novice9 Posted January 10, 2010 Share #1 Posted January 10, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) I was wondering how many lenses Leica makes/sells a year of specific lenses: - 21/24 luxes - 50 lux - 50 noct Any ideas? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 10, 2010 Posted January 10, 2010 Hi novice9, Take a look here Lens Production Volume. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
arthury Posted January 11, 2010 Share #2 Posted January 11, 2010 You might wanna skip the word volume because this word does not exists in Leica. They do not believe in the volume business --- all hand-made and factory output is four M9 per day, if you are lucky. Noct ASPH is like 1 per month. 50mm Summilux ASPH is like 2 per month. So, if you can get a new 50 Summilux ASPH b4 the next version is announced, count yourself ... (i want to say lucky but I think it's the wrong word) ... patient and long-suffering. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
novice9 Posted January 11, 2010 Author Share #3 Posted January 11, 2010 while i get the sentiment, i think they are actually doing something on the order of 50m9's per day, at least that's what jaav (i think it was him) says... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bo_Lorentzen Posted January 11, 2010 Share #4 Posted January 11, 2010 Almost enough. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hoppyman Posted January 11, 2010 Share #5 Posted January 11, 2010 Novice9, the figures are commercially in confidence I'm sure. None of these are made in high volumes in any event. They do tend to be made in batches of course and Solms has a very full dance card currently as we all know. I only have the 50 from that list; mine is about 3 years old and of course the prices don't go down ;-) I would never part with mine. It's only money, go into your favourite dealer and put a deposit down or something on the lens of your dreams. I bet you won't regret it once it arrives. If you don't have a 50 now, how about a used Summicron or similar in the mean time? Once you get your superb Summilux, I bet you won't lose a fortune on the other lens if you decide to sell it off. Of course then you will possibly regret selling that one later and so it goes on Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
frozenace Posted January 11, 2010 Share #6 Posted January 11, 2010 Hey arthury, that's exactly how I felt when trying to buy the 50 lux... hunted down one from foto-koester, they even had the pricing wrong, so I paid about 500 pounds less, serial no 4077x Ffordes, leica mayfair etc all told me that it was impossible to get... even though I told them that it was going to be for my 25th birthday. I'm thinking that I need a 1.25x viewfinder magnifier now. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted January 11, 2010 Share #7 Posted January 11, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) Leica still does lenses in batches. It is more efficient for a variety of reasons: setting up and using machining and lens grinding/coating/polishing equipment; having an employee get into the "swing" of handling the particular intricacies of a specific design, etc. Easier for someone to assemble 25 35 'crons in one week than 5 each of 5 different lens types. So what they make and what they sell in a given period of time may be very different numbers. Ideally, it averages out to the same over the long term - but a sudden jump in demand over a short period of time can lead to a shortage of a given lens. Probably what happened in the case of the 50 'lux ASPH. One can get an idea of Leica's total lens output for a year by tracking the serial numbers (not as easy as it once was) - but not any particular lens type. Total bounces around between 30,000 and 50,000 (but those figures date from when the R line WAS in production and the S line was NOT in production). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
luigi bertolotti Posted January 11, 2010 Share #8 Posted January 11, 2010 Very difficult guess... as Andy says, the only estimates can be based on serial numbers, and one can do some evaluations on rather long time spans to have decent estimations... for instance, is rather sure that 3.550.xxx is from 1991 and 4.050.xxx from 2007/2008 ... 25 to 30.000/year... 3.150.xxx means 1982 and 3.650.xxx 1994/5... so, a bit more, in times when SLRs were selling rather good... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
danwells Posted January 18, 2010 Share #9 Posted January 18, 2010 This number seems high compared to Leica body volumes I've seen. Maximum M9 volume has been estimated around 10,000/year (were previous rangefinder body volumes much higher?) Assuming that M7/MP volumes today are a fraction of M9 volume, that means that 3-5 lenses are being made per camera. That ratio for most camera makers is less than 2 lenses per body. I would expect Leica to be somewhat higher than average, because there are no zooms, and many Leicas are owned by photographers who have several lenses, as opposed to "kit lens" snapshooters. -Dan Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
adan Posted January 18, 2010 Share #10 Posted January 18, 2010 Recent (post 1975) peak production was, I believe, around 20,000 in one year (can't determine which year - mid 1990s) for the M6 - average was probably closer to 10,000. M3 - peak 50,000 in 1955 (plus some screw-mount bodies) M4 - peak 18,000 in 1968 (plus 1735 finderles MD bodies + SLRs) Low points: 1976 - no RFs, 2550 finderless MDa bodies 1977 - zero 1978 - 2100 M4-2s A recent news story about the intro of the M9 said Leica was still putting out 500 a month film bodies, FWIW. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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