Too Much for a rangefinder

[Guest bwcolor]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No. Plus they are way behind on delivery. An example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism. I hope another manufacturer will some up with a rangefinder digital, with good (but perhaps a little slower lenses within the next year.

 

Any info on another rangefinder in the works?

[andybarton]

How long has the dollar been up against the Euro?

[wparsonsgisnet]

Well sure, but imagine if you were thinking of paying that much money just for an slr! That's when I'd wait. Geez.

[luigi bertolotti]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No. Plus they are way behind on delivery. An example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism. I hope another manufacturer will some up with a rangefinder digital, with good (but perhaps a little slower lenses within the next year.

 

Any info on another rangefinder in the works?

 

There have been rumors on some Nikon project... imho, low-level rumors and no more: my idea is that no manufacturer is seriously thinking to a DRF: market is so thin that the investiment needed to engineer a serious product would be too risky: Leica did it for, thin as it can be, is ITS market ... but with a price that all of us know well : and me, a happy M8 user, admit frankly it's too high: rationally speaking, I concede that the cost of ,say, a M8.2 with 3 original lenses is not the best way to have "a very good digital photo equipment" (and, probably, the same if you are a pro reasoning in terms of "return on investiment"). But have my M8, enjoy it and have no regret at all about my buy.

Just to chat, I think that a possible "cheap" DRF could be the much speculated "Leica Digital CL" coming from some joint venture between Leica and "someone from Far East"...

[jky]

Why not buy a demo with a 1 year warranty? It's a good middle ground between brand spankin' new but uber expensive & much more affordable but no warranty... unless of course you're after the goodies the 8.2 has that the 8 doesn't. I purchased my demo M8 for $1800.00 less than the list price of a new body earlier this year. It's been flawless....

[ArtZ]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No. Plus they are way behind on delivery. An example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism. I hope another manufacturer will some up with a rangefinder digital, with good (but perhaps a little slower lenses within the next year.

 

Any info on another rangefinder in the works?

 

The Canon G10 costs 1/10th as much as the Leica M8 body alone... I have bought one last week and I'm seriously considering if I will take my M8s to Costa Rica next week... I think the G10 and my old 5D (smaller than 1Ds MKIII) together with three L lenses (16-35mm, 24-70mm and 70-200mm) can cover perfectly all my needs during the month I will spend in Costa Rica.

 

I realize that my M8s are becoming toys... I cannot really relay on them

Hello guest!
Please register or sign in to view the hidden content.

[John Thawley]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No. Plus they are way behind on delivery. An example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism. I hope another manufacturer will some up with a rangefinder digital, with good (but perhaps a little slower lenses within the next year.

 

Any info on another rangefinder in the works?

 

Find a Digilux 2 factory refurb for about $700 and laugh your ass off. Nice feel, nice performance, prettiest 5MP files I've ever laid eyes on... and it's dead-nuts silent.

 

JT

[photolandscape]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No. Plus they are way behind on delivery. An example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism. I hope another manufacturer will some up with a rangefinder digital, with good (but perhaps a little slower lenses within the next year.

 

Any info on another rangefinder in the works?

 

I tend to agree with you, though I wouldn't go so far as to call Leica pricing "an example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism". Unlike the U.S., Germany truly takes care of its own, offering great health insurance, public transportation, outstanding free public education, arts and cultural programs, and social programs almost unrivalled anywhere. Leica is a small-scale operation with very high labor costs. So their overall cost of doing business is very, very high, and is reflected in their prices.

 

At the same time, as a relatively affluent American who was recently laid off by my employer of 14 years, who is sending his son to an out-of-state public university for about $35,000/yr. (roughly 50,000 Euros.), and who lives in a great home in a very nice neighborhood with more and more houses for sales due to foreclosures, I think Leica, like many other companies, may soon have to face some unpleasant long-term market realities and adjust pricing accordingly. For example, the M8 sold for $4,795 when it appeared 2 years ago. It soon went up to $5,495, and now the M8.2, with some nice but relatively minor upgrades, is at $6,295. The costs associated with designing and manufacturing the M8.2, plus the benefits it offers, wouldn't be attractive enough to me to spend that much money, even if I were gainfully employed at the moment. I do think that if Leica had cut the price of the M8 to something like $4,795, and priced the M8.2 at $5,495 or a bit higher, it would be of far more interest to people, at least here in the U.S.

 

I won't even get into lenses--I have an "econo-selection" that generally works quite well--the new 28 Elmarit ASPH, the great used 90 Elmarit, a used CV15, and a 135mm Tele-Elmar--a total investment of $2,900. Sure it would be nice to pick up some of the Summicrons or a Summilux, but they are pretty much out of range and to me at least, aren't economically justifiable under the current circumstances.

[yanidel]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No. Plus they are way behind on delivery. An example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism. I hope another manufacturer will some up with a rangefinder digital, with good (but perhaps a little slower lenses within the next year.

 

Any info on another rangefinder in the works?

Electronics are not gas and their price level is very little influenced by short and mid term exchange rate variations. Also remember that this is a very integrated economy, so many components might be bought in yens or even dollars therefore increased euro revenues might also translate to higher cost of purchasing components.

[peter_n]

On top of the price, you have the hassle of losing most of your lenses for months for recalibration and the additional expense of the IR filters and having to take them on and off as you swap between the M8 and your film Ms. I took a long hard look at this and also decided it wasn't worth it. I also looked at the G10, around US$450. I ended up buying a Fuji S5 from Ffordes for US$550 last week, no need to mess with RAW, just straight out-of-camera JPEGS. I can use my old AIS Nikkors. I'm a B&W film shooter and this seemed the best color solution for the kind of use I put color to - family snaps and stuff like that.

[trs]

People seem to be paying $4K for M7 and MP no problem. That is more than some of the top the line dSLR from far east. (I know, everybody says it last for ages, but so do many other film cameras that cost far less).

 

Even with competion, Canon and Nikon had their digital cameras for over US$20K in early days (90s). Minolta had one for half their price, whooping $10K. M8 has no competion. See RD-1 being left behind the dust. Even today, look at Leaf system, nobody seem to complain about them (well I don't go where they complain I guess).

 

Except for already existing company who make M-mount cameras, I don't see why anybody would venture into building a new digital range finder from ground up. If you were business, would you? If you did, I am sure you will want top $ for it because you just cannot sell enough of them to make ends meet. This thread is proof we don't want to pay top $ for it. So, you see, it is chicken and egg problem.

 

Mass market only knows two kinds of cameras today (dSLR and P&S) in my opinion where actual money is made in camera gear.

 

You might as well imagine RF as popular as VIEW cameras among mass consumer.

 

Funny thing is that even though you canceled your order, there is somebody else who is still buying it.

 

Anyway, my point is not about current M8 price is OK or not, but it is about possibility of having competion for dRF is pretty much unlikely unless Leica itself partners with somebody else to build less expensive solution. Maybe, new 4/3 system will help.

 

I am happy I got my M8 when I got it. I think it is because I don't have the telent to exceed M8's capability.

 

-T

[georg]

Leica has to pay several hundred dollars for the Kodak Sensor alone, the sapphire glass of the M8.2 (which makes it more expensive than the M8) is also extremely expensive, the development cost about 20mio. €, machining the mechanic parts in this quality at Clößner and Weller also costs a fortune.

It is not a electronic plastic-mass-product, they have to sell it for high prices unless people start to buy millions (+developing revolutionary production technology) of them.

 

6295$ are about 4995€, which is the German price. The last years, europeans had to pay higher prices because most companies couldn't adapt the prices to the real exchange rate for the US-market!

 

"The Canon G10 costs 1/10th as much as the Leica M8 body alone..."

It's not a Canon G10, a G10 is a consumer p&s-camera for christs sake! Well, the Mark III costs 50times as much as a 5MP-mobile phone, so what?

[erlingmm]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No.

 

If the exchange rate USD/EUR really is the problem, why don't you order from Leicashop in Vienna? The black M8.2 is EUR 4165 ex VAT:

https://www.leicashop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=91&products_id=402

 

But I suspect there is another underlying message here. An M7 costs EUR 2800, no sensor cost to Kodak, not the advanced electronics of the M8. What do you expect to pay for an M8? If you don't like rangefinders, why not say that?

 

And the strange thing that users in the Leica Forum seems to applaud the cancellation of an order. This Forum continues to amaze me. With this kind of friends, who needs enemies?

[ArtZ]

"The Canon G10 costs 1/10th as much as the Leica M8 body alone..."

It's not a Canon G10, a G10 is a consumer p&s-camera for christs sake! Well, the Mark III costs 50times as much as a 5MP-mobile phone, so what?

 

A 5MP-mobile phone is just a mobile phone, not a camera... try to print pictures taken with a mobile phone and you´ll see what I mean. You will be surprised with the image quality of the G10... you can print very good pictures with G10 files.

 

My point was with 1/10th of the value of a M8 you can take very good pictures too... (but not with a mobile phone)

Hello guest!
Please register or sign in to view the hidden content.

[Guest stnami]

So what happened to the yellow brick road.......

[stunsworth]

...who is sending his son to an out-of-state public university for about $35,000/yr. (roughly 50,000 Euros.)

 

Wow, guess the dollar's picking up at last <grin>

[wparsonsgisnet]

When my kids were in school and the guys I worked with were putting money in the market, I used to joke that my investments never went down: the tuition kept going up every year.

 

One wonders if our thread-starter will be able to buy his M8 at a reduced price if we enter a period of deflation as economists fear.

[Guest noah_addis]

I cancelled my order today for the M8.2. Decided this is just too much money. A situation where some competition is necessary. The Dollar is up almost 10% against the Euro, but does Leica drop the price. No. Plus they are way behind on delivery. An example of German hubristic price gouging opportunism. I hope another manufacturer will some up with a rangefinder digital, with good (but perhaps a little slower lenses within the next year.

 

Any info on another rangefinder in the works?

 

Great, don't buy one if you think it's not worth the price. But there seems to be no reliable information about any other forthcoming digital rangefinders. I agree competition would be a good thing, but there aren't all that many rangefinder shooters out there and I don't know if the camera manufacturers want to take the risk.

 

The Canons and Nikons of the world can instead keep pumping out ever more dslrs and point and shoots with incremental improvements so people buy new cameras every year.

 

For now it looks like you're stuck with M8, maybe a used or demo, RD1 or a film Leica and scanner...

[Printmaker]

If I remember correctly, Leica held the price down in the US last year compared to European prices. Now that the dollar is stronger, we should not complain.

 

IMHO: The price of the M8.2 is based more on the prices of the upgrades offered a few months ago than the value of a 10 MP camera. If Leica can bring the full frame 18 MP, filter less M9 in at a price close to the M8.2 then they will sell enough cameras to survive and possibly even prosper. If not, the M8.2 will be a collectors item.

[photolandscape]

If the exchange rate USD/EUR really is the problem, why don't you order from Leicashop in Vienna? The black M8.2 is EUR 4165 ex VAT:

https://www.leicashop.com/catalog/product_info.php?cPath=91&products_id=402

 

But I suspect there is another underlying message here. An M7 costs EUR 2800, no sensor cost to Kodak, not the advanced electronics of the M8. What do you expect to pay for an M8? If you don't like rangefinders, why not say that?

 

And the strange thing that users in the Leica Forum seems to applaud the cancellation of an order. This Forum continues to amaze me. With this kind of friends, who needs enemies?

 

I wondered if this is almost too good to be true. I went to the Leicashop site and you are correct, the M8.2 in black, is listed at 4165 euros. Going by today's euro to dollar conversion rate, 4165 euros for an M8.2 comes to 5312 USD. If I could get an M8.2 for that price, you can count me in today. I have e-mailed the dealer in Vienna to explore this. Living in the US, would I have to pay VAT? Or, just shipping? For 5312, even though I am unemployed, I will find a way to make it work. I am anxious to hear back from Vienna.