Your opinion about the new Leica website

[mgcd]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

A bit of a slap in the face to have the R system associated with that Digilux 3 contraption... Not impressed.

[Jamie Roberts]

Yeah...my first thought it "where is the R stuff?"

 

My second thought was I hate it full-screen for navigation reasons. When I hit the page that has the flash inside the regular home page (which isn't the actual home page!) I like it better, because I can ignore it (or not)

[Advertisement]

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

[Guest darkstar2004]

I've got a sneak peek on XP. Let's be fair, the new web site looks good ... but it better fits Hermes instead of Leica.

 

I'm running Firefox on Solaris 10 and Leopard, it just doesn't come up and keeps asking me to enable Javascript although it's always enabled on my workstations.

 

Somebody probably just took a hour or two dragging and dropping stuff in an IDE. The old handcoded site is a beauty.

 

Or perhaps I'm only a grumpy old fart, anything new is NOT good. LOL

 

My thoughts exactly. Once again, "Herpes" rears its ugly head...

 

With prices of new Leica gear inhabiting the exosphere [summarits notwithstanding] Leica is making loving overtures to The Rich And Fabolous rather than honest-to-god imagemakers.

 

Whatever... Just don't go out of bidniss!!

[lct]

I just don't like it - too "zeitgeisty"

What does 'zeitgeisty' mean if i may ask?

[andybarton]

A bit of a slap in the face to have the R system associated with that Digilux 3 contraption... Not impressed.

 

Someone at Leica is clearly embarrassed by the R- situation.

 

The Flash ad is, IMHO, just nothing to do with the Leica brand at all. They could be trying to sell training shoes.

[imported_peter_m]

What does 'zeitgeisty' mean if i may ask?

 

Guess it is one of them newer fashion words.... all I could find was

 

"the spirit of the age; the taste, outlook, and spirit characteristic of a period; a phenomenon based on fate where something simultaneously happens everywhere at a certain time" http://ninjawords.com/zeitgeisty

 

Peter

[sdai]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

What does 'zeitgeisty' mean if i may ask?

 

It's German ... meaning the spirit of the time ... something causing a heart stroke to the boomers.

[marknorton]

Anyone remember the short-lived advertising campaign which came out at the time the M8 was announced, silhouettes of people filled with images of the product, that sort of thing. Did nothing for Leica and was killed off. This looks no better. I hope they took a backup of the old site...

 

Still, Nikon UK blew millions signing up Kate Moss, an anorexic model with a history of substance abuse, to promote the CoolPix cameras. That was a waste of money.

 

Perhaps Leica should sign up the US bubblehead trio, Brittney, Linsay and Paris to promote the Diglux 3 (apologies if the spelling is wrong, I'm not a devotee).

[lct]

Thank you Peter and Simon. Not sure if that intro is 'zeitgeisty' or i'm outdated myself but i click on the 3rd button.

[zapp]

Well, what actually is new? The intro movie, a waste of my time - whatever, as soon as you are looking for facts you are directed to the good old pages.

Anyways, the reflex section is scary - the Digi3 as representative for the SLR system??? Is it time for a big R sale?

[Angora]

Well done, Leica Communication team.

You tried to show-off ("Hey, let's show we're a young and trendy company for the PMA! So that maybe they'll forgive us the useless M8 upgrade.") but that's a major failure.

Unless that's a short-life promotional site, but even though you were not able to make the visitors understand this. Failure again.

 

Who got this brilliant idea, choosing a full heavy Flash website presenting, like, three products and the life of three characters we don't care about?

Where the heck are the informations? Where the hell is the R system? Promoting R lenses with a Panaleica?! IS IT A JOKE??? You better had to speak about the DMR even if it's discontinued... because by mixing both you're actually dismissing two systems in a row ("the DMR was no good, so are the 4/3 lenses").

No self-respect, that's sad.

And navigation really sucks.

Rob found the right word: you're just incompetent.

 

I'm angry about it and sound pedantic but that's because Leica, a company I support, is now at a turning point and can't afford to make mistakes... not gross mistakes like this one.

And just in case the PR team, if they read me one day, wanted opinions of "young people": I'm 23 years old and you can't fool me with this poor Flashy thing lying about the Leica products.

[dhsimmonds]

I regret that it is no longer a quality European site. It could be any mid quality product site.

 

I eventually found what I wanted from the R section and not a lot had changed by the time had found it to be perfectly honest, but the journey to get there was definitely not the thoroughbred Leica route that we are used to. Too glitsy by far!

[bobtodrick]

whiners, whiners, whiners.

Oh, that's right, we're Leica-philes.

[mooky]

There's a big difference between whining and caring - I prefer to think we care,,,,,,,,,,....

[mas]

I think the new site is a disaster. From a user's point of view, I cannot stand it. From a usability expert's point of view, it is obvious that usability was of no concern to Leica.

 

The unusable site combined with totally outrageous marketing and sales behavior - I speak of trying to charge us instead of pay us for omissions in your M8 design - and the poor quality control, has me thinking strongly of giving up on Leica totally.

[johncartland@mac.com]

Too cute, with little substance. Too hard to find your way around to get to meaningful information rather than glitz. I further don't understand why the new M-lenses are in a separate group from the other M-lenses. This gives a bad impression of quality vs cost. The Leica site has never been very good, but this is a step backward.

[NZDavid]

I am currently writing about usability across a range of products, including cameras, software, etc. Any thoughts you would like to share for publication, please email me. My thoughts on the new Leica website are that it is no more complicated or glitzy than many others -- for example, check out German watch manufacturers. Main trouble is that it is too darned s...l...o...w to load (have they done a download test? Waiting and waiting for the page to load just puts people off.) My main objection is lack of clarity. Much important information is buried. Verdict: not all that bad (except for the download speed); definitely needs a tidy-up.

 

David

http://www.davidkillick.co.nz

[kirk-michael]

Leica

 

First off the site intro is too much flash, no substance...I doubt any of these "models" know crap about Leicas...much less about photography-they dont represent Leica to me, but commercialism..

 

I'd much rather see Ralph Gibson, Paul Wolff, Bresson, Harry Callahan, Alex Webb or ANYONE working their magic with an M or R rather then these "models". Please, something "real", in the documentary, art tradition, not this pomp.

 

Second, the background plus wording a little hard to read-not enough contrast...As a Leica M photographer and designer, I know I could have designed something far better...I think you will find your survey supports some of my comments overwhelmingly...

 

Sincerely

Kirk-Michael Phaling:confused:

[onthedot]

I not only don't care for intros in general, but this one is huge! While well done, I'd probably enjoy it if it were smaller and more manageable. I like the look of the site though. Nice and clean like the Hasselblad and Zeiss sites.

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Interesting Leica gear

[tlorini]

It doesn't represent (at least to me) what Leica is. I'm thinking more in terms of engineering/quality/timelessness not flash/music video/popculture. Give me good in depth information and skip the Hollywood looking b.s.