Might as well close the company and sell the name

Today, at the opening of the Twenty First Century Photokina, Leica introduced the 1925 "O" Leica. Think of the engineering effort and capital expenditure put into this piece of useless fake antiquity, instead of developing up-to-date products. If they have no vision of the future, no more Corporate purpose than this, why don't they just close the shop doors and sell the brand name to some Japanese company? I will shed a bitter tear with you.

They had all the old tooling, it is not a complicated camera, a

grand total of two members of their staff are doing all the

production work and they are making a hefty profit! Sounds like a

good idea to me.

I'm with you both, especially the profit part. But what I want to

know is who is going to buy it! Not me. I'd like to see one,

though.

When the Besse L came out (of nowhere) it was very retro, but due to

the lenses offered it was also usable. 25 and 15mm lenses are not a

problem with their extensive depth of field and conservative maximum

apertures. When the company wanted to expand the lens line it knew

it couldn't just provide a different viewfinder... maybe a slow 35mm

lens would be the limit for a none focus confirmed optic.

 

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The new / old Leica has a fifty. It would be fine outdoors at close

to infinity, with fast film... but other than an exercise in

demonstating how bad things use to be, what is the point? I'm sure

they will sell out of them, but I'd bet you won't see them in use...

wouldn't want to scratch that future collectable.

 

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My M6 classic gets more valuable to me every year.

This is getting ridiculous.

 

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Where is the aperture priority rangefinder? What about a new CLE size

body? A rear loading model? A redesigned long base rangefinder with a

life size (1.0x) image and high eyepoint? A quieter shutter (Rollei

TLR users will know what I mean)? Lighter weight? Focusing tab on the

new Summicron?

 

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Something, anything, other than this tomfoolery.

 

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There, I've said it, its out of my system.

I must admit, I have always been puzzled by the marketing research and

product development people at several companies that make products I

own, Leica being one of them. Maybe there are those at Leica who are

pushing for some really new stuff, and they are running into a big

conservative wall. Is the company nearly broke by any chance? My own

experience with business is that when a company isn't doing well

financially, often they get more conservative with there decisions,

which is counter to what is often needed. By the way, I'm still mad

at Alfa Romeo (another European company that seems to have never

figured out what Americans wanted to buy)for not bringing out a

"Miata" 10 years ago. At least you can still buy new Leicas in the

States-at least for now.

I have uploaded some information on Leica Camera AG <a

href=http://www.photo.net/users/msitaraman >to my page on photo.net

</a>. The information is in .bmp (bitmap) format, for which apologies.

The company is losing money, alas.

When they close the place down and have their garage sale of stuff

they find in the backs of drawers I sure don't want to miss it. :-)

I think without doubt all us at this site are Leica fans !

Whether we are pro or amateur or both,we are concerned about the way the company is going.I for one will add Voigtlander lens or two for ones stolen.I cannot justify Leica prices...dont work for National Geographic etc..so

for price of badly worn,really old Leica lens can have new very good lens.The company worries too much about collectors.They are not photographers but a blemish on the landscape.Badge engineering is sad but fact of life...the compacts.The Hunchback of Solms (R8) is awful.For those of you requiring a camera for quick work,most pro jobs these days,everybody in a hurry,no patience,I am considering,

touching,holding a modern auto-everything camera.I hate being dependent on batteries but fact of life.I have Pentax equipment that has worked very hard with no problems.Also old.Leica needs to build a simpler RNGFDR and a more complex SLR.Rolex watches was going way of Dodo bird till they saw the light.A huge success story for small company.

The O-series seems like a sound business decision to me. Minimal

investment, predictable sales revenue to Leica history buffs and

collectors.

 

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Leica has always done well with their "special model" M cameras.

People always ridicule these, but I don't have a problem with them.

Even though I'll never buy one, I'm a Leica M user and I'm glad that

they exist, are helping to keep the company viable, and are providing

R&D funding for new M-series optics and other improvements. The same

logic applies to the O-series.

 

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The O-series is a fairly radical departure from the special M models,

though, and I'm a bit confused why anyone would consider

this to be "conservative".

 

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I've already made my last point in another thread, but I'll repeat it

here: if the O-series does well, and additional Barnack-type cameras

are produced including interchangeable lens models, then Leica will

end up producing new screw-mount lenses. Thinks about that for a

minute. O-series customers will buy them. Bessa-R and T981 customers

will buy them. And thousands of owners of Canon 7s, Leica IIIc,f,g and

other LTM cameras will buy them. If any of them are unique, then Leica

M owners will also buy them.

 

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If you're not interested in the O-series, fine. I don't intend to buy

one either. But I don't see how making a profit on the O-series is

going to send the Leica company into bankruptcy.

I don't know about sound business decision, it's beginning to look

like what Rollei did to the TLR line. Rather than produce a new

model that would sell well (I would have bought one to replace an old

Rollei TLR I replaced with a Mamiya 7), they produce one commerative

edition after another. You know, exotic animal skins, gold, names of

special events, one after another.

 

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The big indicator of the collector's market dominating that I have

seen came when I went out looking for a beater M6 and couldn't find

one. Given how long the camera has been around, it was surprising

that I couldn't find one that was well-used. Everything was in top-

notch condition. Pro SLR models that came out two years ago are

available in beat-up condition. It reflects use, rather than

collecting. Now I know some of the people on this board use their

cameras, but it doesn't look like a lot of people do.

Jeff,

 

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Don't overlook the other possibility... the one that applies to me.

I have no confidence to trade in my 1988 classic M6 for a new

camera. My camera would be considered in the category you are

looking for, but it is mechanically perfect. I have my doubts that a

replacement would be. This is just my opinion, so don't flame me,

but I believe the 1988 Leica was a different company than it is now.

If the web is any indicator, many others feel the same. The cameras

you are looking for are being horded... by users.

 

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Al

My post and page are misleading as they represent year old

information. Leica Camera has indeed turned the corner and made a

small profit for the year 1999/2000 (not shown on my page). Good news

indeed, and my sincere apologies for misleading anyone. Up to date

corporatate information, as Robin correctly points out is available at

 

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www.leica-camera.de

 

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Notwithstanding which I agree with several of the comments in this

and the other related thread.

Al

 

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1988 I am not so sure about - the early nineties showed a lot of good

new M lenses coming on stream and much reinvestment. However, I think

that no one would argue that the Leitz of, say, 1962 was very

different from today. The relevance of the Leica in photography has

undoubtedly slipped as has the German camera/optics industry in

general. I do to a certain extent agree with you though with respect

to Jeff's point. Surely the lack of good users means that people are

still using them and don't want to give them up? This is the way with

good Leicas used by photographers who actually take photographs with

them. There is little point in "upgrading" to a newer Leica as many

users of screw mounts and M3/M2 will assert. If you have an M6 - why

should you sell it - what else would you buy?

 

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Leica produced 1972 special Munich Olympic models so the

"special issues" have been around at least as long as this. If the

special issues help keep the company in business then I am all in

favor of it.

If you thought the "O" camera was crazy, get a load of this. At

Photokina, Minox (which is now said to be a division of Leica)

announced a 1/3 scale copy of the Leica IIIf with a three element

lens which uses Minox cassettes. Are they out of their little cotton-

pickin' minds?

"Are they out of their little cotton- pickin' minds?"

 

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Maybe. But in regard to the Minox IIIf, apparently not. From what

I've heard this is one popular little camera. Go figure.

1) The name "Leica" has already being sold by Ernst Leitz to a company in Switzerland.

"Leica" is a Swiss company, which sells from electronic microscope to GPS system, Leica-Camera group is a spin off from Leica of Switzerland.

2) Leica IIIf 8x11 is a big hit, selling like hotcake, it is a money maker for Leica, like to Beetle for VW.

Some times retro is a great marketing tool.

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