AP interview with Dr Kaufmann

[pedaes]

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This weeks AP carries interview with Dr Kaufmann. Starts "It seems unlikely that Leica will launch a consumer-level, mirror less compact system camera (CSC) at Photokina, despite suggesting otherwise last year." Also "Leica sees the M family as very high on the agenda at Photokina.....".

 

Separate article suggests B&W X2 and S-system if Monochrom does well.

 

Guess they have hired a whole hall for something!

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[ericborgstrom]

AP = Associated Press or what?

Please supply URL

[andybarton]

More likely to be Amateur Photographer

 

Leica blows hot and cold in Berlin | Photography news - Camera news, photo news and photography events | Amateur Photographer

[stevelap]

Andy just beat me to it. Most of that news is two-weeks old now and was widely reported in coverage of the Berlin event.

[johnbuckley]

It is difficult to read their summary and not conclude a) there will not be a competitor to the EVIL cameras launched by Leica at Photokina, but there will be an M10. It could all be a misdirection play, but I would tend to doubt it. "There won't be 50 Ms launched at Photokina." Sure reads Iike there will be one.

[pico]

Colour film will only be around for five more years, predicts Leica chairman. 'B&w may last longer.'

 

If Herr Dr Kaufmann means all film formats, then it would truly be the end of an era unless digital sensors/cameras rise in quality to the level of 5x4" film, and achieves the perspective control of large format - OR global society just plain stops caring for the kind of fidelity and control large format film can deliver. I cannot stand the later thought, but I might be dead by then anyway, but if I do live so long, I'm going to be one ranting pain-in-the-ass.

[algrove]

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All the more reason to buy that used Hasselblad you have been thinking about.

[SteveYork]

The actual quote re: future of film is not nearly sensational as the bullet point on the link makes it sound. It was something like -- 'In 5 years time color film may be mostly gone, but B&W film will likely linger much longer."

 

We don't know. Only time will tell, but it's a good reason to go shoot more film. It does, however, remind me of all the doomsayers back in circa. 2001 on the old photo.net forum.

[earleygallery]

Oh dear Dr Kaufmann, I was just about to buy a new MP an M7 and a bunch of lenses for them. Won't bother now, I'll stick with my old M2 and Voigtlander lenses, no point spending money when you tell me that film will be unavailable in a few more years!!!!!!!!

[jaapv]

I think it is rather silly to think that film will disappear. It will be more marginalized, maybe, but there will be niche manufacturers to pick up the threads - and people who prefer the film esthetic will keep those smaller manufacturers viable.

[M9reno]

I find Kaufmann's "forecast" on the future of film simply outrageous. Talk about selling out!

 

I'm sorry, but I've lost respect for the man.

 

By the look of him at the Berlin event, I suppose he thinks the end is also nigh for the suit and tie? Long live the middle-aged man in the tight black T-shirt!

 

Anyway, IMO too much emphasis here on "image" in the marketing, rather than photographic sense of the word: "Leica is too cool for you". Such an approach may badly misfire. It certainly has with me.

[M9reno]

Long live the middle-aged man in the tight black T-shirt!

 

I should add (without making this too ad hominem): sorry, the Dr. ain't no Steve Jobs. He needs to juice up on the blended carrot and step away from the podium if he wants his "cool" to look Californian. He's barking up the wrong tree.

[johnbuckley]

Kind of a juvenile response to a statement by someone who 1) invested his family's fortunes in a dying, near bankrupt company, 2) oversaw the development of the M9, S2 and other products that brought Leica back to profitability. You don't have to like his style, and he may or may not be wrong about the future of film, but if you are a fan of Leica, it's odd not to be grateful to a man who kept it from swirling down the drain.

[M9reno]

Kind of a juvenile response to a statement by someone who 1) invested his family's fortunes in a dying, near bankrupt company, 2) oversaw the development of the M9, S2 and other products that brought Leica back to profitability. You don't have to like his style, and he may or may to be wrong about the future of film, but if you are a fan of Leica, it's odd not to be grateful to a man who kept it from swirling down the drain.

 

I beg your pardon, but I would consider it far more juvenile to forecast the end of film from his position. And, if too many people feel the way I do about him, he may yet succeed in opening that drain again!

[jaapv]

By offending film users? Rather unlikely- the sales percentage of film bodies is minimal. The company does certainly not depend on it.

He is probably right too that in five to ten years time film will be the domain of small niche manufacturers and that Fuji and the remnants of Kodak will have moved out, as there is no industrial scale use left. The movie industry has switched to digital these last few years and the vast majority of modern X-Ray systems are digitally based, killing off the medical market.

[IkarusJohn]

I'm not sure I understand why some posters are so offended by the suggestion (or perhaps implication) that the end is nigh for film.

 

If you own a company that makes cameras and lenses (and binoculars), and you are one of the few companies left offering film cameras (how many of those get ordered a year?), you might well come to the same conclusion. Film manufacture is not exactly a growing business, and how many companies still make film cameras?

 

Sure, for those of us (like me) who still own and use film cameras, film is sure to continue to be available, but it's a very marginal group. Without the internet, it would be worse.

 

Dr Kaufmann is entirely right to focus on his digital products, and upgrading his lenses to match. Even Erwin Puts is predicting the discontinuance of the MP in the next year or so. Film has a (small) future, but the future for Leica or any other camera maker is not film. For myself, the Monochrom is likely to mean that my M3 gets used even less than it does already. Yep, film is (almost) dead.

 

Cheers

John

[rramesh]

Leica is today a great company with great products. So long as they don't think and execute product strategy like 'Smith Corona', they will be successful.

[Angora]

consumer-level

Haven't been following the news lately, but this either means that there'll be a "proper" EVIL camera at Kina, or just no EVIL at all.

Given their history record with the R10, I don't have much expectations for this upcoming event...

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[gberger]

Yes. the major film-makers (Fuji and Kodak) might abandon film, but another problem is equally distressing, viz., color and B&W professional film labs and the corner-store mass-marketing film developers/printers are disappearing. Not enough volume. Many are being replaced by the digital kiosks. Unless you have your own darkroom and printer, or prepared to process your own transparencies, where will you go to get your film processed?

[andyedward]

I can't imagine the traditional, conservative leica ever abandoning film cameras completely. They may leave just one in production. Kaufman isn't in a position to forsee the end of film, so he shouldn't talk about it. Film is leicas link to the past, a past which leica rely on heavily, as witnessed by the M9M launch. If film were to die completely, it would have happened already.