Did Leica Management Learn Anything?

[R9user]

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I must agree, what are they thinking?

 

How about the S2 body minus auto-focus parts, with the M9 sensor and software and the R mount sort of an entry level "C" (R:p) class after the flagship "S" class? Yes there will be software tweaks but surely firmware differentiation reusing existing hardware components is cheaper than having multiple ranges of hardware production lines!

 

Why have a Vlux 2 and Vlux 20? and who in his right mind will buy the Ti? I will spend that money to by a "normal" M9 and a stack of lenses!

 

Come on Leica - please get your business sense to the same standards as your wonderful products!

[stunsworth]

How about the S2 body minus auto-focus parts, with the M9 sensor and software and the R mount sort of an entry level "C" (R:p) class after the flagship "S" class? Yes there will be software tweaks but surely firmware differentiation reusing existing hardware components is cheaper than having multiple ranges of hardware production

 

 

Well for a start the lens mount on the S2 is too far forward for R lenses. Make the mount backwards and it's no longer the same body. Also the mirror would need to be smaller. The S2 communicates with the lenses electronically, that would need to be replaced by a mechanical linkage.

 

Sorry, it just isn't practical

[janki]

When I first saw this M9 Ti piece, and after some minutes had to realize that was it, for this year, my first impulse were: are they leaving earth for the outer space? Perhaps they are planning to open an intergalactic Leica store. Not that I found it ugly, pieces like that are just not for normal earth living photographers.

Enough sarcasm.

After been reading some of these treads about this new/old M-cameras, the big question that comes to my mind is: For how long can a company have this old-fashioned product, born sixty years ago, or was it ninety years ago, as their main product? How much is it possible to squeeze out of the market before it comes to a sudden stop?

I see that you people who know much more about the camera industry than I, argue

that for Leica continuing down the FF DSLR track, would have led the company to

bankruptcy. Well, I don’t know. I can not free myself from the thought that there all in all are more dedicated future photographers out there in the big world who would like to own a high quality FF DSLR/EVIL camerasystem belonging to the very top pricelevel, than there are future M camera system photographers.

Is it really so that Nikon and Canon are the only ones in the future, to share this market?

Then at least we, as customers become the biggest losers!

[pico]

In the last analysis, Leica has had the compact rangefinder market for decades. I do not see the Fotokina Asian innovation announcement as effecting Leica whatsoever because Leica users are not typical techno-fetish types who need all that 'stuff' in the viewfinder. We know how to make pictures and we know that all that information is in our mind when we make pictures. It is truly that simple - experience does not need visual roadsigns.

 

Leica is, IMHO, not about presenting a plethora (or deluge) of possibilities in the viewfinder, but about making a camera an expert can use because he has expertise, knowledge, just as Leica has the very same.

 

We don't need all that stuff. All we want is high quality optics, which Leica has beyond a doubt, and a compact full-frame digital sensor. I believe Leica has made the market in that respect.

 

More automation means more digression, and for Leica to adopt it would mean a terrible disruptive technology trap. Let the others do that. Not Leica. A Leica M9 can work for an amateur and also an expert, just has the Leica has since its invention.

[40mm f/2]

Yes Leica management learned how to have an event even they could not show any new development for Photokina 2010. Small modifications of existing products (X1 & M9) are easy to accomplish and they can pretend to show something new. I suspect that the limiting part for their next product is a good enough electronic viewfinder - not their expertise. May be they need to get it from somewhere else. I hope Arriflex has good ones.

[pico]

Yes Leica management learned how to have an event even they could not show any new development for Photokina 2010. [...]

 

It ain't over, and regardless why should Leica have to follow the lemmings?

[EJohnE]

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I would think that most of those buying the M9Tit...with that big red nipple would never even open the packaging, but have it X-rayed to ensure Leica had not filled it with old nails or beer cans. It's only for trading, not for use.

 

As for an R replacement, it is too late now for any (well, me anyway) of those disappointed by Solm's change of mind regarding an R10. Just put up with using R lenses on Nikon, Canon or Sony bodies. I use the 5D-II. I think it is a generally rotten camera in many ways, compared with the Olympus E-series - I have to keep the manual at hand to lift the mirror and do other E-easy adjustments - but it does use the R lenses at full angle of view, and with the S screen, focussing is not too bad with the faster lenses. When using the macro 100 f4, I will mostly require the live view anyway.

 

I wouldn't pay more than $US5,000 for any digital body. Digital cameras are too ephemeral. I would, illogically, pay for a MF back for a modular camera for which interchangeable allsorts are available now or in the future.

 

from the home for the terminally bewildered, John.

[jrc]

But consider that Leica normally doesn't cater to this middle-ground. The other manufacturers, as you pointed out - already occupy this vast sea of mediocrity.

 

Unfortunately for Leica, it's not all that mediocre. There *is* a vast sea of extremely competent professional photographers, with only a vanishingly small number of those using Leicas. For the most part, it seems to me, Leicas are mostly used by amateurs or semi-pros. If you put the glass on a scale, IMHO, the Leica glass is 98%, and the best Canon and Nikon is 95%, and 99.9% of the world doesn't give a shit about that 3% difference.

 

I doubt that any kind of mirrorless solution is likely to help Doug Herr's problem. He insists that he has to work with Leica glass because of its excellence, but I don't see how that excellence (in his particular fast-moving, bird-shooting operation) will help much if you can't focus accurately fast enough because you're using either a TV screen to focus with, or because some kind of light-reducing splitter is involved. I may be wrong, but it seems to me that with that kind of shooting, the viewfinder is virtually as important as the glass. I have the Panasonic m4/3 system along with Nikons and Leicas, and believe me, the EVIL is nothing like looking through an OVF. I suspect Leicas will not really come up with a R solution for his special needs. His option at this point, IMHO, is the S2, with all the costs that involves. (But hey, it's not much more than a Land Rover, and the parts don't fall off, either.)

 

The Tit doesn't particularly offend me because it probably didn't really divert much development money (How much does it cost to plug in a LED?) and, it dumped more money into Leica's pockets. They may look a little foolish to outsiders, but hey, $10 million is $10 million (or whatever they'll make after costs.) If they put that money into a modern M10, it'll be money well earned and spent. All of that doesn't mean, however, that they aren't a clumsy, inept, often-silly, retrograde company stuck in the past. They are.

[jaapv]

The lenses on the S2 are too short for birds and wildlife.

[wildlightphoto]

.. For the most part, it seems to me, Leicas are mostly used by amateurs or semi-pros.

 

This is true of any brand.

 

... I doubt that any kind of mirrorless solution is likely to help Doug Herr's problem. He insists that he has to work with Leica glass because of its excellence, but I don't see how that excellence (in his particular fast-moving, bird-shooting operation) will help much if you can't focus accurately fast enough because you're using either a TV screen to focus with, or because some kind of light-reducing splitter is involved.

 

I remain open to the possibility of technological improvements that make the viewfinder of a mirrorless camera usable for my style of work.

 

I may be wrong, but it seems to me that with that kind of shooting, the viewfinder is virtually as important as the glass.

 

No argument from me.

 

The lenses on the S2 are too short for birds and wildlife.

 

The 350mm lens once it becomes available would give an angle of view about equal to a 280mm lens on a full-frame 35mm camera. This is about as short a lens as I can use consistently. Remaining questions include my subjects' response to the larger lens, the lens' minimum focus distance, and the (related) minimum field of view. OTOH there's the possibility of using a long Hasselblad V lens or Pentax 6x7 lens on the S2 with an adapter, but if that means focussing at working aperture I might as well be using Leica-R lenses on a D3x.

[pop]

The lenses on the S2 are too short for birds and wildlife.

 

Typical manager's solution: redesign birds and wildlife. Only shoot the bird "Roch" (sp?) from the Arabian Nights.

[Nicoleica]

OTOH there's the possibility of using a long Hasselblad V lens or Pentax 6x7 lens on the S2 with an adapter, but if that means focussing at working aperture I might as well be using Leica-R lenses on a D3x.

 

I use an old T-Mount 500mm Mirror lens for wildlife. You have no other option than focussing at working aperture with that. It takes practice to get the best from it, but it does work on almost every brand of camera I have ever owned. (Yes, I do have a nice collection of T-mounts.)

[Xmas]

Typical manager's solution: redesign birds and wildlife. Only shoot the bird "Roch" (sp?) from the Arabian Nights.

 

'Roc' but Roch is phonetic

 

Noel

[jrc]

The 350mm lens once it becomes available would give an angle of view about equal to a 280mm lens on a full-frame 35mm camera. This is about as short a lens as I can use consistently. Remaining questions include my subjects' response to the larger lens, the lens' minimum focus distance, and the (related) minimum field of view. OTOH there's the possibility of using a long Hasselblad V lens or Pentax 6x7 lens on the S2 with an adapter, but if that means focussing at working aperture I might as well be using Leica-R lenses on a D3x.

 

Another question: since Leica can only slowly fill out the full range of lenses for the S2, I wonder if they might create an exquisitely good, full-function extender that would would work with all lenses, and help fill these gaps. A 1.7x (to choose a popular extender size) would give you an equivalent close to 500...and really move into territory that the other MF cameras don't get into much.

[wildlightphoto]

... 500mm Mirror lens for wildlife

 

That was a very brief experiment for me.

[mooky]

"....I remain open to the possibility of technological improvements that make the viewfinder of a mirrorless camera usable for my style of work."

 

Doug,

 

There was a patent drawing shown on 'Nikon Rumors" some time ago that clearly shows a small mirror reflex housing over some type of 'live view' sensor. In other words, the housing/mirror is looking at a live sensor. I'm not exactly sure if it's a significant and usable idea or not......

[sdai]

The lenses on the S2 are too short for birds and wildlife.

 

Use your feet or, you can put the bird cage right in front of your camera.

[giordano]

There was a patent drawing shown on 'Nikon Rumors" some time ago that clearly shows a small mirror reflex housing over some type of 'live view' sensor. In other words, the housing/mirror is looking at a live sensor. I'm not exactly sure if it's a significant and usable idea or not......

 

That was just an EVF with a mirror between the LCD and the eyepiece, folding the optical path so as to fit a good-sized eyepiece and monitor into the thickness of a compact body.

[sfage]

Well, I can only say this: since there is nothing for me (and many of us), my month of wages for someone at the Leica factory is going to another manufacturer. My several thousand dollars is going to Canon.

 

If that means lay-offs, I am terribly sorry for that person. I can't stay in business and "not" pay attention to my clients.

 

I'm sorry, that's business.

 

I told one of my employees a couple of days ago: "I'm not your boss. The guy upstairs in the master bedroom is your boss. Make him angry and we're ALL going home."

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Hallo,

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[jaapv]

How can it mean layoffs if you are not buying something they don't produce anyway?