sahe69
Well-known
If that was right they would be just shipping max profit crap out and not responding to warranty claims. Any company with even a mid term plan to survive cannot neglect customers. There's no way around it and that's good.
Which partially strikes me also with Leica. The products are undeniably good, but for the price (in my personal perception) there's too many quality issues and too many market standard features missing.
bob338
Well-known
Elaborate, please.
Arvay
Obscurant
Never. Insane
JayM
Well-known
The quality issues part of this is a big problem for me. Kind of scary to buy a 5+ thousand dollar camera that might need thousands of dollars of out of warranty repair work, or a lengthy stay at a repair center. If they really are selling the ultimate craftsmanship that they claim there would not be such ridiculous problems.
Ken Ford
Refuses to suffer fools
The more you nurture, the more you sell.
dogberryjr
[Pithy phrase]
Yeah, he got me too.
marcr1230
Well-known
Companies are in business to make profits. if they can't make profits, they can't stay in business long. whether or not the company cares for its customers is irrelevant. Either way, those that sell enough product at prices high enough to support the enterprise continue. Those that don't, don't. part of you business model is to get customers happy, in so much as that keeps products selling. simple.
Maintaining a parts supply for a 60 year old camera, is a business decision, it establishes a reputation that makes the customer willing to pay a high price, knowing his purchase will be supported for a lifetime.
Creating an insanely expensive lens , presumably of stellar quality - is part of Leica's genetic code. whether or most of us can afford it or will buy it - they get a tremendous halo effect on their system. this business model doesn't work for just any company - but it has worked for Leica.
Even if I could buy this lens, it'd never happen, I may be crazy, but not that crazy. I would never use it enough, or perceive the difference in quality.
Maintaining a parts supply for a 60 year old camera, is a business decision, it establishes a reputation that makes the customer willing to pay a high price, knowing his purchase will be supported for a lifetime.
Creating an insanely expensive lens , presumably of stellar quality - is part of Leica's genetic code. whether or most of us can afford it or will buy it - they get a tremendous halo effect on their system. this business model doesn't work for just any company - but it has worked for Leica.
Even if I could buy this lens, it'd never happen, I may be crazy, but not that crazy. I would never use it enough, or perceive the difference in quality.
Chriscrawfordphoto
Real Men Shoot Film.
They wouldn't move 'as many as possible' if they didn't produce very good equipment at a price that people can afford. The fact that they produce cameras used by an enormous percentage of professionals shows that they want us as customers. They make equipment that does what we need at a price working pros can afford. Did you really need that spelled out?
bob338
Well-known
Do you really think CaNikon have become market leaders by nurturing their customer base? I don't. I think they advertise the s**t out of their products and keep the prices competitive by selling volume instead of quality. I don't have a source for this, but I remember reading in a book years ago that in the early 60s Nikon supplied a bunch of newspapers with free, or at cost, gear for their PJs. This is when Leica lost that market. People started seeing PJs using Nikons and assumed they must be the best, just like they did with Leicas a decade before.
If Nikon was nurturing its base they would have come out with a digital SP by now. They reissued the SP and S3, which was pretty amazing, but they then went on to cry that they lost money on it.
If Cosina was nurturing their base, they would have come out with a digital RF by now. I think Cosina does a pretty good job with most everything they do, but they have really dropped the ball on this issue. People want an affordable digital RF and they are probably the only company that can make it, and they won't. They are serving the whim of their owner, not their customers.
I think Leica is serving their customers, and the whim of their owners. Leica could have sat back for another 3 years and let the M9 peter out before introducing anything new. But they didn't, they introduced a (potentially) revolutionary camera. They also introduced a new 50mm when they could have left the lowly Summicron alone, where it would sell in its present formulation for many more years. They also introduced the Summarit line for people on a budget.
Anyway, just my .02.
Bob
bob338
Well-known
I guess is did, I'm one of the last people here to realize that you know everything.
Livesteamer
Well-known
For the wealthy few that buy this lens, do you think they will actually use it or put it in a collection and wait for its price to rise? Joe
The problem is that most people here are not any manufacturer's customer base. We are a weird bunch at RFF. We just keep wondering why nobody builds the camera we want at the price we want. They never will I have a feeling.
Archlich
Well-known
This points out that, how far Leica has drifted away from photogs.
icebear
Veteran
I'm not sure if there are figures out there how much profit Canon or Nikon for that matter make with PRO equipement used by pros vs ambitious amateurs that buy the latest and greatest camera with ISO 125000, shoots 25 fps and has 750 page instruction manual for the gazillion of features. Canon lost me after the T90 when my FD primes got useless for the next genaration.
I also bought all my Leica stuff used, same as you but although this does not directly contribute into Leica's pocket, it ensures the high resale value of Leica lenses and bodies (except M8
) that are older than 2 generations of Canon stuff.And no, I'll not by the Apo 2/50 'cron unless I hit the lottery. I'm happy with my type 2 'cron. I shoot on the street , I don't do lab testing
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
Do you have an actual reference for that pseudostatistic?
Sure does Archlich. Sometimes I believe it is why film is so popular here. If there were more affordable full frame digital mechanical rangefinder cameras, I bet there'd be a lot less film use here. Of course the diehards would still do it and most wouldn't give it up completely, but digital would be more popular than it is now (at RFF).
semilog
curmudgeonly optimist
Perfect. Couldn't have said it better.
Araakii
Well-known
Araakii
Well-known
I think the problem is not that Leica is charging too much. It's simply that "working photographers" are making too little nowadays. Professional photographers in the old days used to be more scarce and they made good money. Nowadays, everyone is a photographer even though there's insufficient income.
awilder
Alan Wilder
While the price is astronomical, so is the performance based on their published MTF graphs! For example wide open, it handily exceeds the 50 ASPH Summilux at it's optimal aperture of f/4 or f/5.6 across the frame. Stopping the ASPH Summicron further takes it to levels never seen before and I wonder if it's even possible to exploit it with Leica's mechanically coupled RF. So for the price, what you are getting the sharpest 50 ever made or quite likely ever to be made. The Summilux ASPH gives great low light performance and the Noctilux ASPH great ultra low light performance but the Summicron gives the best sharpness by far of the three 50's. Don't get me wrong, I'd never spend the money for such an optic having moved away from Leicas, but it's nice to see such an optic now actually exists.