Will the M9 encourage or discourage Zeiss to make a Digital Ikon?

[Traut]

Reverse engineering

Reverse engineering

I think the M9 will make it easier to reverse engineer an alternative digi-RF.

I believe Leica probably purchases much of the electronics from Nikon, Canon or Sony. Cosina or Zeiss can strike a deal with Canon, Nikon or Sony to market an alternative.

I bet sooner than later.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Cosina or Zeiss can strike a deal with Canon, Nikon or Sony to market an alternative.

Not if the only sensor is from Kodak.

And where you believe Leica buys their other electronics bears little resemblance to reality.

Cheers,

R.

 

[wgerrard]

I believe Leica probably purchases much of the electronics from Nikon, Canon or Sony. Cosina or Zeiss can strike a deal with Canon, Nikon or Sony to market an alternative.

I have no way of knowing, but I assume that is correct, that they buy electronics from someone. It is expensive to build the facilities needed to crank out integrated circuits, as well as buying the expertise to staff it.

But, I see no reason why the OEM who builds the M9's circuits would make them available to anyone else at less than market value.

 

[Paddy C]

I know nothing about what goes on behind the doors of these companies.

But the sensor provided by Kodak for the M9, to my uneducated eyes, is a specialized one. And it must cost an awful lot.

This isn't a simple thing like grafting a ZI body onto a850 innards. ($2,000 + $1,400 MRSP = a $3,400 FF ZID). If it was, the M8 would have been full-frame.

 

[johnastovall]

I think that a cooperation with Sony, sony providing a sensor, sensor-stabilization, image processors, lcd-screen etc, and zeiss providing a digital ikon housing, rangefinder and make it a good rf mechanically. Price it at 2999,- and it will sell reasonably well.

And who is going to foot the bill for all R&D for the microlenses to make it work on that Sony sensor? You just can't slap the sensor from a dSLR in a short flange to sensor RF body.

Why would Sony make the R&D investment? At best they would expect Ziess to foot the bill.

 

[darinb]

Why would Sony make the R&D investment? At best they would expect Ziess to foot the bill.

It would seem that Sony and Zeiss could easily afford to do the sort of work that is needed--after all, Leica Camera, with a mere 1000 employees total and on its financial deathbed was able to afford it.

Sony has certainly shown a desire to play and win in the serious camera market. Zeiss seems less committed to the camera market. But as I said above, the excitement around the M9 may prove to Zeiss (and Sony?) that such a market exists and thus worthy of their attention.

Maybe they'll just buy Leica and give it new life. 🙂

--Darin

 

[Roger Hicks]

Sony has certainly shown a desire to play and win in the serious camera market.

Dear Darin,

There's a lot of difference between a serious camera, and a serious camera market. There are also great differences of opinion about what constitutes a serious market. Alpa does very nicely, thank you, selling cameras at the rate of a few score a year. Is Sony, a mass-market electronics company, likely to want to compete with Alpa? Or even wth Hasselblad, who (on an informed guess) probably sell more cameras than M-series Leica and Alpa put together?

Cheers,

R.

 

[gilpen123]

IMO the DRF is a niche market now but if Zeiss, VC , Nikon, etc. can make a compact digital RF camera that will be nearly good in lowlight as the D700/D3 and 5DII and priced to sell, legions will jump, then the DSLR will be a niche. Well at least to the serious hobbyist or even professional photogs. Leave macro, sports and birding to the DSLR.

 

[darinb]

Dear Darin,

There's a lot of difference between a serious camera, and a serious camera market. There are also great differences of opinion about what constitutes a serious market. Alpa does very nicely, thank you, selling cameras at the rate of a few score a year. Is Sony, a mass-market electronics company, likely to want to compete with Alpa? Or even wth Hasselblad, who (on an informed guess) probably sell more cameras than M-series Leica and Alpa put together?

Cheers,

R.

Hi Roger,

I don't follow your thinking at all. Sony sells all sorts of things for all sorts of niche markets. Some of these markets would make the serious rangefinder market look large. Ditto for Zeiss.

The serious compact/rangefinder market is plenty large enough to interest these firms. (After all, if you look at the title of this forum you will see that the *film* rangefinder market was big enough to interest Zeiss at a time when film was essentially considered obsolete.)

Olympus and Panasonic are moving into the serious rangefinder market from point and shoot end. Leica now has a reasonable but very pricy entry at the other. Lots of action here.

It looks like an increasingly busy and exciting market niche to me.

As for as myself, nothing quite fits the bill yet. Putting a viewfinder on one of these new point and shoots would do wonders (even better if they had fast lenses). Making a m9-ish camera that better addressed its nice would do wonders for me on the other side.

Almost there...

--Darin

 

[bedaberger]

of course a digital ZI!

of course a digital ZI!

In my opinion Zeiss would never design and build a full line-up of rangefinder lenses without thinkting of the digital future.
Some people think it doesn't make sense for Zeiss to develop a digital rangefinder because this power comes already from Leica.
-> "Zeiss will sell lenses, that's enough for them..."

I don't think so...
The market would be bigger with a 2nd cheaper rangefinder, isn't it?

A good question is if it makes sense for both companies to compete each other rather than build up a bigger market for the M-system?

Leica: high priced, high resolution, superior build quality.
Zeiss: lower resolution, but maybe instead better high-ISO performance for a more achievable camera.

I've following basic model for the possible pricing of a Digital ZI:
M7 costs € 3500,- -> M9 € 5500,- difference for digital build: €2000,-
ZI costs € 1500,- plus € 2000,- for digital-make: € 3500,-!

I think there is a market for both.
These cameras are developed once, but can be sold for many years. Think of the product cycle on DSLR.
Why should you reinvent a fullframe rangefinder every 2-3 years?
They can be sold for at least 5-7 years as they are.
But they should complement each other.

good night! 🙂
Peter

 

[Keith]

Zeiss engineers will have an M9 in a thousand pieces by now examining it carefully as I'm sure they did with the M8. To my knowledge many manufacturers do this as a matter of course.

A friend of mine worked in Europe many years ago for a large manufacturer of motorcycles and he stumbled over a bunker where they stored their opposition's products of any merit that they they saw as being potentially successful. They had all been dismantled and examined in minute detail before being moved by forklift into this dedicated storage area! 😛

 

[wgerrard]

If we look at the Epson RD-1, I'd think it is certainly possible to build and sell a digital RF with a larger sensor and improved electronics and software compared with that camera. And at a price point of approximately $2000.

The ability to build a product to a particular price point, though, doesn't mean it will happen. Any company pondering such a move would weigh it against other potential products. Anyone capable of building a digital RF, for example, would also be capable of building a rather nice Micro 4/3 body, at a lower price point. They would consider which product will generate the most revenue.

The Micro 4/3 vendors are very close to rolling out something that will seduce a lot of RF users.

 

[mascarenhas]

Sony has been developing "backlit" sensors for some time, and will have a smallish one actually shipping in a P&S soon. If they can get it to scale to bigger chips it will probably be less sensitive to oblique light rays than standard CMOSes.

2008 Press Release from Sony

 

[bedaberger]

If we look at the Epson RD-1, I'd think it is certainly possible to build and sell a digital RF with a larger sensor and improved electronics and software compared with that camera. And at a price point of approximately $2000.

The ability to build a product to a particular price point, though, doesn't mean it will happen. Any company pondering such a move would weigh it against other potential products. Anyone capable of building a digital RF, for example, would also be capable of building a rather nice Micro 4/3 body, at a lower price point. They would consider which product will generate the most revenue.

You're right, but i think $2000 is just a wish.
The RD-1 uses a sensor out of the box, it would not be possible with fullframe.

Why do you always talk abour M4/3? (I mean many people 🙂)
It's a complete different system what supports the mount of M-lenses, but not in a way we like it!

 

[Roger Hicks]

Hi Roger,

I don't follow your thinking at all. Sony sells all sorts of things for all sorts of niche markets. Some of these markets would make the serious rangefinder market look large. Ditto for Zeiss.

The serious compact/rangefinder market is plenty large enough to interest these firms. (After all, if you look at the title of this forum you will see that the *film* rangefinder market was big enough to interest Zeiss at a time when film was essentially considered obsolete.)

Olympus and Panasonic are moving into the serious rangefinder market from point and shoot end. Leica now has a reasonable but very pricy entry at the other. Lots of action here.

It looks like an increasingly busy and exciting market niche to me.

As for as myself, nothing quite fits the bill yet. Putting a viewfinder on one of these new point and shoots would do wonders (even better if they had fast lenses). Making a m9-ish camera that better addressed its nice would do wonders for me on the other side.

Almost there...

--Darin

Dear Darin,

Zeiss will make anything for anyone, subject to the usual moral constraints, and indeed they make things for tiny markets, such as ciné lenses, but they want always to make a profit, which is why ciné lenses are staggerigly expensive.

The rangefinder market and the compact market are not the same thing, and while I completely agree that putting an optical high-end compact is an excellent idea, as soon as you're talking about M-mount with no crop factor you run into exactly the same problems that Leica has faced with the M8/M9, and there is only one sensor -- Kodak's -- that solves these. Rangefinders are quite complex and expensive items to add, too.

The film RF market was big enough to interest Kobayashi-san, not Zeiss, and he is a film partisan. Also, film cameras are a LOT easier to build, from cheaper components, than digital.

Cheers,

R.

 

[darinb]

Dear Darin,

Zeiss will make anything for anyone, subject to the usual moral constraints, and indeed they make things for tiny markets, such as ciné lenses, but they want always to make a profit, which is why ciné lenses are staggerigly expensive.

The rangefinder market and the compact market are not the same thing, and while I completely agree that putting an optical high-end compact is an excellent idea, as soon as you're talking about M-mount with no crop factor you run into exactly the same problems that Leica has faced with the M8/M9, and there is only one sensor -- Kodak's -- that solves these. Rangefinders are quite complex and expensive items to add, too.

The film RF market was big enough to interest Kobayashi-san, not Zeiss, and he is a film partisan. Also, film cameras are a LOT easier to build, from cheaper components, than digital.

Cheers,

R.

I'm afraid it seems to me that we've drifted far into the realm of unsupported supposition. (I've contributed my fair share to that drift, I know...)

And what could be more boring than photographers pretending to be market analysts? There are several self-anointed web gurus who already provide that service. 🙂

I'll bow out of the debate and will wait for history to render its verdict.

--Darin

 

[Roger Hicks]

I'm afraid it seems to me that we've drifted far into the realm of unsupported supposition. (I've contributed my fair share to that drift, I know...)

And what could be more boring than photographers pretending to be market analysts? There are several self-anointed web gurus who already provide that service. 🙂

I'll bow out of the debate and will wait for history to render its verdict.

--Darin

Dear Darin,

I'll pretty much agree, though in my defence I'll add that I was actually paid quite large sums for a piece of photographic market analysis a while back. Obviously I don't know how much the financiers in question relied on my analysis, but I do know that the company they were interested in is still in business and apparently doing quite well.

Cheers,

R.

 

[parsec1]

Dear Roger,
Wasn't Leica by any chance was it ?

Regards
Peter.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Roger,
Wasn't Leica by any chance was it ?

Regards
Peter.

Dear Peter,

No, but I dare not say any more about who it was because one of the conditions was non-disclosure.

Cheers,

R.

 

[ZeissFan]

Carl Zeiss' decision to re-enter the rangefinder market was also driven by a couple of other factors. First, Kyocera had withdrawn from the market, which had been its major outlet for its lenses in 35mm and what was a growing medium format segment. Also, Hasselblad was moving away from Zeiss as a sole supplier for its camera lenses, having sourced lenses from Fuji for its Xpan and then the new 6x4.5 cameras.

Both of these left Zeiss without major outlets for its camera lenses. And in the marketplace -- out of sight means out of mind and then soon to follow you're marginalized.

The creation of the Zeiss Ikon M-mount system and its lenses gave Zeiss two advantages: One, it was a re-entry into the marketplace without having to create a proprietary lens mount while taking advantage of an existing, active user base. Second, it gives Zeiss (not another camera maker) control over the camera and lens production and distribution and doesn't leave them open to surprise decisions, as what happened with Kyocera. It's likely Zeiss was informed of Kyocera's decision before the public, and it's also likely that it came as a surprise when it happened.

It still doesn't solve the issue of medium-format cameras, but perhaps we'll see something in the future. Or perhaps not, as Zeiss has branched out with its 35mm lens lines into SLRs.

Making a digital version of the Zeiss Ikon is no small feat, as it would involve several players and suppliers, as well as the need to create a larger customer support network to handle what would now include knowledge of software and other computer issues -- something that isn't necessary when dealing with a film camera.