What do you think of the price of the new 50mm Summicron?

[davidbaddley]

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After taking a closer look at the specs of this lens, I'm seriously impressed. In the past, Leica has said that their designs balance quality with affordability. This time, they seem to have gone all-out for quality, attainability be damned. Good for them, this will gratify users who choose Leicas because they are the best around, but wished for quality that wasn't limited by marketability.

 

I won't be getting one, however. Instead, I'll start saving now for the inevitable 50mm APO-Summilux ASPH 1.4, which at the current pricing trajectory should be about $21,000.

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[RobertJRB]

I think the lens price is fair enough looking at the MTF charts. And they don't force u to buy one, the old cron is more than good enough. And since it will be sold next to the new APO they don't even claim the f/2 lens so you only could choose between the summarit or the lux.

 

 

But besides that, only 83.000 dollar for a new 991 carrera? Wow, here in the netherlands you could almost buy an entry level A6 or 5 serie for that.

 

The 991 carrera world cost you 142.418 dollar..

That I think is strange

[Ellie]

Just for fun I looked at which categories Leica put the new lens in Leica Camera AG - Photography - Lenses

 

Available light

APO-Summicron-M 50/2 ASPH

 

Photojournalism

APO-Summicron-M 50/2 ASPH

 

Travel

-

 

Stage Photography

-

 

Portrait

APO-Summicron-M 50/2 ASPH

 

Landscape

-

 

Wildlife Photography

-

 

Macro & Still Life

-

 

Architecture

-

 

Sports

-

[kdriceman]

The law of supply and demand rules. If, as I suspect, they sell them faster than they can make them, it is a fair (probably low) price. If they end up with excess inventory, it's too high. For me, already owning a Summilux 50 ASPH, the extra $3,000 (+-) can't be justified by my photography.

[pico]

[...]I think what may be the most controversial in this case is that the 50 Summicron was always at the lower end of the price range, and it seems difficult to comprehend how it could cost double a Summilux-ASPH. [...]

 

Perhaps what we are seeing is a precursor to price increases across the whole line.

 

FWIW, complaints regarding prices will not move Leica, except perhaps when the sheiks and multi-millionaire Chinese faint at the bill. And when pigs fly.

.

[bocaburger]

 

 

But besides that, only 83.000 dollar for a new 991 carrera? Wow, here in the netherlands you could almost buy an entry level A6 or 5 serie for that.

 

The 991 carrera world cost you 142.418 dollar..

That I think is strange

 

Not strange at all, just different taxation. In the USA I pay $20K/yr for health insurance for 2 people, with a 20% co-pay and $5000 deductibles for each of us, and I paid almost half a million all told for my kids' college educations at state universities.

[SteveYork]

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The law of supply and demand rules. If, as I suspect, they sell them faster than they can make them, it is a fair (probably low) price. If they end up with excess inventory, it's too high. For me, already owning a Summilux 50 ASPH, the extra $3,000 (+-) can't be justified by my photography.

 

I envision they sell many, at least in the beginning, and then demand slacks off. Eventually, within the foreseeable future, they'll cease product of the of Summicron, but don't worry -- they'll bump the price of the Summarit to take its' place.

[luigi bertolotti]

Even if I were super rich, I probably would not buy one.

 

I feel like I'm already in possession of the finest fifty ever made, my rigid Summicron, circa 1965.

 

Jay

 

My one is from 1963 and still up to anything I can ask from a 50mm ... but am seriously considering a like new item dated 8 years ago... in case the classic Summicron shall be discontinued.... .

The new is intriguing but... just to answer simply to the question of this thread "it's a lot costly" - period.

[lars_bergquist]

I am worried that Leica Camera AG are manoeuvering themselves into an untenable market situation.

 

They can charge what they charge because there is the Leica Brand Image. How did that arise? Because lots of first class photographers took a lot of first class pictures with it. This established the Leica as a serious camera, worth being desired, in spite of the high prices. Yes they were high, but it was never felt that they were out of this world.

 

They could at any time have produced items that were so costly to make that they would have to ask prices out of this world. But they did not do that – deliberately so, if we may believe Max Berek himself. So more first class photographers could afford Leicas, and the Brand Image grew even more.

 

Now, if these people who took spectacular pictures with a Leica had not been able to afford one, then the pictures had remained un-taken. There would never have been a Leica Brand Image. The thing would have remained what it was when it was first introduced: an expensive novelty. The people who are after expensive novelties simply because they are expensive and flauntable prestige items, would have turned to other expensive novelties in short order, and the Leica would have withered away after a few years.

 

But is the Leica brand perceived as a supplier of superlative and supremely enabling photographic tools today, like it was in the 1930's? Or is it seen as just a purveyor of expensive techno-bling, along with e.g. Porsche? The problem is that a Leica is far less ostentatious than a Porsche. So the bling factor is less. The blingers will remain an extremely limited market and they will in time find that fashion dictates some other piece of ostentatious male jewellery, unless the Brand Image is maintained. And when the member of the photographically innocent public think of a professional camera, they think Nikon, not Leica. Or maybe Canon, but not Leica.

 

The Leica Brand Image is dying. Can it be replaced with the image of an atrociously expensive camera that very rich people are sometimes seen with? How many people today can even spot a Leica when they see one? Outside some areas in Germany, very few indeed.

 

Unless Leica manages to break out of the male jewellery market and becomes again a respected maker of cameras, the company will slowly wither and die. They can break out of it only if they put more Leica cameras into the hands of people who actually take gripping pictures with them. They can do it only by becoming visible again.

 

Do they understand that? Do they care?

 

The old man from the Leica Age

[bocaburger]

I am worried that Leica Camera AG are manoeuvering themselves into an untenable market situation.

 

They can charge what they charge because there is the Leica Brand Image. How did that arise? Because lots of first class photographers took a lot of first class pictures with it. This established the Leica as a serious camera, worth being desired, in spite of the high prices. Yes they were high, but it was never felt that they were out of this world.

 

They could at any time have produced items that were so costly to make that they would have to ask prices out of this world. But they did not do that – deliberately so, if we may believe Max Berek himself. So more first class photographers could afford Leicas, and the Brand Image grew even more.

 

Now, if these people who took spectacular pictures with a Leica had not been able to afford one, then the pictures had remained un-taken. There would never have been a Leica Brand Image. The thing would have remained what it was when it was first introduced: an expensive novelty. The people who are after expensive novelties simply because they are expensive and flauntable prestige items, would have turned to other expensive novelties in short order, and the Leica would have withered away after a few years.

 

But is the Leica brand perceived as a supplier of superlative and supremely enabling photographic tools today, like it was in the 1930's? Or is it seen as just a purveyor of expensive techno-bling, along with e.g. Porsche? The problem is that a Leica is far less ostentatious than a Porsche. So the bling factor is less. The blingers will remain an extremely limited market and they will in time find that fashion dictates some other piece of ostentatious male jewellery, unless the Brand Image is maintained. And when the member of the photographically innocent public think of a professional camera, they think Nikon, not Leica. Or maybe Canon, but not Leica.

 

The Leica Brand Image is dying. Can it be replaced with the image of an atrociously expensive camera that very rich people are sometimes seen with? How many people today can even spot a Leica when they see one? Outside some areas in Germany, very few indeed.

 

Unless Leica manages to break out of the male jewellery market and becomes again a respected maker of cameras, the company will slowly wither and die. They can break out of it only if they put more Leica cameras into the hands of people who actually take gripping pictures with them. They can do it only by becoming visible again.

 

Do they understand that? Do they care?

 

The old man from the Leica Age

 

Without getting too far OT, in the corporate world today the prime objective is to make the next quarterly report look favorable. This is the day of the short-term kill. Execs are happy to cash-out in a relatively short time significantly richer than they started. If the company isn't around in 5 or 10 years, most likely their successor(s) will get blamed. Right now Leica is in a position to strike the motherlode: cash-rich up-and-coming entrepreneurs in the BRIC community. If those economies go bust in a few years, the investors in Leica will have made their killing. Trying to suss the future these days is an impossibility IMO, as things move too fast and change too quickly to predict. But certainly, anyone can see that playing to a dwindling group of pensioners or soon-to-be pensioners is not the answer to long-term success, either.

[MPJMP]

I bought my 50mm 'Cron in the early 90s for $800. new, which was the going rate at that time. Of course this was the era when all the gray-market mail-order dealers were trying to undercut each other, but it seems like it's now gone too far the other way. It's still one of the best lenses I have.

 

Yeah, I bought my 50mm 'Cron new in 2002 for $1,000. It wasn't grey market, either.

 

$7,000 for a 50mm Summicron!?

 

I'm glad I got into Leica when it was merely a "very expensive" camera system, as opposed to an "insanely out-of-reach for mere mortals" camera system.

[lct]

Masterworks have a cost.

[Steve Ash]

I do not have a problem with the price of the Summicron. I only have a problem with my salary that does not fit to it.

 

Regards,

Steve

[Jaybob]

Masterworks have a cost.

 

+1

[lars_bergquist]

The definition of the Apo-Summicron, as measured by MTF, is in the same class as my 21mm Super-Elmar. I bought that one last autumn. Go compare the prices.

 

The only reason I can think of to justify the Apo-Summicron price, would be that they had to persuade the Schott Glaswerke to start production of an exotic glass from the formula collection of the old Leica Glass Lab. Oops, they did that with the 50mm Summilux ASPH too ...

 

The performance of the lens is nevertheless extreme. The Apo-Summicron has demonstrated that the M9 sensor is lens-limited, i.e. that it has more resolution than most any lens put in front of it. But not only the 21mm Super-Elmar but also the 24mm Elmar did that, by producing extraordinary fine detail in actual pictures. If you want to see that too, look at Pedro Ferreira's two pictures in the current issue of the LFI (pp. 38 and 40). That detail is at the limit of what can actually be printed, by the best technology available. No way we need more than 18 megapixels!

 

I would even say that the extreme detail detracts from the impact of those pictures, as pictures, not as technical specimens. it draws attention away from the pictures as wholes – not that I particularly like them, but that is beside the point. Instead of looking at the pictures, we find ourselves scrutinizing the stitching in the embroidery.

 

The old man from the Kodachrome Age

[lct]

True if you compare your 21 at f/5.6 to the new 50/2 at f/2.8 but otherwise... Anyway the latter is the best 50/2 ever made by far. Its fair price is the one photogs will be prepared to pay for it. Don't ask me how much, my GAS attack is too severe at the moment.

[ockie50]

If Leica cannot sell the quantity they aim to sell, the price is too high.....

[lct]

I would not hold my breath.

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[AbbeyFoto]

For many years, Leica was well beyond my reach. I always considered Leica to be expensive. It continues in that tradition. I see the new 50 continuing a long established tradition. If the claims they make are sustained then it will be a new flagship lens. An object of desire and aspiration. Will it transform one's photography? Not without a good deal of work to heighten one's technique, image conception and implementation.

[SJP]

In a perverse way it is rather cheap - still I will not buy one, but I am sure others will.

 

If you consider all the ramifications, small series, dedicated engineering, going for what is possible - not what is sensible, hand made. Then it could have been 10,000 (euro, dollar, pound whatever) and still within the boundaries of what makes "economic sense"

 

The only real criterion is whether its value will diminish by 50% the moment you drive out the door. I do not think so, probably the opposite.