really a Leica", every Japanese kid in Shinjuku who wants to be seen as a "kawaii artist", every kid who has ever wanted something more than a cheap plastic digicam would have one around his neck.

And who said you couldn't have more modern features like AF in a WELL DESIGNED crop of newer M ramgefinders? You could have a spectrum of them that don't have to be Panasonic P&S cameras.

Modern marketing is all about educating anD CREATING a demand where there is a void.

I see Leica's failure as stupidity, stubbornness and short-sightedness. They have a gold mine but they are SO slow to act and so mired in "tradition" that they fail to adapt and seize the opportunities.

If I had a free hand I would bet the farm that I could turn them around. They need a guru like Steve Jobs.

There is no substantial "young crowd" that would give a flip about Leica no matter how it is marketed. We are all caught up in this mass delusion here that there is any real interest in rangefinders beyond our own little worlds on internet forums. There is not. There will never be. Rangefinders lost. Autofocus won. P&S won. SLR's won. We are a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the camera market and will never be anything else.

Most people see rangefinders as arcane relics of the ancient past (if they have ever even seen one at all) and aren't going to spend $100 dollars to buy one, much less $1000. There is not now, and there never will be a substantial market for digital rangefinder cameras. It ain't gonna happen.

<rant mode off>

 

[lns]

M. Valdemar, I think you are absolutely right.

I think the most interesting part of Leica's announcement is that Dr. Kaufmann is going to run the company for a year. That could be good, or bad, but I think it's significant. What will he do when the year's done?

 

[jbf]

Valdemar is 100% correct. It's all about creating the demand for the product.

How do you think apple came out of its hole? Sure, different product, but its all the same. They've turned into a powerhouse with the creation and marketing of the iPod, iPhone and in turn their laptops and other systems have soared off the shelves with the introduction of apple bootcamp, etc.

Sure we are talking obviously some innovations, but Leica can and should do the same. Create a product that can be sold to the many and still retain its more "boutique" approach with traditional M's both in digital and film format.

 

[M. Valdemar]

There's nobody steering the ship there.

Just the fact that they put that horrible slippery plastic "vulcanite" (yes, I know it's not vulcanite) on the M8 rather than something nicer shows that there's nobody with taste and a sense of their own market running the show there.

It's a comedy of errors.

 

[-kk-]

that PR is extremely strong worded i though. you dont often see that sort of language used nowadays. quite refreshing, honest and to the point.

(not good if you're Mr Lee though)

 

[Al Patterson]

I think you are all crazy. I think the "boutique" approach will lead Leica into the dustbin of history. With $500 DSLRs, why would any sane person spend even $1500 for a DRF? Do you think Walmart got big by being an upscale boutique? Before you worrry about demand, first you need a product more than 10,000 people worldwide might want.

The M8 and the MP will most likely be the end of the line.

 

[RF-Addict]

There is no substantial "young crowd" that would give a flip about Leica no matter how it is marketed. We are all caught up in this mass delusion here that there is any real interest in rangefinders beyond our own little worlds on internet forums. There is not. There will never be. Rangefinders lost. Autofocus won. P&S won. SLR's won. We are a tiny, tiny, tiny part of the camera market and will never be anything else.

Most people see rangefinders as arcane relics of the ancient past (if they have ever even seen one at all) and aren't going to spend $100 dollars to buy one, much less $1000. There is not now, and there never will be a substantial market for digital rangefinder cameras. It ain't gonna happen.

<rant mode off>

I have to agree with Sitemistic - we are all wearing tinted glasses and can't see the real world anymore. In order for Leica to come out with a product that would appeal to the masses , the M would have to change considerably. You are just not going to get people excited with a manual focus camera. Is Leica in the process of developing an auto-focus rangefinder type camera? I very seriously doubt it. The best they can do is to refocus their relationship with Panasonic and smack a Leica lens onto a Panasonic P&S - how many can/will they sell of these?
My prediction is that the M8 upgrade program will very quickly disappear - it sounded too weird to begin with. There will be a M9, but the question is when and what will it bring and is it going to expand the current digital Leica userbase?

All in all I am not very optimistic about the future of Leica. They don't get marketing at all and the little money they spend is wasted on a ridiculous flash website.:bang:

 

[M. Valdemar]

There are rangefinders and "rangefinders". Nothing is set in stone for a clever company.

Apple saw that they had a disaster in the making with their computers, they did an abrupt about-face and switched from PowerPC chips to Intel chips.

Everyone knew you "couldn't have an Intel chip in a Mac". Suddenly, they're selling hundreds of thousands of them a month.

What young kid would pay $500 for a cell phone? Or $400 for a fancy MP3 player? Oops.....MILLIONS of them......

You can't have autofocus in a rangefinder. Rangefinders are not autofocus cameras by definition.

I have to echo Roger here. How do you create a low priced boutique camera? How much would you suppose the average young adult would pay for a rangefinder camera?

jbf, I'm interested to know know what you see such a camera that would appeal to large numbers of young adults looking like. List the features and functionality you think it would need?

 

[aizan]

i'm pretty sure the average young adult would pay $1000 for a DMD made by canon or nikon, as specified by Mike Johnston. if it was made by leica, $1500-2000 would not be unreasonable, assuming it was state of the art.

 

[Trius]

sitemistic: You are a professional photographer. M. Valdemar is a marketing professional.

 

[M. Valdemar]

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".