"Vader" Certainly Isn't Any Prettier

[Chaemono]

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Gerade eben schrieb Chuck Albertson:

No, it's a pass-through of US tariffs on German-manufactured lenses.

Exactly. 

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[Distagon]

8 hours ago, SlowDriver said:

Canon released 8 (mostly excellent) RF lenses in less than a year...  Leica is simply too slow.  

Canon: annual revenue USD$31.3 billion; 198,000 employees

Leica annual revenue USD$406.7 million; ?5000 employees

I think we can cut Leica some slack.
If you want Leica lenses faster, buy more lenses! 😋

[FlashGordonPhotography]

20 hours ago, nicci78 said:

Building almost everything at Wetzlar makes it difficult to roll out dozens of new lenses per year. 

Leica is also covering the whole photo market with more than 10 current cameras : S2, SL, Q2, M10 (all variants), M (all variants), TL2, CL, V-Lux 5, D-L-Lux 7, C-Lux and Sofort. 

They also have to support 3 mounts : S, L-mount & M. And offer a viable solution for legacy R mount.

Hasselblad on the other hand, only had to support 2 cameras and their respective mounts: X & H. Plus offering a viable solution for legacy V mount. 

Even better, Blad did not need to build the lenses. They are outsourced to Fujifilm or Nitto in Japan. So it’s much easier to ramp up quickly a whole range of lenses.

 

Leica has relief only with five TL lenses and with the Panasonic FZ1000 II, LX100 II & TZ200 clones. And with the Fujifilm made Sofort.

 

 

They don't get off that easily, for me. The lenses they have designed, engineered, produced and announced are simply not available. The CL 11-23 is still in short supply well over a year after release. As is the SL 75mm. Someone at Leica isn't doing their job when it comes to how many lenses need to be produced to satisfy the market and these are NOT M lenses, assembled by hand. They're made on a big conveyor belt. I get it with M. But not with L mount. There's no need to make 5 at a time.

Leica are vastly bigger than Hasselblad. They spend *X* million Euros on a bigger facility and Leitz Park back in Wetzlar. It seems that they dedicated most of that space to watches. And as many know HB's delivery times have been *slow* as well. But at least they seem to ramp up sufficient quantities when they do arrive that people actually get a lens. I was in the Leica Hong Kong store last week and they had exactly ONE of the SL Summicrons in stock. That's just sad. Sydney isn't much better and they have NO idea when they might get a 50mm if I were to lay down a deposit. And this is a product where different lenses share parts to avoid exactly these problems. While right now the Australian distributor of the X1D has every lens available, in stock ready to ship over night. Do we think Nikon is going to make only a few of the new Noct Nikkors each month?

Leica is profitable. They have orders waiting to be filled. They can make more SL lenses if they want to.

Gordon

[satijntje]

vor 16 Minuten schrieb Distagon:

Canon: annual revenue USD$31.3 billion; 198,000 employees

Leica annual revenue USD$406.7 million; ?5000 employees

I think we can cut Leica some slack.
If you want Leica lenses faster, buy more lenses! 😋

Hasselblad 80 employees, so what?

[FlashGordonPhotography]

16 minutes ago, Distagon said:

Canon: annual revenue USD$31.3 billion; 198,000 employees

Leica annual revenue USD$406.7 million; ?5000 employees

I think we can cut Leica some slack.
If you want Leica lenses faster, buy more lenses! 😋

And how many of those 198K are in the camera division?

Gordon

[satijntje]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb FlashGordonPhotography:

 

 

 

Leica is profitable. They have orders waiting to be filled. They can make more SL lenses if they want to.

 

 

Shortage of supply keep prices stable (read: high)

[Distagon]

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25 minutes ago, satijntje said:

Hasselblad 80 employees, so what?

Hasselblad do not manufacture lenses.

They outsource lens manufacture to Nittoh in Japan.

Leica actually manufactures Leica lenses.

Edited October 22, 2019 by Distagon

[Mr.Q]

Nittoh is a company that employs 450 people. They manage to make all the XCD lenses and also make some lenses for Canon, Nikon, Sigma, and Panasonic.

Cosina employs 550 people. They make most Zeiss lenses and Voigtlander lenses for the M-mount, E-mount and MFT.

Leica employs 5,000 people. Let's stop with the excuses. 

[Distagon]

28 minutes ago, Mr.Q said:

Nittoh is a company that employs 450 people. They manage to make all the XCD lenses and also make some lenses for Canon, Nikon, Sigma, and Panasonic.

Cosina employs 550 people. They make most Zeiss lenses and Voigtlander lenses for the M-mount, E-mount and MFT.

Leica employs 5,000 people. Let's stop with the excuses. 

You're right.  There are no excuses for a company that designs and manufactures high tolerance lenses in house.

It's unforgivable.

[nicci78]

1 hour ago, Mr.Q said:

Nittoh is a company that employs 450 people. They manage to make all the XCD lenses and also make some lenses for Canon, Nikon, Sigma, and Panasonic.

Cosina employs 550 people. They make most Zeiss lenses and Voigtlander lenses for the M-mount, E-mount and MFT.

Leica employs 5,000 people. Let's stop with the excuses. 

5000 employees?? Check your source. 
 

Matthias Harsch stated in its latest interview that Leica Camera only got 1200 employees worldwide. Including Leica stores people 

And only a staff of 800 at Wetzlar. Which count also management, administrative and marketing team. Not many people left to build cameras and lenses. 
 

Then you have to count the lay off of 80 people at Wetzlar. 40 AI specialists will be hired in California instead. 

[bags27]

Leica straddles two worlds: ultra-precise instruments and luxury fashion. Doing so, it's nearly gone bankrupt a number of times. Now owned by two highly successful businessmen (Andreas Kaufmann and family, Stephen Schwarzman and Blackstone), it's figured out how to remain on steady ground. Neither Kaufmann nor Schwarzman needs this, so it's more a labor of love to keep alive the only European-based camera company and manufacturing to its traditionally ultra-high standards. And, of yes, to preserve the single richest heritage in all photographic history.

Sony turns out new cameras and lenses every couple of months. The IQ difference is marginal, in either direction. That's always an option.

[sillbeers15]

4 hours ago, Distagon said:

Leica annual revenue USD$406.7 million; ?5000 employees

 

I ran a USD$300mil factory for a multinational company with 60 factories worldwide,...there are no more than 800 employees on site.

5000 employees out of $400mil, must be producing banana wraps out of Bangaladash. 

[J.Nordvik]

 

[bags27]

I hate to say this, because I know I'm inviting flames in response, but this has to be one of the least well-founded discussions ever on this board. The numbers being thrown around are wild, and the speculation is merely that as outsiders. None of us knows the inside world of this closely-held company--the economic pressures of small-scale labor in multiple countries, the vastly shifting terrain of digitized imagery, the rapid decline in sales of all high end cameras, and the moronic U.S. trade policies that it is facing. 

This tangent started because of frustration that Leica doesn't produce enough L mount lenses--either by type or quantity--to satisfy some folks. Ok. I get that, sort of. I just wonder how many of those who are frustrated have been deprived of livelihood or significant pleasure because of that and how many instead are just focusing on using to the maximum artistic expression what has been produced--which are masterpieces of lenses. 

Edited October 22, 2019 by bags27

[Exodies]

3 hours ago, nicci78 said:

5000 employees?? Check your source. 
 

Matthias Harsch stated in its latest interview that Leica Camera only got 1200 employees worldwide. Including Leica stores people 

And only a staff of 800 at Wetzlar. Which count also management, administrative and marketing team. Not many people left to build cameras and lenses. 
 

Then you have to count the lay off of 80 people at Wetzlar. 40 AI specialists will be hired in California instead. 

Apple has 8000 engineers working on the iPhone camera.

[mmradman]

3 hours ago, nicci78 said:

5000 employees?? Check your source. 
 

Matthias Harsch stated in its latest interview that Leica Camera only got 1200 employees worldwide. Including Leica stores people 

And only a staff of 800 at Wetzlar. Which count also management, administrative and marketing team. Not many people left to build cameras and lenses. 
 

Then you have to count the lay off of 80 people at Wetzlar. 40 AI specialists will be hired in California instead. 

And what about Leica factory in Portugal?  They are integral part in production of components and assemblies of many models of camera, lenses, binoculars, etc.  

[mmradman]

8 minutes ago, Exodies said:

Apple has 8000 engineers working on the iPhone camera.

That is somewhat excessive figure, do you care to guess what these 8K people may be doing to develop and design one subsystem of a smart phone; Testing selfies?

[Chaemono]

vor 2 Minuten schrieb mmradman:

And what about Leica factory in Portugal?  They are integral part in production of components and assemblies of many models of camera, lenses, binoculars, etc.  

They are included in the total of 1200, obviously. 

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica L-Mount

[mmradman]

Just now, Chaemono said:

They are included in the total of 1200, obviously. 

For the company with turnover exceeding Euro 400M 1200 employees is somewhat on the low side (333K/employee).  Still 1200 is more than Nittoh and Cosina combined. 

Wrist watch operation must be labour intensive

[Chaemono]

Gerade eben schrieb mmradman:

For the company with turnover exceeding Euro 400M 1200 employees is somewhat on the low side (333K/employee).  Still 1200 is more than Nittoh and Cosina combined. 

Wrist watch operation must be labour intensive

Yeah, whatever.