Why doesn't Leica just remake the M2?

[splitimageview]

If they had a price point that would sell 1000/month profitably, it would be no problem getting them built, they'd have to do it in Asia though. It won't happen.

How many Zeiss Ikons are being sold at $1400, I wonder? If Leica sold the M7 for that, would anyone buy the Ikon?

 

[maddoc]

Sounds like a plan! Build it cheaper, offer a few frameline set variations, and price it not too far above the Zeiss Ikon.

If they would offer such an "M4-P mark II" in that price range, I would buy it new, immediately. 🙂

Offering it with few frameline set variations (e.g. 35-50-90 and 28/90 - 35/135 - 50/75) and in either black-chrome and silver chrome, wouldn't add to much to the costs.

A - relatively - moderately priced all-manual entry-level M-Leica together with the Summarit lenses should be an interesting extension of product line-up, IMHO.

 

[Al Kaplan]

It makes me wonder if Cosina ever made overtures to Leica or vice versa. Once the patent rights to the M mount expired everybody could get into the action, and Minolta already had followed up the joint venture CL with the Minolta CLE years ago. It isn't a matter of the world needing a reasonably priced Leica. We have reasonably priced Bessa and Zeiss bodies with M mount. Most users don't give a hoot as to whether or not their new camera will last for fifty years when the survival of film itself is an unknown.

Unless they've had experience using Leica cameras, or maybe the Swiss made Alpa cameras, they've never experienced such a well made and smoothly functioning camera. Perhaps they don't know what they're missing, but that just means that they're not missing it at all.

We now live in a throw away culture. Why get a 3 year old computer fixed when you can buy a brand new one with more features for less money than the repair would have cost? Cameras are no different in most peoples' eyes. The price of a full CLA on your M4 will buy you a brand new Bessa.

The news media has all gone digital and SLR. It had largely gone SLR before 1960 when the Nikon F displaced the S3 and SP and the Leica M2 and M3. There are no longer any heros out there shooting wars with film cameras, nothing to inspire the younger generation to embrace film. Kodachrome is gone. Film is now an art medium to younger shooters. Leicas, new or used, are an affectation for people with money. As working cameras, they have no use in today's world.

 

[Keith]

It makes me wonder if Cosina ever made overtures to Leica or vice versa. Once the patent rights to the M mount expired everybody could get into the action, and Minolta already had followed up the joint venture CL with the Minolta CLE years ago. It isn't a matter of the world needing a reasonably priced Leica. We have reasonably priced Bessa and Zeiss bodies with M mount. Most users don't give a hoot as to whether or not their new camera will last for fifty years when the survival of film itself is an unknown.

Unless they've had experience using Leica cameras, or maybe the Swiss made Alpa cameras, they've never experienced such a well made and smoothly functioning camera. Perhaps they don't know what they're missing, but that just means that they're not missing it at all.

We now live in a throw away culture. Why get a 3 year old computer fixed when you can buy a brand new one with more features for less money than the repair would have cost? Cameras are no different in most peoples' eyes. The price of a full CLA on your M4 will buy you a brand new Bessa.

The news media has all gone digital and SLR. It had largely gone SLR before 1960 when the Nikon F displaced the S3 and SP and the Leica M2 and M3. There are no longer any heros out there shooting wars with film cameras, nothing to inspire the younger generation to embrace film. Kodachrome is gone. Film is now an art medium to younger shooters. Leicas, new or used, are an affectation for people with money. As working cameras, they have no use in today's world.

Stop beating about the bush Al ... tell us how you really feel! 😀

 

[maddoc]

The news media has all gone digital and SLR. It had largely gone SLR before 1960 when the Nikon F displaced the S3 and SP and the Leica M2 and M3. There are no longer any heros out there shooting wars with film cameras, nothing to inspire the younger generation to embrace film. Kodachrome is gone. Film is now an art medium to younger shooters. Leicas, new or used, are an affectation for people with money. As working cameras, they have no use in today's world.

I think that this is an important point, Leica got kicked out of the "pro-business" (news-paper) almost 40 years ago (!!) but are still producing and selling (!!) basically the same camera that made them famous ~ 60 years ago.

A cheaper entry-level M could be attractive especially for the younger generation, a step-up from the Lomo / Holga / Lubitel (which are also quite overpriced cult cameras).

 

[abenner]

Yeah, what you see is Cosina and Zeiss being innovative and listening to customers and Leica, well, not doing that.

But in the end I guess it's hard to fault Leica for going where they are since they have to concentrate on digital to stay in business.

I was just taken aback when I watched that video and they said they made 100-150 film cameras a month.

 

[Al Kaplan]

Keith, I've stated how I really feel many times before. I'm going to make the Big Switch to Digital as soon as my Leicas wear out, hide my mop of thick curly hair under an akubara hat, and enjoy my 43 year old girlfriend until I wear out. (or she does)

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

 

[Keith]

Keith, I've stated how I really feel many times before. I'm going to make the Big Switch to Digital as soon as my Leicas wear out, hide my mop of thick curly hair under an akubara hat, and enjoy my 43 year old girlfriend until I wear out. (or she does)

http://thepriceofsilver.blogspot.com

'And stop getting beaten up at political rallies' ... you left that one out! 😛

 

[David Hughes]

Hmmmm, there's two choices; (A) you buy up a few M2's and strip them down, checking the parts as you go and then rebuild a few perfect ones or (B) hundreds of you go to Leica with cash in your hands and hand it over and they turn out the cameras once they've, say, 2,000 orders at, say, 5,000 each and all paid for in advance.

Simple ain't it?

Or buy a good looking one and get it completely overhauled, which sems to involve stripping and rebuilding...

Just my 2d worth.

Regards, David

 

[rover]

Given how little difference there is between a MP and a M2 it's hard to see how they could make it more than very slightly cheaper. And they'd have the extra cost of making two different versions of basically the same thing.

I am surprised it took twenty post to get to this one.

Take the batteries out of an MP and what do you have?

 

[rover]

If you want an M2, just buy an MP and leave the battery out so the meter doesn't work.
/T

Post 25, I just woke up so I am catching up.

 

[maddoc]

I am surprised it took twenty post to get to this one.

Take the batteries out of an MP and what do you have?

... an MP sans batteries ?

Omitting the electronic parts, ISO dial on the back-door, battery compartment with door, and LEDs in the VF could cut cost for parts and labor (less parts to mount and adjust).

 

[rover]

... an MP sans batteries ?

Omitting the electronic parts, ISO dial on the back-door, battery compartment with door, and LEDs in the VF could cut cost for parts and labor (less parts to mount and adjust).

OK, you can cut costs? That doesn't mean Leica will sell it for anything less than they do the MP. Leica isn't about sales.

 

[Nando]

There was the "MP Classic" that was made for Leica's Hong Kong distributor. It was replica of the original MP and it didn't come a meter. It came with a 50 Summicron made to resemble the Summicron II rigid. I think that the kit was priced at over $6000. There are a few on e-Pay with BIN prices from $5750-6300USD.

 

[abenner]

I have the MP Classic and it was what got me thinking about this question of building a cheaper M. This camera was certainly cheaper to build than a regular MP right? I mean it's the same camera without the electronics. Then they packaged it up with a special edition lens, strap, hood and caps, fancy packaging, and sold it for $5000. I'd have never paid that, but I got a great deal on the body only for about the price of a used MP.

So take away all that extraneous crap for the special edition set and focus on the camera. Now find a way to build it cheaper. Stamp the parts instead of machining from brass, like maddoc said. They've done it before and many think it was that cheapened M4-2 that saved the line.

Or am I wrong to think Leica can find a way to produce a robust camera at a reasonable cost.

 

[Tuolumne]

Or am I wrong to think Leica can find a way to produce a robust camera at a reasonable cost.

They obviously could, they've just decided not to. If Leica goes under someone, probably Cosina, will just buy the name (remember Voigtlander!?) and do exactly that. Hmmm...hey...not a bad idea. I can hardly wait.

/T

 

[Livesteamer]

If you wanted a cheaper M body what about taking the traditional shape M and building it with the inexpensive Copal Square shutter. Life cycle would be lessened but still great for most folks or have I just committed Heresy. Sorry if I have offended the purists. Joe

 

[dap]

I'm going to have to agree with the majority of the other posters on this one (sorry - I don't want you to feel like your getting ganged up on). I think that there would probably be little to no market for a brand new meterless leica film camera. In my mind selling a manual film camera with an inboard meter is similar to selling a car with a synchronized manual transmission - it is a bit old fashioned acording to current public opinion but there is a small (getting smaller by the day) and enthusiastic audience who are asking for it and will buy it. Selling a meterless leica would be like selling a car with a non-synchronized manual transmission - there might be a couple of die-hards who poop their pants at the thought of owning one but the vast majority wouldn't even think twice about it. Even if there was a market for a stripped down Leica, I am willing to bet that merely deleting the MP's electronics isn't going to reduce the cost of the camera by much (I imagine that the electronics in a metered Leica film camera constitute only a small percentage of it's manufacturing costs - I certainly wouldn't expect the lack of electronics to drop the price of an MP an additional $1500+). Realistically, with the price of the majority of used meterless leicas floating around the $500-$800 range and with the Zeiss Ikon (which would offer you much more bang for the buck) going for about $1400 new...$2500 for a stripped down leica is not going to be a big seller. I think the only way you could get a basic meterless Leica to sell in significant numbers is if you could offer it for a price between $1000-$1500. In order to do that they would probably have to cheapen the build quite a bit (more plastic, go back to a zinc top plate, delete that little condenser lens in the viewfinder that everybody loves to talk about, etc.) which would end up pissing off all the Leica afficianados and M2 loyalists that would have been the only market for the camera in the first place.

 

[Al Kaplan]

When the M4 was first introduced it sold for the same price as the M3, U.S. $288.00. The M2 with self timer was $250, without it $200. First, multiply those prices by six, the aproximate inflation over the years. Second, consider that the U.S. dollar was a very strong currency at the time while the German mark wasn't, so the exchange rate was much different than it is today. Just from inflation, ignoring the exchange rate and labor cost, an M4 would be worth a bit over $1,700.

Again go back to the early sixties and a Nikon F with an F/2 lens was about $330 and $375 with an f/1.4, not much less than a Leica, and the rangefinder SP was about the same price as the F.

The real problem these days is that people want cheap expendable cameras, and about everything else.

 

[willwright]

they do, or did, the MP-3. It was the .72 finder and the manual set film counter of the M2. a brand new M2 in other words. didn't last long.