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angrylittleboy !wrJcGUHncE
http://www.imx.nl/photo/viewpoint/the_question_no_one_dares_t.html

"The removal of Steven Lee as CEO of Leica has nothing to do with his interview in AP or at PMA, but is the result of this simple figure: the third quarter turnover of Leica (period till December 2007) was reduced from Euro 45.4 Million to 38.2 Million (in Q1) and profit was halved to Euro 1.8 Million. With this figure in mind it is clear that Lee was fighting a losing battle."

tl;dr version : The rangefinder concept is dying and with it, Leica. Why buy a rangefinder when you can get a dSLR that's superior in many ways for less?
>> Anonymous
I think the rangefinder concept is dying only because Leica continues to refuse to produce any cameras in the mid range ($1000-$2000) price point.

There are people out there, like me, who love shooting with rangefinders and would like to have a digital rangefinder, but can't afford $5000 for the M8.

I've had a number of DSLRs and love my D200, but I would drop it in a heartbeat if I could get a digital rangefinder with comparable image quality in a similar price bracket.
>> Anonymous
>>132690
The article did say that there could be a full-frame Leica somewhere in the future (or a free full-frame upgrade for the M8), so that would answer the image-quality issue. As for the price, well, it's possible that they would do another MinoltaCL stint.
>> Anonymous
Leica's only digital rangefinder costs $5,500 fucking dollars is only 10mp and doesn't even have a full-frame sensor. This is why Leica is failing. If they made a $2,000 full frame digital RF they might have something going on.
>> Anonymous
>>132694As for the price, well, it's possible that they would do another MinoltaCL stint.
I doubt it, if for no other reason than they seem to be trying to fill that price point with shitsack rebadged panasonic point and shoots that look vaguely like rangefinders and that they market as DSLRs.

>>132695
Even an APS-C sized sensor camera at $2000 would be reasonable provided it still met the build and handling quality one comes to expect from Leica M cameras. It's really stupid too because they own the market... there is no competition and they could sell tons of cameras if they just didn't price themselves outside the reach of most of their buyers.
>> fence !!POey2hdozCZ
in the future, everyone will own either a canon or a nikon, and a massive war will be waged over ergonomics vs. signal-noise ratio.

seriously, compile a list of all the photography-related companies that have gone under since the advent of digital photography and shit major brix.

i'll start:

konica minolta cameras
bronica
contax
polaroid
yashica (technically part of contax)

and soon, possibly leica? i mean, they make enough 20 grand microscopes and surveying transits to stay in business for a while, but i'd had to see them transfer production to fucking panasonic or some other asian conglomerate.
>> Anonymous
I'm actually very surprised Leica has managed to stay in business as long as it has. They've always priced themselves out of reach for most buyers and for the last thirty years have produced cameras lacking the whiz-bang electronic and technical features that are likely to appeal to the majority of buyers (not that that's a bad thing, but it certainly affects their market share). They've stayed afloat mostly because of pompous rich people who buy them because of the name and a small segment of people who really do love shooting with rangefinders and can manage to afford new Leicas.

It should come as no surprise that the company is struggling now as the gold standard for rich assholes is a top-of-the-line Canon or Nikon DSLR and companies are producing smaller, lighter, quieter, and better handling DSLRs that can approximate some of the advantages of rangefinders for a fifth of the price.

I will really be sad to see Leica go, but unless they seriously revamp their business model of the last 50 years, it's pretty much certain.

My only hope is that Voigtlander stays afloat and keeps improving the quality of their rangefinder line and introduce more digital products while keeping true to their mid-range price beginnings. They had a good product with the Epson R-D1, but it was too hard to get in the US, too expensive, lacked brand recognition, and is now outdated and overpriced on the used market.
>> fence !!POey2hdozCZ
>>132712

*i'd hate to see....

also, i've been thinking about this for a little while now, and it's totally leica's business model. build a camera that will last two hundred years, and people will only buy one camera in their lifetime. i mean, leica fanatics typically have more than one M, but never four or five ('cept moaan). it's a prime example of the overproduction of durable goods. we may bitch that the d40 or rebel xti are plastic pieces of shit, but we're really just subsidizing innovation and better cameras in the future by giving in to cannikon's obsolescence timeline. add leica's reluctance to jump into the digital age, and i'm beginning to think that this is simply a case of the dinosaur failing to evolve along with the rest of the world.
>> Anonymous
>>132695
You're an idiot.

First of all, an SLR is easy on a digital sensor. The large flange focal distance
minimizes many of the problems with how light works with a digital sensor. That's why we can have full-frame SLRs and not a full-frame rangefinder: the relative flange focal distance of the M-mount is just too short to make a full frame chip work well. It'd take a breakthrough for their to be an M-mount camera with a digital 36x24mm sensor. The quality is already superb; there's no need for a larger chip or more megapixels. Want a wide lens? Boo-hoo, you have to put a 28mm on instead of a 35. Want a normal
lens? 35 instead of a 50. It doesn't matter unless you already own only one lens, and a used lens is cheap compared to any camera body except a point and shoot or a goddamn Digital Rebel.

If the M8 sold for $2,000, Leica would already be bankrupt. It's a small company with small sales compared to Canon or Nikon, but it has the same sort of overhead they do. More actually on each product; that money buys build quality and absolutely anal quality control. If Leica set out to build a copy of the Rebel or D40, even applying lower quality control, it'd still cost more. Overhead. Very basic concept. Just doing business costs money. R&D for a camera to even exist costs money. Those costs are cheap for the big camera makers; they're expensive for Leica. That's why Leicas cost what they do: overhead and quality control. Those stupid collector's editions? They subsidize the real cameras.
>> Anonymous
>>132722
>It's a small company with small sales
Well, there was the time when Leica WASN'T small. They basically locked themselves in now - they have high prices due to high R&D overhead, which is due to small sales, which are due to high prices.
Speaking of high prices, there's Cosina/Voigtlaender, who somehow manage to stay afloat selling basically the same stuff for 4 times less. And while their QC might be less anal than Leica's, chances are you won't be able to tell the difference in a blind test.
>> Anonymous
>>132690
I confess being one of those people.
>> Anonymous
>>132721
The idea of a camera that lasts a lifetime worked great when film was the standard. As long as the camera body kept working, there was no need to upgrade- especially for people who don't see any need for autofocus and computerized autoexposure.

That changed with the digital age, however. Particularly in the last five years and probably for the next five to ten in which digital photography is evolving extremely rapidly. Now every couple of years there are real reasons to upgrade cameras: better image quality, faster processing, better battery performance, improved storage, etc. Perhaps in five to ten years digital technology will reach the point at which it's pretty much perfect and you will again be able to buy a camera for life, but right now it just doesn't make sense.

>>132722
Overhead and the fact that Leica is a small company may be part of the reason that their cameras are so expensive, but I don't consider it a valid excuse. They aren't some small upstart with nothing to draw upon, they're an old company with a well established R&D team and well established brand identity. They have had every chance to become a huge player in the camera industry and have chosen not to. Now they are paying the price for creating a small niche market and refusing to branch out for forty years.
>> Anonymous
If they didn't invest so much in "R&D" for their slr line and concentrated more on creating quality and reasonaby-priced rangefinders...
>> Anonymous
>>132722
Rangefinders are designed for wide and normal angles. Cropped sensors make no sense with them. A full frame sensor is possible, it will just take some work.

Of course Leica is a specialty manufacturer but the reason the CEO was fired is because they are not competing with other manufacturers. If they want to do this they have to make cheaper cameras that enthusiasts will buy. End of story.
>> Anonymous
>>132740
Which one of their SLR lines? lol
>> Anonymous
>>132694
Digital Leica CL would be made of pure win if they could make it to sell for less than $2000
>> Anonymous
>>132695
wut? Who needs 10mp anyway, I'd settle with 5.
>> Anonymous
>>132758
>>high R&D overhead
Which is why they shat out the flawed-by-design M8? If leica can't pull their head out their ass, fuck 'em.
>> Jeremo !iKGMr61IHM
Leica needs a cheaper model pure and simple.

Let's make a shitty comparison. Porsche was saved by the cheaper and more affordable Boxster. Take it however you will. But they do need to make their way down market.
>> Anonymous
>>132984
exactly! i just had to think of that example ...
>> Anonymous
that's a pretty bad analogy... but he said it was so it's okay
>> Jeremo !iKGMr61IHM
>>132998

Bad in terms of comparison between very different industries yes, but not in terms of the basic principle.

Every luxury company on the planet are starting to downmarket their product, just enough to open up new market and still retain their old image.

This is what Leica needs to do. Leica has always been a niche market item. It's gotten to the point though where the die hard fans aren't even willing to go the M8 with the quality problems and the pure fact that it ain't FF... though i can understand that.

Leica is not a company that would skimp on quality since they know they can just off set the cost to the loyal fanboys... which obviously means a FF rangerfinder has it's own difficulties and manufacturing problems.

That said, there's no reason why Leica can't release another comparatively cheap rangefinder model either as a 1.33 or 1.5 that would appeal not to the masses, but a wider audience.

>>It is evident that Leica lives from its mystique and not from its business case

I think that quote in the article sums it up really really nicely, and that's where the Porsche comparison rings true.
>> Anonymous
it's a bad analogy

because porsche wasn't "saved" by the boxster

lol
>> Anonymous
Leica have been fucking people over and milking the profits for decades. I am glad if they die. They deserve it.

Stupid "collector's" edition cameras and shit artificially high prices.
>> Anonymous
>>133046

This is why you get a camera from back when they built their reputation. A Leica III, or M3/M2/M4, can be had for a decent price (still collectors' items but not the EPICZ ITAM that everyone wants), and represents what they were making when all the pros were using them.

As soon as the Nikon F came out, pros switched to those in droves and Leica started resting on its laurels. I'd love to have an M4 if I could get it, because it's beautiful, but I could do without any of the subsequent models.
>> Anonymous
>>133056

Yeah, you are right.

It is such a shame when you think of what they could have done had they kept pushing rather than sitting back and doing the same thing forever.
>> Anonymous
Yeah, it's not that the rangefinder concept is dying, it's just Leica killing itself. Voigtlanders and old rangefinders are still being sought after by people with common sense who buy it for what it really is- a camera. Even the Epson digital rangefinder is pretty much popular even if production has ceased for a long time, not because of novelty, but because it's affordable compared to an M8 and quite usable.
>> thefamilyman !!rTVzm2BgTOa
what i would do for a Nikon S3 or SP
>> Anonymous
>>132828

The only real flaw with the M8 is its lack of waterproofing. The lack of an IR filter on the sensor was the right decision- another advantage of the large FFD of an SLR with digital is that it minimizes some problems an on-sensor IR filter can cause. Someone posted a thread on photo.net showing these problems appearing on images from the Epson RD-1, which has a normal, SLR-style digital sensor. How is giving users more control over the amount of IR light in their exposure a disadvantage, anyway? Lots of users like the slight IR-boost in their black and white files the M8 offers.

All the other issues with the M8 were corrected, and roll-out bugs are not at all unique to Leica. The 1D Mk. III had a buggy autofocus system.
>> Anonymous
>>133214
I think they were right in keeping the M essentially unchanged, but in all those years they never saw fit to streamline manufacturing and reduce the cost of those rangefinders to widen their market appeal. Additionally they failed to branch into other areas of photography to ensure that even if rangefinders become a very small niche market they are able to stay profitable. Their SLRs were overpriced and uncompetitive with other manufacturers and they have always been extremely conservative in their adoption of new technology. A smart move would have been to manufacture both high-tech electronic and back-to-basics mechanical cameras at a variety of price points, thereby ensuring that they remain relevant to the entire professional/advanced amateur market.
>> Mr. Coal !YgQRHAJqRA
>>133214
I read an interview (dating to 2000, so it's old) saying that Leica lenses in other mounts is impossible due to opposition from the mount owners. Dunno if the situation's changed since then.

The M is really a victim of its own success. Why would I buy an MP or M7 when I can get a used M for much less with almost all the functionality? Someone on another site suggested that Leica get in on this business by buying up used M's, then giving them a CLA and selling them at a substantial markup with "Leica Approved" tags or something. It seems like an ideal way to tap into the main way Leicas are bought and sold these days.
>> Anonymous
>>133219
oh wow I left that stupid tripcode in
>> Anonymous
>>133216
They did introduce a lower-cost, more modern camera, the Leica CL. It sold like crazy, so much so that M sales fell through the roof. The company won't admit it, but they killed the Leica CL because either it or the M had to go. They're wasn't enough demand for both of them.

They couldn't compete in the high-tech-electronic-camera market. Nikon, for instance, isn't just Nikon. It's part of a massive group of companies that includes a car company (Mitsubishi), an oil company, a major finance bank, a beer company, and many others. Leica is just Leica.
>> Anonymous
>>133219
AFAIK, the patents have expired for the F and K mounts.
>> Anonymous
>>133219
That refurbished M idea is really good, though. Sometime this year I'm getting myself an M3 and I'd pay extra if the refurbishing included the rangefinder.
>> Anonymous
>>133226
Perhaps they wanted the chips for lens-camera communication. I dunno, it's not like Leica operates on logic anyways.
>> thefamilyman !!rTVzm2BgTOa
>>133226
from what i counted, there are at least 11 (excluding Nikon) different manufactures who make F mount lenses for F bayonets. And many different applications both photographic and non-photographic that uses the Nikon F bayonet. So i'm not sure why Leica doesn't make a F mount lens. Perhaps they just want to keep it to themselves.
>> Compton
The rangefinder concept isn't dying and neither is Leica. Just Steven Lee.