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"How They Make It" article about Leica M


tom5

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A colleague just gave me an article from Forbes magazine, April 17, 2006, pp 60-64, that

shows Leica M cameras being assembled and checked. It is interesting but has some

errors such as identifying an MP as an M7 and saying that the M7 price includes only a

basic lens.

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The website has an 'abstract':

 

Photo Essay

 

Analog Vision

 

Amanda Schupak, 04.17.06

 

'For $800 you can get a Leica compact digital camera with 8.4 million pixels of precision. Another $3,000 can buy you the latest model in the Leica M series of film cameras, sold since 1954. Leica, a 157-year-old German firm whose camera division went public in 1996, makes its old-style technology into a selling point. The 1,500 parts in an M7 35mm viewfinder camera are assembled entirely by hand. The "handcrafted" selling proposition saved the Swiss mechanical watch industry; maybe it will keep the Leica M7 going into the era of gigapixels.'

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With a bit less spin...</p>

 

<i>Leica, a 157-year-old German firm</i> (the majority of whose customers are aproximately half as old)<i>whose camera division went public in 1996</i>(and perched at the brink of receivership in 2006)<i> makes its old-style technology into a selling point. The 1,500 parts in an M7 35mm viewfinder camera are assembled entirely by hand.</i>(and occasionally re-assembled by their repair agencies after purchase)<i> The "handcrafted" selling proposition saved the Swiss mechanical watch industry; maybe it will keep the Leica M7 going into the era of gigapixels.'</i> (of course there is no consummable item, with an enormous and mortally-wounded infrastructure, essential to the operation of a mechanical watch, thus infantile to pose the analogy.)</p>

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