Phase One have bought Leaf

[andybarton]

British Journal of Photography - Phase One buys Leaf

[ptomsu]

The best thing which could happen indeed!

And putting another big pressure on Leica and their S2.

I really like these times

[georg]

I wonder what they want from Leaf!?

Know-how, patents, just killing a competitor? Leaf used to offer pretty much the same product-line (in their very own interpretation) as Phase One - that surely will change...

Why not rather spend your money on further developing the Phamiya (bigger LCDs, central shutter...)?

Nice, big displays for Phase One would be great, but I don't think they need Leaf for that?

But hopefully the Leaf-employees will keep their jobs!

[pierovitch]

No one will be singing "mama don't take my KAF ### away"

[jrc]

I am afraid it confirms that the MF market is seriously weak.

[leicapages]

I suspect the main raison for PhaseOne buying Leaf is essentially reducing the number of competitors in the MF market. PhaseOne did not need Leaf at all, it was rather the other way round since Leaf had troubles.
You may have noticed that PhaseOne announced they would continue selling and supporting Leaf's products but not the AFi camera line. It makes sense since PhaseOne and Mamiya are closely linked, but it reinforces my suspicion that PhaseOne wanted to hurt a main competitor, which is the Hy6 / AFi platform. The latter is owned by Sinar AG. Let us hope that the platform survives the current stormy waters (insolvency of Franke & Heidecke, Leaf being bought by PhaseOne). It would be a real shame for the MF market and the German camera and optical industry in particular if the opposite were to happen.
I am equally afraid that this shrinking of the MF market spells no good news for the Leica S2 either.

[guy_mancuso]

Seriously Sinar is almost a non player anymore with issues with the Hy6 in effectively Chapter 11, Sinar is more popular among the European crowd than those in the US which is dominated by Hassy and Phase in sales , rentals and dealer networks. What this does do is create a slightly bigger market share for Phase , gain some knowledge from the leaf engineers and help the bottom line. Sure it does eliminate a competitor but Kodak has been trying to unload this for awhile now anyway and anyone could have stepped to the plate to buy it. It certainly proves one thing with the large investment in Mamiya a few short months ago and acquiring leaf right now . Phase has a lot more backing financially than many folks expected or believed it had. In this down economy this purchase says a whole bunch about there ability to not only ride out the economic storm but actually grow there business. For Leaf owners this brings hope of there existing systems that it will get the warranties and service, support that may have gone south to some other buyer. As a Phase owner myself I see this as a very positive sign that my investment was a sound choice at the time and new and future products will grow. The bad is obviously one less player in the market for the end user and that cuts our options down. Also it squarely tells Leica to be very careful on pricing as it begins to enter this market in a couple months. The economy will NOT be much better when the S2 is released and as I said many times leica can bury themselves before it even hit's the street's if priced incorrectly.

One thing I can smell a mile away is more aggressive price reductions and products coming out that will entice the 35mm folks to move up to MF at a very aggressive 35mm high end price points. I said this before the S2 needs to be more like a D3x is pricing or a max of 50 percent more. That is about 12k for a body only and I still believe that is the sweet spot for this. As a Phase owner today i would not go over that number by very much at all. I have a option for Hassy or a Phase that is very close right now and/or we will see more product coming in around the D3x or very slightly above it and it is already getting at that point. Now I am sure a few folks would throw some numbers at me right now to dispute that , trust me the posted numbers mean very little when it comes time to actually put a number on a check. Let me also add Phase and Hassy will not be sitting on there arsh waiting for Leica to come out with the S2 and take any market share away either. Hassy has already started major price reductions almost a year ago and so has Phase. This is a doggy dog market that NO one wants to give up any market share, it's just too darn small to begin with. You may even see a lot of loss leaders just to get people moving on a system. Remember you are not only buying a body but a whole system and as buyers we need to do the real math for it. Bodies may come in cheap but lenses maybe expensive once you get in. We as buyers need to see the whole playing field before making any moves.

[sdai]

Hassy/Imacon caused some damage to Phase's sales by closing up the H system several years ago. From my understanding, Sinar wanted to copy Hassy's "success" so they contracted F/H to build the Hy6 and exclude Phase from the intended-to-be-closed system deliberately ... if all happens as originally planned, Phase will be the only one left without a camera.

Unfortunately, the most precise calculation can be fatally flawed ... there's the "crappiest" Mamiya to the rescue.

Buying Leaf (a former Sinar ally) can be considered as a retaliation upon Sinar in a sense, but Leaf was the world's first MFDB manufacturer, they have a lot of expertise in this field and have the longest history using DALSA sensors. These could all be very useful to Phase.

Shooting with a Leica or a Rollei etc really is all about self indulgence. The folks who write cheques to buy your pictures couldn't care less what damn camera you use, only end result matters ... Phase and their users know this very well, Mamiya doesn't have the glow of a Leica or a Rollei, so what? Some people claim that Hasselblad are made of plastic, again, so what?

[guy_mancuso]

Simon what are some are not counting on at all or have not even thought about is the Leica S lenses will all look identical, there basically Summarits like the M. Sharp wide open and will will only increase DOF. There are NO Summilux look in any of them coming. No dream and no Mojo. They will look like any other MF glass out there, there are some exceptions in Hassy and Mamiya though and these folks can go back to some old glass for a look. Leica there is no place to go back too. I can bet 99 percent of this forum has not even thought about this. Not saying these lenses are bad in any way , they will most likely be exceptional but as we all know the history like the M and R is not behind it and that old 75 Lux or 80 Lux for example is not in the cards. I'm sure they will have nice bokeh and such but give me a 80 lux or 75 lux look any day over any of them coming. MF does bring some Mojo as a format because it is a big sensor. This smaller sensor could actually hurt them in look of DOF it will be between 35mm and MF. MF as we know has tremendous falloff even at F11 so where will the S lenses with a smaller sensor fit , less falloff. Just some things to think about and I know these lenses should be very good but again we have to look at the flip side of everything.

[guy_mancuso]

Phase will be the only one left without a camera

Simon Phase just invested very heavily in the Mamiya system and has partial shares of Mamiya. I don't know the exact number but they have insured themselves very heavily of a camera system and a future.

BTW Mamiya does have glow, I shoot them daily.

[sdai]

Originally Posted by guy_mancuso

Mamiya does have glow, I shoot them daily.

Guy, my problem is that I don't shoot daily, not even weekly ...

But hey, it's always mindboggling to think that this is a industry that a mosquito size company with less than 300 employees can dominate, perhaps it's not difficult for Leica who already has more than 1000 head count.

[guy_mancuso]

Alpa has 4 employees and Arca Swiss may have 12. That was a guess but very very small. Size should not matter all that much but what you do with what you have and know how to get things done is what counts. IMHO leica is depending on themselves too much and that just adds to costs. Of course that can be debated many ways also.

[georg]

They should have rather bought F&H + the rights to manufacture the Hy6 - most sophisticated MF-system around. Better build-quality, huge set of older but high-quality lenses + AF-lenses, great ergonomics and 6x6! Simply turn the back by 90°! A really unique system and F&H seemed to sell it well - much better with well-integrated Phase-backs!

Phase has a staff of about 100 people + Mamiya which has about 150 people (who many will they keep?) + Leaf (will they keep anone except for a few engineers) 50 people.
Leica has more, of course not all are involved in the S-project but 100 people for R&D + way over 50 mio. € - nobody ever invested this much into a larger-than-35mm-digital-project!

Alpa is manufactured (and designed?) by Seitz and Arca-Swiss has about 30 employees as far as I know - but these are quite different concepts, mostly CNC-machining and assembling of precision parts.

I haven't seen any "glow" in the S2-images from Photokina, they looked like M8/DMR + Asph-lenses only four times bigger. The DoF seemed very narrow (70mm @ f2.5) which is no surpirse, it's simple math.

[delander]

With the S2 Leica is trying to create a new niche for themselves. Their marketing plan will be to exploit that niche using Leica (German) engineering, design and optical quality. They will avoid direct price comparisons with existing products whether it be MF back type cameras or the more expensive 35MM DSLRs.

They will not price the system to compete with the lower end Digi MFs. They wont base it on the number of MPs. It will be a unique product like the M system. It wont be cheap it will be exclusive, aimed at the most successful professional photographers and well-off Leica amatuers.

Jeff

[wildlightphoto]

Originally Posted by guy_mancuso

IMHO leica is depending on themselves too much and that just adds to costs. Of course that can be debated many ways also.

Another side of this debate will point out the relationship between Leica and Imacon w.r.t. the DMR.

[guy_mancuso]

Yes and that turned out not to be such a good relationship although the results from it still to this day are hard to beat. But I think there was more to this than the technology and more a personality issue between them. Not all partnerships wind up like this.

[guy_mancuso]

Originally Posted by delander

With the S2 Leica is trying to create a new niche for themselves. Their marketing plan will be to exploit that niche using Leica (German) engineering, design and optical quality. They will avoid direct price comparisons with existing products whether it be MF back type cameras or the more expensive 35MM DSLRs.

They will not price the system to compete with the lower end Digi MFs. They wont base it on the number of MPs. It will be a unique product like the M system. It wont be cheap it will be exclusive, aimed at the most successful professional photographers and well-off Leica amatuers.

Jeff

Jeff they even said they are comparing it directly to Hassy with regards to costs. Frankly they are putting their shoes on before their socks.

* Price will be on the same level as the top cameras in the digital professional segment - like high end solutions by Hasselblad and Phase One
* Body will be below 20,000 Euros...

Exclusive in down economic times is certain death and for Pro's like myself price will be a major limiting factor when everyone is downsizing and fighting for every inch of business. Don't let anyone fool ya , business sucks for the working Pro right now. EVERYONE's business is in limbo. I have yet to talk to any working Pro right now that can honestly say business is good and I mean almost everyone. Scary times and after 35 years shooting I NEVER seen business this bad on a whole. Whats worse is our clients are settling for less and that becomes a standard.

I wish them the best and not trying to persuade anyone from buying the S2 at all , but from my seat i am only sending up the big red flag for them. Be careful here the market is NOT what it was when they announced this back at Photokinia and if they are not thinking ahead and truly looking at the industry than they really should. It is not even close to what things appear to be back when it was announced. There simply is a extremely limited market left. For a gear whore like myself I have not put out real money on gear in a long time, I made a even switch to the P30+ from the P25+ but have not spent more than 1400 at one time in about 6 months. And I'm a whore when it comes to buying gear, now think about that and it is really scary. The Canon 5dII and Sony A900 are hardly able to get while the D3x is selling at very low volume, right now 3k seems to be the hot spot and many MF shooters are downgrading back to DSLR's. This is a very bad trend for Leica and selling exclusive products right now is not a safe bet for success. At least from my seat that is the way I see it, I hope I am dead wrong for there sake.

Case in point when a shooter can get a MF system used with a 400 shot count with body and lens in a 31mpx back for 12k value than we have some real issues on new camera pricing. This is Hassy or Phase

[sdai]

Originally Posted by georg

They should have rather bought F&H + the rights to manufacture the Hy6 -

Why would Phase bother with it, Georg?

FH is bankrupted, all assets are gonna be liquidated. If Phase wants any part of it, they can be had in a yard sale ... and Sinar owns the rights of Hy6, unless of course, Phase can scoop up Sinar altogether. Perhaps Jenoptik will soon find it's not worth keeping it.

[delander]

I'm just guessing their thoughts, I'm not saying they will be successful. I do think Phaseone and Hasleblad will give them a very very hard time.

Only time will tell.

Jeff

[guy_mancuso]

Originally Posted by sdai

Why would Phase bother with it, Georg?

FH is bankrupted, all assets are gonna be liquidated. If Phase wants any part of it, they can be had in a yard sale ... and Sinar owns the rights of Hy6, unless of course, Phase can scoop up Sinar altogether. Perhaps Jenoptik will soon find it's not worth keeping it.

Exactly worst time to even think about buying the Hy6 line. Not a big fan of this body either and buying Sinar right now is a HUGE question mark.