Price premium for M11

[colint544]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The SL3 launched today. It looks fantastic. 60MP sensor, image stabilising, 1/8000 mechanical shutter speed, and all of that.

I know it's a different beast to the M11 in many ways, but does anyone know why a plain M11 costs £1725 more? 

[hmzimelka]

 "Das wesentliche" of the M costs extra. Less is more 😅

[costa43]

M tax

[01af]

vor 1 Stunde schrieb colint544:

... why a plain M11 costs £1725 more?

Meßsucher.

[jdlaing]

Mechanical parts.

[charlesphoto99]

Because people will pay it as it's considered the gold standard. And then many of those will realize an M is not for them (where's the AF??) and then trade those in for an SL. Win, win for Leica. 

[T25UFO]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

The cost of the rangefinder mechanism must be a factor and perhaps the overall cost of assembly as well.

Is the M priced too high, or the SL priced too low?  

My guess is Leica would like to charge more for the SL but it has to compete in a much wider market.  The M is niche, doesn't have any obvious competitors, so is not so price sensitive.

[thrid]

Meßsucher and the 'legend' tax.

;-)

[colint544]

17 minutes ago, T25UFO said:

The cost of the rangefinder mechanism must be a factor and perhaps the overall cost of assembly as well.

Is the M priced too high, or the SL priced too low?  

My guess is Leica would like to charge more for the SL but it has to compete in a much wider market.  The M is niche, doesn't have any obvious competitors, so is not so price sensitive.

I think you're onto something there. The rangefinder does absorb a chunk of the cost due to its complexity. And yes, there are no true competitors to the M11, whereas the SL has to fight hard in the marketplace.

[lct]

As long as i can recall, M bodies have always been more expensive than their reflex counterparts. In 2006, for instance, the R9 was selling in Europe for 2,995 EUR and the M7 for 3,395 EUR.

[Warton]

M has "cult" tax.

"You want to worship me, you pay me" kind of mentality.

[wdahab]

I feel like I've seen it said that the rangefinder mechanism, by itself, costs at least $1000+ to produce. Certainly costs much more than an equivalent quality EVF.

And then you just have the "there's no alternative in the market" aspect. Comparing the size/weight/feel on an M summicron and an equivalent quality L f2.0 lens, and you realize that there's just going to be people (like me) who will pay for that quality/size tradeoff.

[LocalHero1953]

They charge more because they can. It's not a product that sells for Cost+15%. It's lower margins on things where there's competition, and higher margins where there's none (and there is demand).

[Herr Barnack]

7 hours ago, Al Brown said:

M11 has the added extras lacking in SL3: freezing and file corrupting.

Leica worked long and hard to achieve those attributes in the M11.

[Jewl]

vor 5 Stunden schrieb Herr Barnack:

Leica worked long and hard to achieve those attributes in the M11.

And still on it!

[Smogg]

15 hours ago, colint544 said:

The SL3 launched today. It looks fantastic. 60MP sensor, image stabilising, 1/8000 mechanical shutter speed, and all of that.

I know it's a different beast to the M11 in many ways, but does anyone know why a plain M11 costs £1725 more? 

Because the M11 is the best compact camera ever. The price is largely determined by marketing policy, but we should not forget about the rather complex mechanical part of this camera, including the rangefinder. SL3 has many competitors from different manufacturers, M11 only has M9, M240, M10, M10-R as competitors

[irenedp]

Someone mentioned above that Leica competes in a much wider market with the SL3. To start with, there is or will be a Panasonic equivalent. Second, there are -equal or better- Nikon, Sony and Canon competitors. The SL3 is a decent camera, but competing in a pretty crowded market with top contenders. It won't be the leader. So no prime positioning, hence no prime price.

Edited March 8, 2024 by irenedp

[colint544]

Seems we're all largely in agreement then. It's two main things:

1) the complex and costly rangefinder mechanism.

2) Leica can essentially price the M11 at whatever the market will bear, and that price is high due to a lack of genuine competition in the sector.

[FrozenInTime]

I suspect Leica is making a loss of £1725 on each of the few SL3 bodies they will sell - I wonder how that is being subsidised.

A better match for the needs of the majority is for a M11-S, M11-ES and SL3-S with a lower cost, smaller pixel count, faster read out sensor.

Edited March 8, 2024 by FrozenInTime

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[adan]

1 hour ago, colint544 said:

1) the complex and costly rangefinder mechanism.

And as a part of that, the calibration of up to a dozen parts that are moving when operated. (roller, Rube-Goldberg/Heath-Robinson lever connections, RF prism).

Calibration is much easier when you can weld the parts in place once calibrated - but that can't be done with the M RF bits. They have to be free to move when focusing (or popping on a different lens), but not free enough to lose their calibration. Tricky.

Even 50 years ago, I figured out that a classic SLR only had two parts that had to calibrated (to the film plane), and only one of them actually moved in operation (the mirror), and even that only moved in binary fashion (all the way up, or all the way down - didn't matter precisely where it was in between).

The other part was the ground glass, which never moved at all.

Which is why everyone but Leica quit making interchangeable-lens RFs by 1970.

Mirrorless with focus-off-the-sensor is even simpler - although AF adds some calibration requirements in the lenses themselves.