Guardian [UK] - Leica faces extinction as digitals snap up business

[dai_hunter]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/arts/news/story/0,11711,1487099,00.html?gusrc=rss

 

in part: ...Leica cameras have also been used by the world's most

famous photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa and

the AP photographer Nick Ut. But now the German product is on the

brink of disappearing.

 

Next week its manufacturer is holding an extraordinary general meeting

following a disastrous year which saw a record (Euros)15.5m (UKP10.7m

/ USDca18m) loss for the company....

 

Hunter

[terry_rory]

All this in one day.......

 

Guardian [uK] - Leica faces extinction as digitals snap up business by Dai Hunter (2005-05-19)

 

Leica's difficulties by Gerard Captijn (2005-05-19)

 

Shouldn't we be made at Zeiss? by F. L. Aberghast (2005-05-18)

 

Leica 'fighting for its life" by Paul T (2005-05-18)

 

Minox splits off from Leica by Meryl Arbing (2005-05-18)

 

Maybe it might be an idea (just for now) for the moderator to start one official.. "Oh My god! Leica Is Dying".. thread at the start of each week (number and dated for the archive) so that we can avoid a plethora of them. Any 'indepedently' started OMGLID threads could then be deleted immediately.

 

It would be a lot tidier.

[terry_rory]

Maybe another such 'receptecle' could be a weekly... "Digital Sales Are Declining - Film Is Back" ... thread. (or DSAD-FIB )

[dirk-san1]

My other hobby is cycling. But boy, is that company that made my bike in a mess! And, oh, I also use a Mac. They are also complete idiots - no market share! I also drive a Ford. Big trouble. Did I mention my lawn mower?

[gib]

just bought a new 512mb cf card - and it will record images but my pc doesnt seem to think it is in the card scanner.....I dont have this problem with Ilford HP5 cassettes, hmmmm.

[frank granovski]

Geez, these gloom and doom posts just keep appearing. I guess where there's smoke, there's fire. ;*)

[terry_rory]

WJ, did you format it in the camera before use?

[bill_thorlin]

Trevor - a good,if tongue in cheek, suggestion.Considering the positions of Nikon,Minolta,Minox and Contax perhaps we need a separate forum for the financial and marketing aspects of the camera world. Let's face it, it is in turmoil.

[jonathan_reynolds]

Trevor: Underneath the jokey presentation, I'm forming the unpleasant impression that you are not merely indifferent to, but actually enjoying Leica's difficulties. Why not just accept that the future of the company does bother a lot of actual Leica-users here, and avoid these threads if you aren't interested?

[michaelkh]

Jonathan: I think Trevor is just highlighting that there will always be speculation, that

some like to speculate but that it might be healthier if it wasn't the core business of the

forum.

 

Dirk: that 'no market share' thing cracks me up too. Apparently, if you are profitable and

you make things and sell them to lots of people and pay your staff to feed their families, it

all counts for nothing unless your 'lots of people' is more than someone else's.

[__jon__]

>wj gibson , may 19, 2005; 04:44 a.m.

 

>just bought a new 512mb cf card - and it will record images but my pc doesnt seem to

think it is in the card scanner.....I dont have this problem with Ilford HP5 cassettes,

hmmmm.

 

Wow, how did you get your computer to recognize the HP5??

[jonathan_reynolds]

Michael, that's maybe so, and the subject is less interesting to me than photography itself. But Trevor's interest in this forum isn't exactly mainstream either is it? I don't intend to start another slanging match about what qualifications one should have to contribute here, but it's plain from Trevor's recent posts that he has moved strongly and finally away from film, 35 mm rangefinder and thus Leica-as-we-know-it photography.

[socke]

Jon, even more important, did he use his computer in a changing bag or a darkroom?

[michaelkh]

Whoops. I only hang out here because it's interesting, I don't actually have a Leica. (Konica

C35, mind! ;)

 

"I'll get me coat"

[jonathan_reynolds]

Michael, that doesn't matter (to me at any rate). Don't start a hare. I'm just saying that it shouldn't be a surprise in a Leica forum to find that folk are interested in the fate of that legendary company. And it ain't right for a non-Leica user to question this.

[les_lammers]

Leica is/was screwed not matter what they should have or could have done. To add features and functions to make an M 'modern' would completely change the camera. Just think about the reception the M5 got.

 

They will survive in some form. If, in the future, an M is only available as a la cart, the used market should get stronger.

 

Why worry? There are still many cameras in use that are no longer made and it is most likey easier to have a Leica repaired than many other cameras.

[dpowis]

Also, they were talking about Capa's grainy images taken on Omaha beach. Weren't those taken with a Contax ?

[rod g.]

Perhaps we should marvel that Leica survived for as long as it did. Its competiton, Voigtlander and Zeiss Ikon, died in any real historic sense when the Japanese camera industry blossomed in the 1970s.

 

In contemporary terms the company is perhaps past its "due date", there may no longer be a place for such an operating model in today's consumer driven world. You can point fingers and say nasty things about the management all you like but I suspect, given Leica's corporate culture, that no one could have wrung a different outcome from the circumstances.

 

While I love and will continue to buy and use their products, I don't have strong feelings one way or the other about whether Leica should survive. It is however sad that it's come down to this.

[john_boyle3]

Instead of bemoaning Leica's fate why not just buy all of the leica cameras and lenses one can reasonably use and go take pictures. The equipment will last longer than most of us on this forum. It's human nature to want just one more body or lens, but it's amazing what we can do with what we already have.

[jerrydabullfrog]

"Also, they were talking about Capa's grainy images taken on Omaha beach. Weren't those taken with a Contax ?"

 

Not sure what camera he used butthe images were poor becuase of a screw up in development. See the story of the landing at http://www.skylighters.org/photos/robertcapa.html

[blakley]

I'm with Trevor here.

 

We already have "YOUR Photo of the Week", which is something I look forward to. Why not "YOUR Leica Financial Catastrophe of the Week"?

Can we get a volunteer to start this thread every Tuesday, in honor of Black Tuesday on Wall Street?

[paul t]

Capa mentions using two Contaxes in his war memoir. THe screw up was at

Life mag, where they overheated the film and ruined, if memory serves, all but

11 frames from two rolls that he took, one with each Contax (he shot some

before and after with a ROllei). Life blamed him in print for the poor, grainy,

impressionistic quality of the surviving negs, and said his hands were shaking

hence the photos were 'slightly out of focus' - a phrase he used as the title of

his autobiog. An absolutely excellent book.

[jeremy_tok]

<a href="http://lfi.portrix.net/ceemes/base.php?article/show/21/page=lfi_default_article_e/language=de" target="_blank">At the very least, buy some Leica books. (at the price of a Bessa R3A)</a>

[ali_g1]

trevors such a good photographer he should entitled to act like a troll.

[jonathan_reynolds]

Ali G, what's the logic of that? This is a Leica Forum. I could name a few themes that get on my tits when they recur here. I won't, but my credentials for doing so would be that I have an active interest in Leicas.