75mm Apo Asph Summicron - Price

[Bill Blackwell Images]

The USA price of the 75mm Apo Asph Summicron was announced a couple

of days ago ($2,695 - USA MAP). This is a few hundred dollars less

than a 75mm Summilix, but a few hundred dollars more than the new

50mm Summilux Asph.

 

In case anyone is interested, Tony Rose (www.popflash.com) told me he

ordered 5 of them.

[johns1]

OUCH! Previous rumored USA suggested list price was $2295.00. I still intend to buy one however.

 

(Please: don't bother telling me that I could buy ten CV 75s for the same money.)

 

-jb

[Bill Blackwell Images]

Yes, I know. Leica's scheduled price increases will ensure they will get more expensive in the very near future!

[feli]

Well, the dollar has fallen 30 cents against the Euro in the last few months. That doesn't

help.

 

 

feli

[ben z]

Leica's scheduled price increases may also ensure they go bankrupt in the near future.

[eliot_rosen]

Does anyone know if there will still be Leica days. That would be a way of saving several hundred dollars.

[brunom]

The price quoted seems to make it cheaper than the proposed Zeiss ZM 85mm f/2 lens!

 

Bruno

[jtdnyc]

Suppose the 75 Cron costs $3000 and you put it on a credit card.

 

Many credit cards have a minimum monthly payment of 2.5 percent of the outstanding balance.

 

Thus, you could own a 75 Cron for $75 a month, or about $2.50 a day. (And, at current interest rates, you'd probably have it paid off before the Passport warranty expired.)

 

That's less than the cost of a cappuccino here in New York, or about 6 cigarettes, or half of a bottle beer in a bar...choose your equivalent. Personally, I'd rather shoot than smoke.

 

The calculation is even more favorable for someone who uses the lens professionally and can deduct or depreciate the cost. By deducting the full cost at the time of purchase, and then paying off the purchase over several years, a pro photographer with a good accountant could actually come out ahead of the game, monetarily, in the short run...and in the long run, too, if he takes better pictures with his new lens.

 

I wish Leica lenses were less expensive, but for all the bellyaching around here -- one contributor in another thread accused everyone who buys new equipment of being a mere fondler or collector -- you'd think they were Maybachs.

 

Come to think of it, maybe Leica shoudl follow the lead of many retail stores, computer companies and auto manufacturers and issue its own credit cards. Now there's a business model the might not have considered: Break even on the sale of the lens, make money on the financing!

[andy_piper2]

Ooogh! The only possible good news is that Leica's price increase is scheduled for April 1 (how appropriate!) and the official introduction date for the 75 SAA is May 1, so perhaps the price increase is already factored in?

 

I confess to being one of those beating the drum for this lens (in some form) - but that was 2 years ago when it might have come in at $1895 or thereabouts. IMHO Leica would have done better to scale down (in effect) the 5-element 90 f/2 design rather than scale up the complex, CRC, 6/7 element 50mm f/1.4 design.

 

A nice used Mandler-designed 90 f/2 pre-APO runs about $850-$1,100. For over $1,500, maybe I can put up with 100 extra grams and the occasional focusing foo-bah (and get that pre-ASPH bokeh to boot). Soul-searching time.

[andy_piper2]

...but I like Jonathan's perspective. Assuming I have 25 years before either I (or film) fades away - that's only $108 per year.

 

...back to the soul-searching

[bob soltis]

Eliot,

 

here's a list of demo days on the Leica web site:

 

http://www.leica-camera.com/unternehmen/international/usa/events/index_e.html

 

regards,

[ben z]

Bob, I think Eliot means the Leica Days where you'd get 10% off on any new Leica item. Those were discontinued after Hermes came into the picture. Personally, given that Leica's banks aren't wanting to loan them any more money, I'd say the only way they're going to raise the capital needed to move ahead is by selling down their inventory. Even if they break even at least they'll have the funds to get the digital M to market. Leica days or a nice rebate would be just the ticket.

 

"Suppose the 75 Cron costs $3000 and you put it on a credit card."

 

I ran that by my wife, she said "suppose a pair of diamond earrings costs $3000 and _I_ put it on a credit card."

[pete1]

Time for Leitz to reopen a plant in Canada. Labor rates are less and they might actually survive. I really can't see how they think they can survive with a price like that. An f=2.0 is not a real challenge to design or manufacture. Yes I know all about small numbers but maybe that's their problem. I was really waiting for this lens. I guess I'll have to live half a stop slower. I have a 75 'lux so I don't really need the 'cron.

[al_kaplan1]

I'm sticking with my 85mm f/2 Nikkor, a classic heavy chunk of glass, brass, and chrome that's "sharp enough".

[eliot_rosen1]

"An f=2.0 is not a real challenge to design or manufacture."

 

This suggests a lack of knowledge regarding lens design. Yes, it is not hard to design an F/2 short tele lens. What is hard to do is to design a short tele F/2 (or a 50/1.4 for that matter) that is significantly better than existing lenses. The requirements are 1) significantly better performance at infinity, 2) significantly better performance in the close range (which requires a floating element design), 3) a compact size, and 4) apochromatic correction. To produce such a lens required a seven element design with an aspherical element, special glasses (partial anomalous dispersion, and high refraction), and a floating element design that had to be shoehorned into a small size mount.

 

Yes, it may not be hard to design a mediocre F/2 lens, but it takes some skill to design one to the optical and mechanical standards that Leica requires.

[hong_park]

"significantly better"

Questionable.

[mark_rossano]

"Time for Leitz to reopen a plant in Canada."

 

Maybe all they need to do in that regard is subcontract with the one they already built (and spun-off). Last I checked, ELCAN was still in business as a division of Raytheon, doing quite well and willing to take on OEM subcontracts. Leica could then shut-down some of their own capacity to save overhead costs. It's not as if ELCAN doesn't know how to build Leica lenses.

[ben z]

"What is hard to do is to design a short tele F/2 (or a 50/1.4 for that matter) that is significantly better than existing lenses."

 

Probably there are a number of people willing and able to shell out $3000 to be able to say they've got the best 75mm f/2 lens on the earth, regardless of whether they or anyone else can actually see the difference in their shots, but I'm not one of them. $600 I paid for a used Leica lens I've got an equivalent in Pentax SMC which I could buy today for $50, well OK, I'll bite, but $3000 for a single focal length of moderate speed, no, sorry, no way. I've proven to my own satisfaction by shooting Leica screwmount lenses from the late 40s/early 50s, M lenses from the 60s and M lenses from the 80s-current that with the exception of having to be more careful to avoid flare from backlighting with the oldest lenses, to find the generational improvements I've got to be looking for them, rather than looking at the photograph.

[eliot_rosen1]

"I've proven to my own satisfaction by shooting Leica screwmount lenses from the late 40s/early 50s, M lenses from the 60s and M lenses from the 80s-current that with the exception of having to be more careful to avoid flare from backlighting with the oldest lenses, to find the generational improvements I've got to be looking for them, rather than looking at the photograph."

 

Well Ben, that settles it. Because YOU can't see much of a difference, it must not exist. Let's tell Leica to stop making better lenses, because Ben Z can't see a difference. Anyone who buys a newly designed Leica lens must need to have his head examined.

[pete1]

Eliot: How many optical systems have you designed that are in use, either commercial or for other than commercial applications? Unless you're a designer for Zeiss, Leitz, Canon or Nikon, I would suggest you not argue with me. I know what I'm talking about. That's the beauty of a forum like this, anyone with a keyboard becomes an expert. 75mm f=2.0 lenses for 35mm format are not exceptionally challenging. The state of the art in lens design is beyond this. I am sure the Leica glass is going to be superb but the only reasons for the high cost are snob appeal, limited production numbers and yes, quality of construction. They could get the cost down without producing a Voigtlander/Cosina grade lens. They could have hit the talked about $2295 (or even $2200) target if they had tried and cared to.

[marc_bergman1]

Pete,

 

I notice that they are using Fluorite as a lens element. I wonder how many suppliers of this material are available? I also wonder about Leica's rejection rate?

[ben z]

"Well Ben, that settles it. Because YOU can't see much of a difference, it must not exist. Let's tell Leica to stop making better lenses, because Ben Z can't see a difference. Anyone who buys a newly designed Leica lens must need to have his head examined."

 

Eloit please show me where I said or implied any of the above. I was just speaking in the first person, about my own thought process, and my own decisions.

[eliot_rosen1]

"I am sure the Leica glass is going to be superb but the only reasons for the high cost are snob appeal, limited production numbers and yes, quality of construction."

 

Which of those companious do you you design 35 mm lenses for? I know something about lens design but this is not my field and I am certainly not an expert. The things I said about the 75/2 were not my opinion but what Leica has said about it in their notification regarding this lens.

 

You know for a fact what Leica can or cannot manufacture and for how much money? Do you work for them? The Zeiss Ikon 85/2 made in Germany will cost more than Leica's 75/2 APO ($ 2695 plus 127 for lenshood = $ 2822). BTW, you forgot one critical factor. The high value of the Euro relative to the dollar. If the Euro and dollar were even in value, the price of the lens would be about 25% lower. They could also reduce the cost by hundreds of dollars if they sold it without the USA passport plan. But that's just the way Leica does things.

 

Ben, soory for the sarcasm, but your statement that the modern crop of Leica ASPH and APO lenses are only marginally better than screw mount lenses from the 1940s and 1950s is jusr wrong, opinion or not. That's not a matter of opinion, its fact.

[ben z]

Once again, please show me where I said the modern lenses were only marginally better than those from the 40s and 50s. What I said was "to find the generational improvements I've got to be looking for them, rather than looking at the photograph." You are infering something entirely different than I am implying, which is that when I look at a photograph I'm not looking for differences in lens performance. It's just not something that registers with me unless I consciously force myself to look. I rather like it that way, otherwise I'd probably be looking at the bulk of 20th century photography and lamenting it wasn't made with ASPH lenses.