hankg Posted November 11, 2007 Share #1 Posted November 11, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) It's really difficult to make the business case for designing and producing a digicam based on the most digital unfriendly mount in 35mm photography for a market that numbers in the 10's of thousands. It's only happened because of the happy accident that Leica has managed to survive selling a product that the market abandoned 50 years ago and that still preserves an ergonomic model and style of working that is almost extinct. Only Leica had a vested interest in the survival of the M mount into the digital age. So the idea that some have posited that competitors are wanting a crack at Leica's market (then Leica will be sorry!) is laughable. Cosina is only in the M business because of the owners passion for traditional RF film photography - if it was a decision left to their accountants they would probably pull the plug. It's actually amazing that a little company can provide a digital camera that is on a par with the top of the line of the industry giants for such a small market and not have it cost 10 times what a D3 or 1D costs. How do you recover development costs selling 20,000 bodies when Canon can sell 100 or 1,000 times that to cover it's development costs. In many ways the M8 is a product that doesn't make any sense in today's business environment and Leica's survival is an anomaly in a world of outsourcing, making it just good enough, market hucksterism. Leica should have been absorbed by some giant, gutted, outsourced to a low cost manufacturing center, with it's red dot slapped on some crappy retro looking consumer product aimed at the luxury market (well OK Leica tried that themselves already:) ) I am very happy that this fluke has occurred and it seems that Leica is moving to a less precarious position guaranteeing more and better digicams that run against the current tide. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted November 11, 2007 Posted November 11, 2007 Hi hankg, Take a look here The business case for a digitalM. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
Daniel Ortego Posted November 11, 2007 Share #2 Posted November 11, 2007 Best reassurance yet the 8500-bucks on my “new” production M8 and 28-cron’ isn’t going to depress me in two months time. Regards, Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradreiman Posted November 11, 2007 Share #3 Posted November 11, 2007 hank i agree and couldn't have said it better. leica were in an extremely precarious position a while back and they got through by the skin of their teeth. i think previous owner/management were silly to not make the m a digital body. now they are doing some catch-up and they are in the best position they have been in since the 70's when the slrs took over. its like the planets had to line up for leica to survive and the planets happened to line up. leica is going to be around for a long time now and i for one am relieved. i love looking through my m viewfinders and am thrilled they went digital. i was going to the poorhouse and the nuthouse if i had to keep buying film/developing and scanning film from my m6-now im like a pig in shit and can shoot away to my hearts content. i waited for leica before i bought a serious digital camera and i was missing alot of opportunities (work and pleasure). loved the digilux2 but it just wasn't a pro camera so i kept going with the m6 praying for a digital m. maybe not the best "capitalist" business model but thankfully they have folks in there that get it.....B Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankg Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share #4 Posted November 11, 2007 The thing that is potentially most exciting is that now that the M is digital that will we see some future development beyond the standard set by the M3 50 years ago in some future M. An evolution of the RF platform that can bring to bear the benefits of digital, modern materials and modern manufacturing technologies but based on a different vision and priority set then the mainstream DSLR's, based on the working aesthetic of the M. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
delander † Posted November 11, 2007 Share #5 Posted November 11, 2007 Although I grumble a bit on here about the camera I too am pleased to see Leica produce the M8. I waited for years to afford an M Leica, then along came digital and I thought they had missed the boat. The M8 and their future digital cameras have given Leica a new lease of life. It has been a very major exercise for them and I think it will be a few years yet before they are completely on top of it. In fact I do hope that they dont rush out the production of their new cameras. Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradreiman Posted November 11, 2007 Share #6 Posted November 11, 2007 i look forward to that hank but what i really want is a digital MP if thats possible. hopefully they'll focus on image quality and compatibility with leica and other m/ltm lenses. don't care about the bells and whistles. less noise would be cool but doesn't really matter to me because i mostly shot iso 50-400 film. two rolls of 1600 in my whole life and the files are great to iso 640 to me. full frame would be the best and no ir filters if they can do that without sacrificing image quality. better buffer would be special too but not too important, my m6 didn't have a buffer (we're spoiled now). better viewfinder mag would be great...b Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andit Posted November 11, 2007 Share #7 Posted November 11, 2007 Advertisement (gone after registration) Hi Hank, Thanks for reminding us just how lucky we are to actually have an M8. I must take my hat off to Leica - in literature I would compare this to "the little engine that could". One other company that sits in much the same position is Land Rover. The company owners wanted to kill off the Defender four times in the past already. Still, after over 50 years that icon of off road vehicles still exists. I'm going to get hammered here - the Defender is probably the worst vehicle on the road, slow, difficult to turn, you can watch it consume fuel (it hurts when you fill up) etc. However, I have driven many cars in my life, but I still enjoy driving my Defender the most. Andreas Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted November 11, 2007 Share #8 Posted November 11, 2007 Leica definitely lost a lot of ground while Hermes were involved, and a recently closed UK Leica dealer went down still trying to sell some of the special editions - including the "Ein Stuck" which comes with a certificate for 1 share of basically worthless Leica stock. How pretentious is that? A digital M was the only product which was going to turn Leica around - Sports Optics couldn't do it, the R couldn't do it, nor could an endless procession of PanaLeicas. Only a digital M could reinvigorate the company, along with a level of drag-along lens business which has taken them by surprise. For the future, they have to learn from the M8 experience and actively address those issues which make the M8 a compromise - IR, crop-factor, shutter noise, reliability, lens focussing, white balance, mediocre JPEG quality, gritty shutter release, need I go on? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
andit Posted November 11, 2007 Share #9 Posted November 11, 2007 The only change that I would like to see in future, is the addition a "film wind" lever to cock the shutter again. I don't need the motor drive - would rather have a quiet camera. Andreas Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bradreiman Posted November 11, 2007 Share #10 Posted November 11, 2007 The only change that I would like to see in future, is the addition a "film wind" lever to cock the shutter again. I don't need the motor drive - would rather have a quiet camera. Andreas Andreas-I fully respect your opinion on this but I'm glad this is one "legacy" item they didnt leave on. Id rather see an option to delay the wind, maybe a menu setting wherein you hold down the shutter release until your ready to recock. Im always surprised to here people are unhappy with the sound of the shutter. It really seems a non issue to me (just me-not belittleing). It is a camera so it will make a shutter sound-don't get all the fuss personally....B Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankg Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share #11 Posted November 11, 2007 i look forward to that hank but what i really want is a digital MP if thats possible. hopefully they'll focus on image quality and compatibility with leica and other m/ltm lenses. don't care about the bells and whistles. less noise would be cool but doesn't really matter to me because i mostly shot iso 50-400 film. two rolls of 1600 in my whole life and the files are great to iso 640 to me. full frame would be the best and no ir filters if they can do that without sacrificing image quality. better buffer would be special too but not too important, my m6 didn't have a buffer (we're spoiled now). better viewfinder mag would be great...b I think that is more or less Leica's short term goal for the digital M. Match the experience and reliability of the film M's. The M8 does not quite clear that bar but I imagine the M8-II or M9 should. I would think at the point at which they achieve 'parity' with the film M along with a larger user base and financial security they can get a bit more daring and start to move the RF design envelope beyond 1958. It's a tribute to the incredible level of integrity of the M3 design that it is still a goal to aspire to but it shouldn't be the end of the line of RF development in the digital age. I would think it is likely that for the foreseeable future there will always be a digital M based on the film M design brief but perhaps in the not to distant future we will see the equivalent of the sort of innovation the M3 represented in it's time and not in the direction of auto everything DSLR's but based on the qualities of M style of shooting. Likely as an alternative model at least at first. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
egibaud Posted November 11, 2007 Share #12 Posted November 11, 2007 Leica probably made their last bet, build a Digital M or closing the factory. Although they did arrive quite late in the digital world, their name was still around, and many M users were ready to give them a chance. How many brand can jump into a new technology (to them) and see so many of their followers say, OK, I'll have one of these! ???? If companies like Agfa, Minolta etc. died along the way, we can say Leica has been more than lucky. If they had tried to go for the R10 first they would probably have died, as not as many people would have gambled a Leica reflex instead of Canon or Nikon. Luckily for us the range finder market hole was almost empty. Anyway we should thank Epson with its RD1 as they did a very good market survey for Leica. Unluckily for Epson, their name does not sound as rangefinder, otherwise there would be an RD2, RD3 ... Cosina / Voigtlander could come up with some Digital camera? Not sure about that unless they team up with a major company, as development cost is quite high and CV would hardly be accepted with a camera price tag over US$2000. Maybe we see Nikon or Canon buy CV and launch a cheaper rangefinder... Eric Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hankg Posted November 11, 2007 Author Share #13 Posted November 11, 2007 Cosina / Voigtlander could come up with some Digital camera? Not sure about that unless they team up with a major company, as development cost is quite high and CV would hardly be accepted with a camera price tag over US$2000. Maybe we see Nikon or Canon buy CV and launch a cheaper rangefinder... Eric Mr. K at Cosina is a film afficianado and has expressed little interest in digital. Nikon has just put a shot across Canon's bow with the D3 and D300. I think Canon will stay focused on it's competition now that's it's hegemony in the DSLR market is being threatened for the first time in a long time. Eventually the costs will come down to jump into digital RF and then maybe Zeiss will offer something developed and built for it in Asia. Digital RF is still technically challenging and expensive and since Zeiss has said they would want 24x36 as a baseline that is a ways off unless you want to fund a risky and expensive development project. I think Zeiss justs wants to pick the low hanging fruit with technology and expertise readily available to it. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
zlatkob Posted November 11, 2007 Share #14 Posted November 11, 2007 I agree with Mark's summary of the issues to be addressed. I would just add battery life. A film wind lever to cock the shutter would be an absolute turn off for me. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
orjanf Posted November 11, 2007 Share #15 Posted November 11, 2007 Has Epson been mentioned. Would an RD3 not be a more likely event than a Canon or Nikon RF? It seems the future of market would be safer with a few 'starter' options around. Re the future, I would pay a bit more for some improvement to viewfinder, more accurate framelines at 2 m and, if technically possible, a higher eyepoint. Also a 16 bit option in the menu for saving raw files. Even if it is a bit slower. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sean_reid Posted November 12, 2007 Share #16 Posted November 12, 2007 Anyway we should thank Epson with its RD1 as they did a very good market survey for Leica. Unluckily for Epson, their name does not sound as rangefinder, otherwise there would be an RD2, RD3 ... Eric It wasn't their name but, rather, their lack of seriousness about the R-D1's success. There was almost no marketing at all and many at Epson didn't even know the camera existed. Cheers, Sean Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted November 12, 2007 Share #17 Posted November 12, 2007 It was interesting at Photokina 2006 that a vast area was given over to printers and storage devices and the R-D1 was limited to one guy fiddling with one in a corner. Their hearts were never really in it but the best thing Epson ever did for us was to shake Leica out of their "nicht moeglich" lethargy to develop the M8. Leica must have been shaken to the core when Epson launched the camera at Photokina 2004. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eoin Posted November 12, 2007 Share #18 Posted November 12, 2007 I think Leica were caught between a rock and a hard place, here they had many M customers crying out for a digital M, rather than redesign the whole package into a new format they decided to keep to the known format. For so many users to move outside this envelope would have met with anger and dissatisfaction, so IMO Leica played it safe to keep and attract existing M customers. Going forward, it might be an idea to introduce a new format, more modern in it's style and function, LCD RF with variable frame lines and dial in .58, .72, .85 mag and so on but also keep the M8 up to date with advances in sensor design. Then those who wish to remain true to tradition or those who wish to explore a more modern layout have a choice. As for me, I have my M8, it will be a long time before I would feel the need for an upgrade and I suspect most others would agree, there is very little this camera can't do!. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaapv Posted November 12, 2007 Share #19 Posted November 12, 2007 I don't think the current business model is that unusual: high-quality, more or less handbuilt technical items for the top-end of the market. Several other similar firms come to mind: Breguet watches, Morgan motor-cars, etc... The model seems to work. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
geoffreyg Posted November 12, 2007 Share #20 Posted November 12, 2007 I don't think the current business model is that unusual: high-quality, more or less handbuilt technical items for the top-end of the market. Several other similar firms come to mind: Breguet watches, Morgan motor-cars, etc... The model seems to work. Its an example of a small high-end top quality product that meets a particular and overlooked market niche. The key things are that the market niche remains interested (and we are in digital rangefinders) and that the company delivers a product that meets that need (as Leica have). That we are willing to put up with its issues shows our loyalty to both the brand and the idea, and the fact that there are not many good alternatives. Its a market big enough for Leica, and maybe Epson, but not worthwhile for Canon/Nikon. It also has (in theory) a built in pathway - from the users of film rangefinders. I wonder where it goes when the next generation (who didn't grow up with film M's) are the buyers. Or perhaps the benefits of a digital rangefinder will shine through for them too? Hard to imagine any 30 year old, even if wealthy enough, enjoying manual focus. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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