Next step of Leica?

Just read the news (rumours) on Internet that Leica will further cooperation with Carl Zeiss Jenoptik Sinar on digital

camera innovations. My personal opinion is that this could probably their last chance, really hope to share my view

and wish they would surf this topic.

 

Of course I am a Leica fan and dream Leica could survive through the digital era. From the recent digital camera

market offerings, I hope Leica should already be aware that the competition starts to innovate on other features than

merely transforming to digital platform and increasing pixel count. There are a lot of suspicions that the R10 or M9

would have 16mp sensors and fixed the bugs. Some expect that there will be autofocusing capabilities. Well,

unfortunately I do not see that these could bring Leica back to be one of the market leaders.

 

The major problem I guess is that Leica is still far from successful to create new demands from customers. I would

boldly attribute this to Leica's inability to create newly desired customer experience after M3. In the old days where

big differences in optical quality existed between different players, that quality was a dominant element of customer

experience. However, nowadays that difference is not that observable and this element became much less

dominant. It does not mean Leica could offer sub-quality lenses and camera bodies but mere focus on optical

quality cannot regain that dorminance in the customer experiences.

 

Leica indeed has a lot of advantages in terms of customer experience but it is not successful to recreate and

modernise them. Its 'M' series is very pro market-unique customer experience. Its separate viewfinder and direct

image capture concept (no mirror and pre-set aperture) are very different from slr and have its set of unique

advantages. But in M8, we are disappointed to see Leica just wanted to adapt it without rethinking its evolved core

value within the entire context. M8 is very different from M6, M7, MP. It is totally dependent on battery/electricity.

The inherent limitations of the viewfinder does not help to create any new customer demands.

 

Look at Ricoh which actually is brave to bring back the concept of separate viewfinder on its point and shoot model,

and that viewfinder is actually an electronic one. Ricoh shows its ambition trying to create new experience, no

matter whether they are successful or not. Again disappointed is that it was not Leica who did it but Ricoh.

 

To be honest, while Leica is such a small company relatively, why the management still thinks that Leica can be the

only one in the market keeping two lines of professional camera products (M & R) of totally different concepts and

fundamental designs, and still be competitive? Canon did not do it...nor Nikon...nor other major brands/competitors.

 

To be honest, R-line is even more risky to further invest. Image a R10 of 16mp with autofocussing lenses, so? Is it

so different from Canon 1ds M3? or Nikon D3? How much market segment can Leica 'steals' from Canon, Nikon or

others?

 

It's already too long, Part 2 will share my wish list requirements for M9 and R10 other day.

A few months ago I had a meeting with people from Leica. I was shown a mock up of a camera. It was genuinely intriguing.

They are thinking long and hard about the way forward. It's not all doom and gloom. Having said that, they came up with

one proposal that was so weird it bordered on the imbecilic.

In the "old days" Canon and Nikon readily matched or beat most Leica optics. They abandoned rangefinders because both professionals and amateurs wanted SLRs, and, not being dummies, they wanted hinged backs.

 

Nikon D300, D700, various current and upcoming Canons, several Sonys, and Pentax K20D all beat R9 in most respects, full frame or not.

Leica is doomed because their pricing structure is such that people can not afford them.

 

M8 with with various sorts of problems and poor reliability? Sure it is nice, but I thought 2000 @ for my M6`s was too much. $5000 is insane.

 

I have given up hope of seeing a R digi that I can afford. I`ll not spend $10000 on a product from a company on shakey financial footing.

 

All they have to do is make a reliable R digi body with a full frame sensor that takes my R lenses. This can not be to hard, can it? What is so hard about a digi cam? It does not have to be better than Nikon, just as good as.

 

In the mean time, I am collecting Nikon glass and am well on my way to a substantial system.

<i>Leica is doomed because their pricing structure is such that people can not afford them.</i>

<p>

Exactly. Give us a body in the $2500.00 range, make it at least as reliable as and entry level Nikon or Canon

dslr, and you'll have a good platform that will have people spending money for your excellent lenses.

The Leica problem is arrogance. Just go to Solms and meet the managers, they still think they're worth a premium over all other camera manufacturers because of the fine craftsmanship involved in their cameras.

 

Yes, they do make fine instruments, for years that did mean a qualitative difference, but now, in the digital age they have to realise that they need more than a nice solidly made body. The body also needs to be reliable in the field and not crap out regularly.

 

They need to give potential buyers something that gives them the most from their excellent lenses.

This means they need to develop a FF sensor that extracts as much detail and other fine qualities as possible from those lenses. The body has to be true to the M philosphy of ergonomic simplicity, quick handling, small size and quiet. Yet it also has to meet modern expectations such as high, noise free ISO levels, which can also be directly changed on the body.

 

Ploughing through a menu to change the ISO is just not acceptable. They were told this on all forums way before the M8 came out, but ignored the advice, thinking they knew best. Arrogant disaster.

 

They also need to find a way to get a much larger, better screen on the back, with a well thought out live view and flexible histogram display. They might even think about articulating the live view screeen.

 

Reliabilty issues must also be fixed if anyone is going to have any confidence in their products again. So they need to cooperate with people who know far more about sensors and electronics than they do and they need to listen to them - especially when it comes to quality control.

 

Make one more mistake whether it's over design or reliability and Leica may well become a nostalgic memory.

How many people do you think would buy a Leica DRF if it didn't look and feel just like an M3? If it didn't use every LTM or

M lens ever made? Leica can't innovate unless it can get out of the M3 box.

I think then lens mount is the only thing they HAVE to keep. If they made something at the right quality and price point, they could get away from the exact M form factor if they wanted to. It's a risk though.

I agree with Josh - they've done it before, after all. How about an affordable M-mount 'CL-D' made by/with a suitable Japanese partner? As long as their only M offering is 3x the price of a Nikon D300, the potential market is always going to be small. It's not as if the cost can be amortised over several decades any more - camera technology has advanced enormously quickly over the last five years, and there's no sign of it slowing down (you can hardly give away a D100 today). And the other traditional entry point to the Leica system, the secondhand market that made a decent M6 as affordable as a new F100 a few years back, doesn't really help with the M8 - there's no bottom rung of the ladder within the reach of many potential users (and future customers for the new gear).

The real problem is that Leica has to rely on someone else for the sensor.

 

The sensors improve at such a rapid pace, that it's silly to expect your camera body (essentially the sensor) to have a meanful lifetime of greater than 4-5 years. If you look at industry wide pixel counts since 1999, the "average" pixel count of digital sensors has doubled every 4-5 years.

 

Further, when you look at the industry leaders (such as Canon), their flagship products have sensors pixel counts double the industry average.

 

For example, in 2002, the "average" camera sensor was 5 mp, the top of the line Canon was 11 mp, in 2007, the average camera sensor was 10 mp, the top of the line Canon was 21 mp.

 

I have a feeling leica will evolve into a optics only company, providing lenses for the "disposable" camera/sensors that Panasonic makes. Perhaps that has happened alread?

 

...i wonder how the Leica revenue breaks down. It would not surprise me to find out they make more money from selling lenses to panasonic, than from M8 sales.

"...and, not being dummies, they wanted hinged backs."

 

You mean like the one on the Nikon F? Oh...wait a minute, the back on the F isn't hinged and comes completely off the camera so you're standing there with a camera in one hand and the back where ever you can hold it so it doesn't drop on the ground....yeah, that hinged back....

Leica's customers seem to give them a hard time about modernizing the M, but don't seem to be so irate when they put out a Leica branded Panasonic joint venture. Maybe the solution is something like the high end Leica point and shoots, but with the same sensor as the M8. And then if they could just sneak M lenses onto it ... Welcome to the next generation.

 

I don't think it has to look like an M. I would like it to be reasonably solid in terms of reliability and I'd like it to sell for under $2000. But it can be manufactured by Panasonic. I might even be willing to live with a new lens line if the lenses were kept under $1000 which might be possible if they were also made by Panasonic to leica formulas.

Many of you have suggested making an "affordable" version of something along the lines of what they already make.

 

But just where is digital progressing to? I'd suggest that we already are nearing the limits of what's possible, affordable, and actually desired by the public. There's only so many features you can put into one camera body, too many and it becomes too cumbersome and too bothersome to actually pick up and use.

I have a friend who's been an Air Force mechanic for decades. He says the pilots are really complaining about the increasing

complexity of the aircraft systems and how overloaded they are, even those with a weapons officer in back. That's why so many

future fighter designs will be pilotless, since the stress of combat is lessened if your neck is not on the line managing the enemy and

your own complex systems. Maybe the same thing will happen to street photography. Some days I'd love to send the Robo-Leica out

there and control it from a big monitor with lots of neat levers, switches, wheels, dials and guages. Whatever happens to Leica

happens. There's enough old and current Leica gear around to keep me happy until the last robowar ends it all.

A really sublime point, Orville!

Now, we have to shave with B-movie ancestor's razor blades and try to push the m8 against the sparring ropes, if we really want to understand their mission! I'll stick with my rather mythological gear meanwhile... have practically anything I need...confirmed.<div></div>

A really sublime point, Orville!

Now, we have to shave with B-movie ancestor's razor blades and try to push the m8 against the sparring ropes, if we

really want to understand their mission! I'll stick with my rather mythological gear meanwhile... have practically

anything I need...errrrm, everything!<div></div>

<i>There's only so many features you can put into one camera body, too many and it becomes too cumbersome and too bothersome to actually pick up and use.</i>

<p>

That's the point. The M8 isn't as feature laden as an entry level dslr yet sells for roughly 10-times the price of one.

<i>There's only so many features you can put into one camera body, too many and it becomes too cumbersome and too bothersome to actually pick up and use.</i><p>How many cameras that have too many features have you used? Just wondering, because I shoot all the time with a 1DMk3, which has a lot of stuff, most of which you set once and never touch again. The big difference with shooting any standard manual camera is changing the ISO on the fly. Other than that, it's all done well before shooting. <p>Let us know what you've used and in what way it is too cumbersome and bothersome to pick up.

<i>He says the pilots are really complaining about the increasing complexity of the aircraft systems and how overloaded they are</i><P>All the pilots I have chatted with, military and civilian, complain about how boring it is because everything is done on auto. The exact opposite...<p>But flying a fighter jet and taking a photo are two completely different activities with two completely different end results. It's like comparing apples and horses, not much in common there.

"There are a lot of suspicions that the R10 or M9 would have 16mp sensors and fixed the bugs."

 

 

 

 

And it (a M9) will likely cost $16,000. The Leica of the future must be "top-of-the-line" in all aspects.....

<i>The real problem is that Leica has to rely on someone else for the sensor.</i>

<p>... which hasn't been much of a hindrance to Nikon, which before the D3 was basically reliant on Sony for their sensors. The problem has already been stated - Leica is run by a group of arrogant, mouth-breathing retards who think that leaving an M3-esque removable baseplate on a modern-day $5,000 digital camera is "cute." Until these cretins grow some brain cells, Leica won't be around to see the end of the decade, at least as a camera manufacturer.</p>

I'll name my mechanic; his name is Alphonse Messado and is currently stationed in Afghanistan, working on the A-10 Warthog. He is

in fact my brother-in-law. And flying a military plane in combat is in no way automatic. Airplanes are one of my pet interests, especially

combat jets.

My $.02 worth - I had a Leica back in the late sixties that was stolen by a Vietnamese "cowboy" on a moped. Went to Canon and haven't had anything else, or wanted it. Now have a 40D and some decent lenses. Got curious over the Leica M8 ads spread all over photo.net pages and went to B&H to look. So - $5,000 for the body. $3800 - $5500 for bare minimum, basic lens set. These iconoclasts are done, toast. With the best they have to offer, you can no longer look at a photo and say, "Ah, made with a Leica...."

I think it would be good for Leica to start marketing lenses. I feel Leica would be very successful selling lenses for Nikon, Canon, Pentax, and Sony mounts. They wouldn't have to be AF (It would be nice) but CPU'd to offer ttl metering would be a must. Zeiss was wrong not putting CPS's in Cosina made lenses when Cosina clearly has the ability to accomplish the task.

I've been using Leicas (M3, M4, M6, M7) toghether with Nikons (F2, F3, FM2, F5) for many years when shooting

film. Have loved the Leica M lenses for their quality and feel. Some of them are, I think unsurpassable, like the

Noctilux or the Summilux 35/1.4 aspherical. But it was not only the lenses, it was the whole M system that was

great. Being able to shoot unnoticed, silently, in very dim light could be unique. On the other side I've always

loved Nikons and Nikon lenses as well: I now shoot with a Nikon D3 and a mix of new and old Nikon lenses, plus

some Zeiss ZF, and am happy with it.

Indeed one year ago I bought an M8, believing I could use it as I was using my M6: I sold it after few months,

completely dissatisfied for at least three reasons:

1) it's noisy, expecially for that hateful bzzz when the shutter is cocked.

2) poor overall image quality when compared to cameras that cost less (Canon 5D, Nikon D300, ecc.)

3) complex in use, unreliable, and not dependable upon (weird colors, need of Uv filter, unreliable white

balance, ecc.)

Some of the complains could be lessened if it costed one third of its price, but anyway it is not what I need.

I'm also sure that the first one (Zeiss?) that comes out with a rangefinder costing less than $ 2500 and using M

mount lenses, with 12MP and quality comparable to D300 or 40D will have success.