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New interview with Stefan Daniel about the SL3


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What was the mantra here on the forum? “Leica march to their own beat”, “Leica doesn’t compete with Sony, Canon and Nikon”, and yadda yadda yadda with Leica-tinted colored glass. 
Well, according to Stefan Daniel, the SL line is harder to sell compared to the M and the Q, and that’s because of the big threes. 
https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/leica-sl3-interview/

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Interesting tidbits:

I would say that the share of professionals is the biggest, compared to the other product lines.

The fantastic thing is that people very rarely buy Leica only for rational reasons. There’s always emotion in it.

We have created internal tools to measure how often we get certain requests, then it goes up in the ranking.

 

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Posted (edited)
23 hours ago, Simone_DF said:

What was the mantra here on the forum? “Leica march to their own beat”, “Leica doesn’t compete with Sony, Canon and Nikon”, and yadda yadda yadda with Leica-tinted colored glass. 
Well, according to Stefan Daniel, the SL line is harder to sell compared to the M and the Q, and that’s because of the big threes. 
https://amateurphotographer.com/latest/photo-news/leica-sl3-interview/

Thanks for posting this article. Hope to see more of these as Leica continues to introduce the SL3 to the market. 

“This is by far the biggest market in the camera industry, and the fastest growing. Either we participate, or we keep to our photographic specialties. We decided that we wanted to be part of it quite early when we launched in 2015, when the battle between DSLR and mirrorless wasn’t decided yet.

We always tried to appeal to new customers, but do it the Leica way, with less buttons, much easier operation, Leica image quality, and Leica build quality. Of course, it’s tougher than selling a Q or an M. But the good thing about the system market is that once people are in the system with the lenses, they might also buy a new camera.”

My take away from this very brief interview/article is as expected the Full Frame mirrorless market is the largest and fastest growing photography market and if Leica wants a piece of that market then they of course have to compete with the big three. However, Leica competes in their own way specifically, the "Leica Way" aka "less buttons, much easier operation, Leica image quality, and Leica build quality" 

No surprise to me the very unique full frame Leica M cameras are easier to sell apparently at just about any price, as there is no competition, Leica rangefinder is its own market! 

Edited by LBJ2
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18 hours ago, sebben said:

That quote explains the pricing strategy as well. 

Obviously. Anyone not realizing this based on the original SL, combined with the SL lens design and new manufacturing process (large, standardized barrels, shared internal parts, etc), hasn’t been paying attention… or reading forum comments for the last 8+ years.

Jeff

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Guess I’m a slow learner. 
 

Just surprised that they finally admitted that Leica purchases are based on emotive buying so they can charge whatever they think the market will bare. 

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1 hour ago, sebben said:

Guess I’m a slow learner. 
 

Just surprised that they finally admitted that Leica purchases are based on emotive buying so they can charge whatever they think the market will bare. 

That is not what I read in the article.

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5 minutes ago, SrMi said:

That is not what I read in the article.

“The fantastic thing is that people very rarely buy Leica only for rational reasons. There’s always emotion in it. 

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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, sebben said:

“The fantastic thing is that people very rarely buy Leica only for rational reasons. There’s always emotion in it. 

But the SL market is different; far more competitive. That’s the part I referenced.  The M market is where the emotion premium can run wild, virtually without competition.
 

Jeff

Edited by Jeff S
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2 minutes ago, Jeff S said:

But the SL market remains different, almost without competition. That’s the part I referenced.  The M market is where the emotion premium can run wild.  
 

Jeff

I would say the SL market has the most competition out of all of Leicas camera lines. They are competing directly for Pro Users from Sony, Nikon and Canon.

That's why I find it weird that the 2024 flagship SL3 camera has an old Sony sensor from 2018 and still costs double...

 

 

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Just now, sebben said:

I would say the SL market has the most competition out of all of Leicas camera lines. They are competing directly for Pro Users from Sony, Nikon and Canon.

That's why I find it weird that the 2024 flagship SL3 camera has an old Sony sensor from 2018 and still costs double...

 

 

See my edited post… the above was written too fast, and in error.

Jeff

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Posted (edited)
vor 32 Minuten schrieb Jeff S:

But the SL market is different; far more competitive. That’s the part I referenced.  The M market is where the emotion premium can run wild, virtually without competition.
 

Jeff

That‘s probably true. But to a certain degree this “M Nimbus” transfers to the SL lineup, too. Otherwise - given the price of the cameras, the tough competition and the demands of the “technophile” customers of the big three (aka CaSoNikon) - it would be hard to imagine Leica earning money with the SL lineup … but they seem to do.

Edited by Knipsknecht
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2 hours ago, sebben said:

“The fantastic thing is that people very rarely buy Leica only for rational reasons. There’s always emotion in it. 

But that does not mean that they can charge whatever they think market would bare as you wrote.

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Just now, SrMi said:

But that does not mean that they can charge whatever they think market would bare as you wrote.

Read between the lines my friend. 
 

 

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vor 11 Stunden schrieb sebben:

I would say the SL market has the most competition out of all of Leicas camera lines. They are competing directly for Pro Users from Sony, Nikon and Canon.

That's why I find it weird that the 2024 flagship SL3 camera has an old Sony sensor from 2018 and still costs double...

 

 

but their new flagship is state of the art, absolutely: having the highest power consumption of all cameras on the market…   🙂 

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Posted (edited)
11 hours ago, sebben said:

I would say the SL market has the most competition out of all of Leicas camera lines. They are competing directly for Pro Users from Sony, Nikon and Canon.

That's why I find it weird that the 2024 flagship SL3 camera has an old Sony sensor from 2018 and still costs double...

There is no better and available sensor that maximizes resolution and IQ. The only newer sensors are the stacked ones, but I doubt that Leica has the funds to develop one like Nikon and Sony Camera did.

The SL3 costs as much as an SL2. Therefore, with all the improvements in SL3, it is a bargain ;-).

Edited by SrMi
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3 hours ago, SrMi said:

There is no better and available sensor that maximizes resolution and IQ. The only newer sensors are the stacked ones, but I doubt that Leica has the funds to develop one like Nikon and Sony Camera did.

The SL3 costs as much as an SL2. Therefore, with all the improvements in SL3, it is a bargain ;-).

Hi There

As far as the sensor is concerned I think you're right - there is nothing better right now, but I don't think it's the same sensor as the 2018 one in the Sony A7R IV or even the 2022 one in the A7R V - I guess it's the same base sensor but it's been tweaked quite a bit. 

Having been playing around with stacked sensor cameras, I don't think it's a free lunch, and the dynamic range and high ISO doesn't seem to be so good (yet!). On the other hand, with practice and effort I've been able to get pretty good tracking results with the BSI sensor in the SL3. 

There isn't a free lunch here! 

All the best

Jono Slack

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1 hour ago, jonoslack said:

As far as the sensor is concerned I think you're right - there is nothing better right now, but I don't think it's the same sensor as the 2018 one in the Sony A7R IV or even the 2022 one in the A7R V - I guess it's the same base sensor but it's been tweaked quite a bit. 

Yes, I was simplifying by saying it is the same sensor as Leica has certainly customized the underlying silicone with their own toppings and reading hardware.

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