Another Price King Lens

[Einst_Stein]

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In the recent years, there are a lot of “Leica $$$$ lens costs only $$$” posts in professional photo review sites.
I believed it once. — until I seriously used it. 
The reviewers even invented a special term: Price King Lens. We’ll, the comments are usually honest “the best for its price”..

It is really sad. A true Leica quality always comes with the true Leica price!

 

[Anbaric]

Leica is certainly the King of lens prices! Spot the odd one out:

Nikon F-mount 50/1.8 = £159
Nikon Z-mount 50/1.8 = £579
Canon EF 50/1.8 = £129
Canon RF 50/1.8 = £200
Sony E 50/1.8 = £159
Sony E OSS 50/1.8 = £249
Zeiss ZM 50/2 = £649

Leica M 50/2 = £2300

That's for a design from the 1970s that used to sell for £599 earlier this century.

Edited February 12 by Anbaric

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[hepcat]

My last Leica kit, when I had an M8 and M9 were mostly then-recent Voigtlander and 1960s vintage Leitz lenses.  They all performed just fine for me.
 

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Now I'm back with the M10-P and I'm using either a 1957 DR Summicron, or 1950s Canon LTM lenses with adapters, and amazingly...  THEY all perform perfectly adequately.

I've yet to find anyone who can tell me what lens was used to make a specific photograph. There are a lot more factors that go into making a photograph.  Whether or not you're using a Leitz (or Leica) lens just isn't that important in the final result unless you're photographing test charts in a lab.  And I don't photograph test charts in a lab.  Some of THE most memorable photos in history have been taken with VERY humble equipment.  

[Al Brown]

Many, many aging M lenses are seriously not the best for its steep price among fierce competition. Compromises had to be made for the size. FIeld curvature is one of those compromises. I thought we covered this subject here in the forum over and over and over... Leica M glass is not the best of the best of the best anymore. Hard to swallow pill, I know, but a SOLID FACT.

[Anbaric]

Leica's answer to the performance of its modern competitors is I suppose the APO lenses, but then the price difference is even more pronounced.

Voigtländer VM Apo-Lanthar 50/2 = £899

Leica APO Summicron 50/2 = £7,200

Some people think the Leica performance isn't much different to the Voigtländer.

Edited February 12 by Anbaric

[LocalHero1953]

Steve Huff AND Al Brown?? It must be true.

(Sorry, Al - couldn't resist)

[Luke_Miller]

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I think one factor that is often overlooked is viewfinder blockage.  The Leica M lenses tend to be smaller with less viewfinder blockage than competing lenses.  This drives price as well as optical compromises.  The highly regarded Voigtländer VM Apo-Lanthar 50/2 is larger in diameter (0.3") than the Leica APO Summicron 50/2.  Both are the same length.  So less blockage with the Leica. Worth it?  Yes for some, no for others.  The Leica (non-APO) Summicron-M 50/2 is smaller still and what I use.  If one adapts M mount lenses to mirrorless bodies, size becomes much less of a factor and there are many non-Leica choices that perform very well at an attractive price point.

Edited February 12 by Luke_Miller

[FrozenInTime]

18 minutes ago, Luke_Miller said:

I think one factor that is often overlooked is viewfinder blockage.  The Leica M lenses tend to be smaller with less viewfinder blockage than competing lenses.  This drives price as well as optical compromises.  The highly regarded Voigtländer VM Apo-Lanthar 50/2 is larger in diameter (0.3") than the Leica APO Summicron 50/2.  Both are the same length.  So less blockage with the Leica. Worth it?  Yes for some, no for others.  The Leica (non-APO) Summicron-M 50/2 is smaller still and what I use.  If one adapts M mount lenses to mirrorless bodies, size becomes much less of a factor and there are many non-Leica choices that perform very well at an attractive price point.

The 50mm Apo-Lanthar is not really that bad with essentially no viewfinder blockage at infinity focus.

The 35mm Apo-Lanthar is another story, being even longer than the 50mm and wider in view, so definitely looses out in practicality and handling.

 If I win the lottery, sure the smaller APO Summicrons would be great, but for now I will struggle on 😉 

I am grateful to Leica pushing the envelope, especially with lenses like the 35/1.4 ASPH and 50/0.95 Noctilux. Both expensive, but I used them for ten or more years before anything else came close to their low light and optical abilities - a big deal back in those film and CCD digital days. 

[Al Brown]

11 hours ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Steve Huff AND Al Brown?? It must be true.

(Sorry, Al - couldn't resist)

I am used to sarcasm and gaslighting. As long as you do not do parallels with Ken Rockwell I am up for every joke.

[wizard]

vor 17 Stunden schrieb Anbaric:

That's for a design from the 1970s that used to sell for £599 earlier this century.

Well, that was more likely the last century. Even so, I bought my copy used, but like new for € 750 twenty years ago, and could probably sell it for twice that amount today. Does not sound like a bad deal to me.

[pgk]

18 hours ago, Anbaric said:

Leica is certainly the King of lens prices! Spot the odd one out:

Nikon F-mount 50/1.8 = £159
Nikon Z-mount 50/1.8 = £579
Canon EF 50/1.8 = £129
Canon RF 50/1.8 = £200
Sony E 50/1.8 = £159
Sony E OSS 50/1.8 = £249
Zeiss ZM 50/2 = £649

Leica M 50/2 = £2300

That's for a design from the 1970s that used to sell for £599 earlier this century.

And the differential if you look at used prices is even more marked. And some discontinued 50mm lenses are superb value compared with Leicas. However comparing modern holistically designed and electronically integrated lenses with hand assembled, mechanical ones is not going to achieve much other than showing that many of the former are extremely good. There is something very appealing about using a well-designed (ergonomically) leica RF lens on an M but trying to suggest that such a lens is also better than many from other makers is not going to go anywhere.

[Anbaric]

40 minutes ago, wizard said:

Well, that was more likely the last century. Even so, I bought my copy used, but like new for € 750 twenty years ago, and could probably sell it for twice that amount today. Does not sound like a bad deal to me.

It really was available for £599 new into the 2000s. Here is a snapshot from UK dealer The Classic Camera's page from 2002 - they are also offering an M6 TTL + 35/2 ASPH starter kit for £2199, less than the price of the 50/2 today.

[Stuart Richardson]

Leica's pricing is always going to be controversial, because they operate a totally different business model than most mainstream camera companies. Not even Hasselblad is really with them at this point. Maybe something like Alpa or Arca Swiss, but even they are not a perfect analog. At least to my mind, there are three major components here:

1. Leica pushes the envelope of lens design. When a given lens in their top end lens lines is introduced, it tends to be the best on the market. Not always, but usually. Usually from a purely optical standpoint, but if not, then from the standpoint of the best optical quality and also being much smaller, or having a better balance of aberrations and so on.

2. They produce lenses at a microscopic scale compared to most companies. There might be only a few hundred or few thousand in the truly specialized lenses (thinking certain S lenses, the M exotics like the 90mm Summilux etc). They are a fairly small company in one of the highest labor countries in the world.

3. But if you ask me what the biggest reason is, it seems clear that it is because Leica has transitioned into a luxury lifestyle brand as much as a camera company. Leica has always been what might be termed an ultra premium product...high precision, low quantities produced, emphasis on build quality and high prices. That said, in the last twenty five years Leica has gone from a struggling analog camera company very similar to something like Sinar, into a very profitable luxury brand. Remember, Hermes used to own part of Leica and Leica has made a clear decision to move into this market. Leica is also now partially owned by private equity, entities which exist solely for profit. It is not about familial pride for them, as it might be for Kaufmann. For at least that section of their ownership number one two and three are all profit. Not value, not tradition, not quality...those only in the sense that they convince people to spend more money. The role of private equity in the financial markets has typically been to come in "optimize" companies for shareholders. That often means cutting costs wherever possible and raising prices to the maximum the market will bear. Another sign of their shift toward luxury is that they opened up literal "boutiques" all around the world. They emphasize exclusivity, production (remember the fetishistic campaign about how long it took to hand polish the Leica T body?) and lifestyle (Das Wesentliche etc) as much as optics or camera technology at this point. The seem to pay more attention to the Lenny Kravitzes of the world than the Elliott Erwitts. They have tried to tie their name to other very profitable luxury sectors like watches and now even TV's. The products are still produced at a very high quality, but the corporate philosophy is very different than it was. If you look at the comparative prices of Leica products over the past two decades, you will see the rapid spike in pricing, outpacing inflation significantly. This is not an accident, it is a strategy.

So if the question is why is a Voigtlander 50mm APO Lanthar on par with a 50mm APO Summicron that costs nearly ten times the price, the answer is mostly number three.

Edited February 13 by Stuart Richardson

[Anbaric]

41 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

3. But if you ask me what the biggest reason is, it seems clear that it is because Leica has transitioned into a luxury lifestyle brand as much as a camera company.

I think that's exactlly right. If those 2002 prices had risen as wages have, then today they wouldn't even be double what they were then. Instead, that 50/2 is closer to quadruple the turn of the century price. As a business decision, moving upmarket was a perfectly sensible strategy. Perhaps Leica would not have survived without it. But it does restrict the potential user base much more than it used to. Buying new today, with the current price for an 'entry level' lens and another £4850 for a film body (or an eye-watering £7800 for digital) is simply unaffordable for many. £7200 for a posh 50/2 must look completely absurd to anyone who has not yet joined our cult.

Edited February 13 by Anbaric

[costa43]

I'm happy to pay more for imperfection than perfection with Leica. I think if I was only after perfection, I would move up sensor size to the X2D or equivalent FUJI, before investing in Leica APO lenses etc. The difference would be far more noticeable.

Leica prices have become silly now, 17 grand for a new M camera and 35mm APO is a joke. I'm not sure what the future holds for Leica but the charm is more in the past for me. 

 

[Stuart Richardson]

Agreed (with Anbaric). I think this also has a lot to do with the shrinking of the world as well. The internet has allowed information about high end cameras to be available broadly across the entire world, first primarily in the European languages and Japanese and then very rapidly into Chinese and other markets with an appetite for luxury (the Middle East, Russia etc). In the 90s, most Russians were not in a position or had much interest in a camera like Leica. But as the oligarchs formed, their taste for luxury products expanded and you have people like Dmitri Medvedov using an S2. Here is my own personal anecdote:

About fifteen years ago the Chinese ambassador to Iceland wrote to me after reading something I wrote about the M9 I believe. He asked to come to the studio to talk to me. He wanted advice on how to build a Leica kit. He was a beginner photographer, but he already knew that Leica was "the best". His intention was to buy the camera and ALL the lenses. Every single M lens. He was a bit of an older man, and when he tried out my camera, it was clear that his eyesight was not up to the task of focusing the RF. He was very grateful that I had stopped him from buying a camera he couldn't use. I tried to steer him towards something that would work better for him (cannot remember what I recommended at the time...).

I guess the point of the story for me is that the Leica market is no longer dominated by Europe, the US and Japan (and maybe Hong Kong etc), and the newest and up until recently largest consumers of Leica gear have a very different view around luxury products. Luxury and high pricing is a BENEFIT, not a hindrance. It is a way to telegraph status. While that is still the case to some degree in Europe in the US, I think for most of us here that is probably not the reason we are looking for a Leica...

Edited February 13 by Stuart Richardson

[pgk]

54 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

1. Leica pushes the envelope of lens design. When a given lens in their top end lens lines is introduced, it tends to be the best on the market. Not always, but usually. Usually from a purely optical standpoint, but if not, then from the standpoint of the best optical quality and also being much smaller, or having a better balance of aberrations and so on.

I'm not even so sure about this. Other makers produce some extraordinarily good, envelope pushing lenses - think ultra wide-angle zooms for example or IF micro lenses. Leica produces some very fast M lenses but are they really suitable for M bodies. I doubt it with the exception of the fast wides.

So yes, number 3 is the driver I have no doubt.

I cannot see buying any new M lenses from Leica and in all honesty as a photographer first and foremost, I would suggest that there are a vast quantity of extremely good, used lenses on the market which fit well within the parameters of usability of the M camera, so I don't actually need to.

[Stuart Richardson]

1 minute ago, pgk said:

I'm not even so sure about this. Other makers produce some extraordinarily good, envelope pushing lenses - think ultra wide-angle zooms for example or IF micro lenses. Leica produces some very fast M lenses but are they really suitable for M bodies. I doubt it with the exception of the fast wides.

So yes, number 3 is the driver I have no doubt.

I cannot see buying any new M lenses from Leica and in all honesty as a photographer first and foremost, I would suggest that there are a vast quantity of extremely good, used lenses on the market which fit well within the parameters of usability of the M camera, so I don't actually need to.

Fair enough. I guess I am thinking more about the S and SL lenses, as that is primarily what I use these days. When the S lenses came out there was no equivalent (probably still isn't), and the same with the SL APO Summicrons.

[pgk]

3 minutes ago, Stuart Richardson said:

Fair enough. I guess I am thinking more about the S and SL lenses, as that is primarily what I use these days. When the S lenses came out there was no equivalent (probably still isn't), and the same with the SL APO Summicrons.

Have you tried other maker's lenses? I have some extremely good Sony lenses which costwise are reasonable, if not the lowest out there. In the 'real' photographic world they produce perfectly acceptable images and whilst perhaps not the 'ulimate' lens I cannot complain about their performance in any way at all. I still prefer using my M cameras and lenses though despite giving away MPixels and versatility. I really don't think that optical prowess is very relevant these days. Are the S and SL lenses built by Leica in Germany these days or are some following Leica's long tradition of being bought in?

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[Stuart Richardson]

24 minutes ago, pgk said:

Have you tried other maker's lenses? I have some extremely good Sony lenses which costwise are reasonable, if not the lowest out there. In the 'real' photographic world they produce perfectly acceptable images and whilst perhaps not the 'ulimate' lens I cannot complain about their performance in any way at all. I still prefer using my M cameras and lenses though despite giving away MPixels and versatility. I really don't think that optical prowess is very relevant these days. Are the S and SL lenses built by Leica in Germany these days or are some following Leica's long tradition of being bought in?

Yes, I have tried, and I use some excellent lenses from Sigma for example (the 105mm is on par with the apo summicrons in sharpness). The S lenses are all made in Wetzlar and the main line L lenses are too (APO Summicrons, pro zooms). They have a few cloned Panasonic and Sigma lenses that are made in Portugal I believe. 
I primarily do exhibition work and large prints, so I value the difference, but I agree it is subtle in most cases, and irrelevant for most users. I do not think user experience is irrelevant, however. For me the best use case for Leica is design and synergy of the whole imaging/user experience chain. They are still unbeaten in that, in my experience.