Would You Buy SAME Quality Leica Gear NOT made in Germany!

[CameraQuest]

It seems to be Leica's official position that Leicas will always be made in Germany. Yet this adds a LOT to the retail price, possibly 50% or more.


Would you buy SAME quality Leica Gear NOT made in Germany?

Please vote.

Stephen

 

[x-ray]

Stephen it's called a Zeiss Ikon, zeiss ZM lenses and the answer is yes. CV lenses also excell!

 

[Digital Dude]

I'd buy Leica regardless of where it is made. The whole Germany thing' has little to do with the Leica standard. Just because, I prefer not to see them in Japan!
Regards,🙄

 

[Solinar]

I prefer the build on the old Leitz Wetzlar. Those days will never return.

If the present Leica is ever forced to off shore - so to speak - , it will still have to maintain a 100% QC of each of its wares and offer a long term passport.

 

[dcsang]

Did people shun the Leica's made in Midland?

I don't know man.. the whole "mystique" isn't exactly "there" for everyone. There's lots of good alternatives to Leica nowadays. I think Leica has to realize that sooner or later.... and hopefully that would be sooner rather than later lest they go.. *ahem* t*ts up business wise.

Dave

 

[mackigator]

Isn't the M8 made in Canada?

 

[Palaeoboy]

Its a strange position for Leica to take that position on its cameras given that its Trinovid binoculars and projectors were moved to Portugal and the quality was just as good. I was actually expecting the new Summarit lenses to be made there!

 

[x-ray]

Midland has never been regarded as highly as Germany. Don't know why but Midland was where the high tech designs and lenses came from. There was absolutely no difference in quality of the final product. I guess much of this thinking has been driven by the amateur market that has this romantic notion about precision German equipment. Precision Canadian equipment just doesn't have the same ring to it. It's something that people have heard for so many years and just take it as fact like Apple computers are the only computers that can be used for graphic design. If people hear these things enough then they begin to believe them.

Leica quality today isn't by any stretch of the imagination equal or even close to the build of lenses and cameras prior to the M6.

 

[Photog9001]

not in germany, are you mad? where's the fun in showing that to the mates...?

seriously, with my budget, i'm not qualified to answer this question...


"Please vote."

hell no. hate them polls. they're the worst thing that ever happened to this forum

 

[cp_ste.croix]

provided it was made under fair working conditions

 

[Roger Hicks]

Quite a lot of a Leica isn't made in Germany, including the heavy metal-bashing (top plates, etc.) done in Portugal.

You're not paying for 'German precision engineering', you're paying for 'engineering done right'. To some extent this is, I believe, easier to find in an area where there is a tradition of precision engineering, such as the Solms/Wetzlar area. Training up a Chinese, Turkish or Albanian farm-hand to do simple, repetitive tasks (the underlying premise of mass production) will seldom produce the same results. I might be happier with (let us say) Czech workers, given the mechanical history of the Czech Republic (go to the National Technical Museum in Prague if you possibly can).

The problem is compounded by the need to persuade people that the foreign version is indeed 'the same'. People pay extra -- and wisely so, in my view -- for something with a good track record: it's easier to sell a known standard of excellence, rather than to cut the price and introduce uncertainty.

Where were you thinking of as an alternative?

Finally, as the owner of both an M4-P and an MP, both from new, one pre-M6 and the other post-M6, I cannot subscribe to a prelapsarian vision that the M6 was any sort of turning point. The MP is a better camera, better made, than the M4-P. Similarly, I find it hard to believe that anyone who compares ZI and Leica has used new examples of either to any great extent. Zeiss themselves do not pretend that the ZI is in every way the equal of a Leica. What they do say (with perfect truth) is that it is a very good camera indeed. Whether a Leica is worth the extra money is a personal choice -- as is the question of whether a ZI is worth more than a Bessa.

Cheers,

Roger

 

[lns]

Roger, I have used, to great extent, a ZI and an MP, and I find them quite comparable. The ZI has a better viewfinder, a better film loading system and a comparable meter. The ZI is lighter, which I like. They are both great cameras. I slightly prefer the MP because I prefer manual exposure, but when I am wearing glasses I prefer the ZI. I greatly prefer the price of the ZI. The MP does feel more solid and reliable, for some reason, but the only one that has needed service is the MP.

 

[ferider]

You didn't mention Japan explicitly, but Leitz RFs do mostly compete with "Made in Japan" today.

Assuming "Made in Germany" is in any way more expensive than "Made in Japan" is just plain wrong.
Using equally qualified employees, a similar margin, and process, the small cost difference will in
no way qualify a 50% price difference.

Assuming the high current Leica prices are in any way correlated to costs or quality is wrong as well.

Most of todays quality control processes used in Germany and the US originate in Japan.

And, BTW, a major part of the M8 is made in the US.

 

[gregg]

I have owned Canadian made Leica gear - an M4-2 and last pre-asph 90mm Summicron with built-in hood. Both had excellent construction - both were finely machined.

There is no reason these manufacturing standards could not be met somewhere else - just look at the quality of the Zeiss ZM lenses and Hasselblad H series...

I agree with the fair working standards noted above!

 

[BillBingham2]

I think the key is a motivated work force with clear attainable goals in quality and volume. Be it West Virginia, Wetzlar, Midland, Guangzhou or San Palo management must be in harmony with the workers and the focus on quality unwavering.

Creating a motivated and focused work force is not an easy task. It takes time and in today’s “Whatch you doing for my bottom line this quarter” mentality it’s hard to balance.

Look at the old world way of matching parts (big this with a small that = perfect subassembly) and building a tool that needs little lubrication to work smoothly for ever. Layer on top of that a logical distribution of fabrication and look to ease the sorting done in assembly (not everything is the exact same), give them the parts sorted by say size.

When you take assembly from one culture and plunk it down in another you see a hard drop in quality that is impossible to make up. My guess is that speed of getting the line up was the focus rather than doing some six sigma studies in building the best possible camera.

Even today you hear stories about issues with M7s or M8s, nobody is perfect.

Would I buy Leica built elsewhere, yes BUT. But only if the quality was as good or better than it is now, the product was a Leica (read not a Minolta) and the price was reasonable. These days for me I have a hard time justifying not getting a CV or ZI lens, the price delta is just too wide.

B2 (;->

 

[oscroft]

The only thing I don't like about Leica gear is that it's too expensive for me to afford very much of it (one 2nd hand body and one 2nd hand lens is my limit so far - though I'm very happy to have those). So if there was any way they could find to reduce their costs but maintain their quality, I'd be completely in favour - I really don't care where it is made (although I do enjoy teasing a German friend about the "Japanese rubbish" that he uses, while I've got proper German gear 😀)

 

[bob cole]

Would You Buy SAME Quality Leica Gear NOT made in Germany

Would You Buy SAME Quality Leica Gear NOT made in Germany

It seems to be Leica's official position that Leicas will always be made in Germany. Yet this adds a LOT to the retail price, possibly 50% or more.


Would you buy SAME quality Leica Gear NOT made in Germany?

Please vote.

Stephen

-------------------

As has already been said, Leica cameras were not only made in Germany but also in Portugal and in Canada.

They were made in Canada and in Portugal because Leica Wetzlar made sure that they met German standards of excellence...

The Leica 72 -- which is a major and expensive Leica collectible -- was made in Canada as well as in Germany...

Some of the very best camera equipment being made today comes from Cosina in Japan...and at very competitive prices...Maybe someday -- soon -- Leica will decide that Cosina deserves a role in producing Leica...

It is also very possible that Leica -- at this very moment -- is scouting China for possible help in producing Leica, somewhat along the lines of Minolta helping Leica produce the Leica CL...The CL was not very popular at the time but is quite distinguished today as is the Minolta CLE...

And, too, while future production of the Leica in the United States seems unrealistic because of labor costs, Kodak of the U.S. appears well positioned to help Leica in certain kinds of technology...

Therefore, Leica's future may involve a combination -- not yet defined -- of German, Japanese, Chinese and North American involvement...

 

[like2fiddle]

I can't answer the poll because there's no choice there I would make.

Obviously, the following is simply my opinion: I believe that, like many things today, the definition of quality has been "dumbed-down". What is often referred to as a quality product now would likely not have made it to the photography market in the 50's and 60's. I don't have any hard facts to support this, only limited observations. There are an awful lot of M3, M2, and M4 users out there who can attest to a time proven, reliable piece of equipment. There are also alot of M6 owners who have/have had viewfinder flare probems, meter circuit problems, battery drainage problems, etc. I haven't heard of many Leitz lenses from the 50's and 60's that are falling apart, but I have heard of lenses from the 80's, 90's, and 2000's with loose aperture rings, poor, flaking paint jobs, etc. These problems with modern photographic machinery are not limited to Leica. I briefly owned a Bessa R3M - it arrived out of allignment, not difficult to fix, but this was a brand new, from the factory camera, very well packed, supposedly tested camera. Anyway, six rolls of film later the shutter broke. Hmm?

Meanwhile my M2 keeps chugging along quietly and smoothly, even though it has to compete with it's bagmate, the M6 with a flare-prone viewfinder and screwed-up meter.

 

[kully]

Yes. I would.

But not if they hired farm-hands.

There's a difference between mass-production and 'production done right'.

You can do 'production done right' in {China,Turkey,Albania} if that is the purpose of the factory. And you can do mass-production in Germany too, I've got German junk from the 70's that could only have been sold on the 'made in...' brand.

But manufacturing/design is normally moved to cut costs, and they try and cut costs that little bit more at the same time by curtailing training and process so the stereotypes carry on getting perpetuated.

Farm-hands 🙂

 

[BigSteveG]

"Would You Buy SAME Leica Gear NOT made in Germany" In terms of lenses, I vote for the Konica-M and UC line. Superb optics. Build is superior to Zeiss.