Quote:
Originally Posted by thrid
Pricing yourself out of the market is suicide. $6000 for a Noctilux? $3600 for a 35 Lux ASPH? Get real. Unless you are rolling in cash, these prices are not realistic for 90% of the buying public. I could afford to go out and drop the $3500 for a 50 Lux ASPH today, but you know what? I'm not doing it, because although it may be the best 50 on the planet, it offers a poor price/performance ratio.
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ICouldn't agree more. I am fortunate enough to earn good money in my non-photographic profession and don't have to spend sleepless nights before deciding whether to buy a new lense. But I find that the prices are simply to high for what you get and I therefore bought most of my stuff (including a Noct) second hand.
I also agree with the point made by others that the future of a company like Leica cannot lie in producing mass-market products where competition is taking place only over price. But they should be able to produce decent products with the Leica appeal for somewhat less ridiculous prices so that more people are willing to buy them. Its basic economic: supply and demand curve.
The main issue seems to me that they must find a way to reduce their development costs per unit sold. If you have high development costs and low sales volumes, you must charge high prices to recover your costs. Take the R10, in particular, if it has auto focus. The costs to develop this camera will be much higher than Canon’s costs to upgrade one of its DSLRs. All other costs being equal (which is in my view an optimistic assumption), Leica will have to charge a higher price to break even (and this ignores that Leica will never reach the same volume as Canon). So they either have to be so much better (and perhaps they are because of the glass they offer) or offer just a better brand.
As for myself, I enjoy the M8 and M7 (and Xpan) because I like the rangefinder concept even if its somewhat outdated. But I think I am in a small minority (not here
but overall). More importantly, I think there are very few who are prepared to switch to this system; i.e., very few new customers. And as much as I like Leica glass, I would not buy a R10 if I can get something better, as good, or almost as good from Canon or Nikon.
Interesting times ahead for sure.