New S2 competitor from Phase One

[carstenw]

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Alan, Leica's manufacturing capability is too expensive to compete in consumer markets. They need to develop a more diverse strategy for attacking the various high-end and pro markets. I don't see the 4/3 or micro-4/3 fitting into this. Who is going to pay that much for a system which maxes out somewhere around the equivalent to a 50D, which costs less than €1000? So it would have to be another re-badged Panasonic, which doesn't make it a real Leica like the M8, R9 or S2.

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[delander †]

 

Maybe the R10 will be a micro 4/3rds.

 

You just wrote that to get everyone going.

 

My earlier post was a bit rushed, it did not really come out as I intended. But to me the S2 is Leica's attempt not to compete directly with the top class Canon and Nikon DSLRs and also not the DMF cameras. It is a DSLR with a big sensor. Leica's problem will come if it turns out to be only the first of such cameras.

 

I concede the panaleica point but they are just leveraging the Leica name, no problem with that, but they are not so different from the Panasonic versions to be regarded as real Leicas.

 

I think even with the S2 the heart of Leica is the manual rangefinder and in the foreseeable future it will remain like that. Big statement.

 

Jeff

[AlanG]

Alan, Leica's manufacturing capability is too expensive to compete in consumer markets. They need to develop a more diverse strategy for attacking the various high-end and pro markets. I don't see the 4/3 or micro-4/3 fitting into this. Who is going to pay that much for a system which maxes out somewhere around the equivalent to a 50D, which costs less than €1000? So it would have to be another re-badged Panasonic, which doesn't make it a real Leica like the M8, R9 or S2.

 

Apple has their laptops built under contract and nobody says they are not real Apples. If Leica can't make or subcontract a competitively priced R10 system (whatever that system may be) then what's the point? They already proved with the R system that they could build lenses that became so expensive they wouldn't sell well. That's why I said they got out of making R lenses and into the S2 program in the first place. So surely they are smart enough not to try to introduce another extremely expensive 35mm SLR system. Especially as it would be competing with their own S2 system.

 

I think Leica could simply look at their base of M and R users and see that an EVF body would appeal to a number of them in ways that a standard DSLR would not. And as I said earlier, S2 lenses could be used on it via a tilt/shift adapter. Add a new inexpensive line of AF lenses and you have a cross-platform product that might have enough appeal to be quite useful and profitable. (They could have an expensive line also.) There currently is nothing in the market like this except for the micro 4/3rds. But if the Leica model has a full frame sensor it would be radically better.

 

Yes it would be a departure from the traditional mechanical basis of Leica but all significant development in cameras has mostly to do with the electronic components. So Leica will have no choice but to get with the program sooner or later. Before long some cameras will have only EVFs and no shutter so where will that leave Leica? (Anyway, they already subcontract the M8's shutter.)

[AlanG]

4/3 is an amateur-system, much of the effort and skill of Leica in mechanics and optics (and will always make them as expensive as other pro-systems) are lost by the tiny sensor-size.

 

 

At one time, many photographers chose Leicas over Speed Graphics despite the significant reduction in quality that resulted. Fred Maroon used Leicas (reflex) to produce books on food and architecture despite the fact that these static subjects were typically shot with large format cameras at the time. Now, with the S2, they are going the other way.

 

In the beginning choosing a Leica may have been a radical move for a photographer due to the small format. What makes so many view the company as so traditional and conservative now? Maybe they are rekindling their inventive spirit. They seem to be doing that with the S2 as it is a radical departure from Leica's 35mm tradition. And I applaud them for it whether it succeeds or fails. So it wouldn't surprise me if the R10 has some "outside the box" thinking too.

[sdai]

It doesn't make any sense for Leica to maintain a S and a R at the same time. The differences between the 2 systems would be too small.

 

Canon and Nikon have both 35mm FF and APS-C because 35mm FF is a whopping 132% bigger than APS-C.

 

You don't see any company maintaining APS-C and 4/3 at the same time, because APS-C is only 53% larger than 4/3, same applies to the S2/R10, the S2 is only 56% larger than 35mm FF.

 

You won't see too much difference in terms of IQ, body/lens size, weight, price, etc.

 

I'd be really really astounded to see they'd bother with a "R10" in 35mm full format after being done with the S2 ... that's a lot of crack to smoke.

[charlesphoto99]

What I want to know is where is the digital equivalent of the CM (ie Leica's answer to the DP1/DP2)? It seems like that compared to the S2 or R10 their designers could whip out the ultimate point and shoot in a couple of months that would be unique to Leica (sorry but no way could I justify the D-Lux 4 over the LX3) and appeal to both pros and monied amateurs.

Seems like a no-brainer to me....

[ptomsu]

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I think you are inventing numbers. 100Hz is more than we can perceive directly already. But yes, they need higher refresh rates. The best one I have seen is the G1, and it has lag and motion blur, and the resolution is too low.

 

What I say!

 

200Hz is the common refresh rate in the latest LCD TVs and it is even more critical in EVFs in my opinion, as you watch the picture much closer and more concentrated and very much enlarged. So even 200Hz will not be enough

[ptomsu]

Apple has their laptops built under contract and nobody says they are not real Apples. If Leica can't make or subcontract a competitively priced R10 system (whatever that system may be) then what's the point? They already proved with the R system that they could build lenses that became so expensive they wouldn't sell well. That's why I said they got out of making R lenses and into the S2 program in the first place. So surely they are smart enough not to try to introduce another extremely expensive 35mm SLR system. Especially as it would be competing with their own S2 system.

 

I think Leica could simply look at their base of M and R users and see that an EVF body would appeal to a number of them in ways that a standard DSLR would not. And as I said earlier, S2 lenses could be used on it via a tilt/shift adapter. Add a new inexpensive line of AF lenses and you have a cross-platform product that might have enough appeal to be quite useful and profitable. (They could have an expensive line also.) There currently is nothing in the market like this except for the micro 4/3rds. But if the Leica model has a full frame sensor it would be radically better.

 

Yes it would be a departure from the traditional mechanical basis of Leica but all significant development in cameras has mostly to do with the electronic components. So Leica will have no choice but to get with the program sooner or later. Before long some cameras will have only EVFs and no shutter so where will that leave Leica? (Anyway, they already subcontract the M8's shutter.)

 

I never understood (or do not understand), why Leica did not build the R system together with Panasonic and have them manufacture the new body and new AF lenses under the Leica brand name. This would have been a definitively good solution, but it never hppened.

 

I think that they are trying to do everything by themselves. And his will simply be too much I fear

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Simple answer . They can't get past the part MADE IN GERMANY and that is there mindset.

[georg]

Do we need another me-too-camera? Another "Leica" with Minolta/Panasonic-parts?

 

It would be great to have another option, something that doesn't have anything in common with the Japanese mass-producers Canon/Nikon/Sony/Panasonic. When I handle these systems, I instantly feel and see their relationship, their design-philosophy.

I hope that Leica has success with the S2/R10/M9 to go more unique ways (electronics and especially sensors) in the future. Panasonic has lots of experience with mass-production, but the technology needed for precision/hq-mechanics/optics is different and available for Leica in highest quality.

They have to increase their utilisation rate to make their production as efficient as possible, outsouring production to others does exactly the opposite.

 

 

What's so good about the Digilux3 or G1? Those are nice and quite cheap cameras, but not Leica. When you want Panasonic, buy Panasonic.

[AlanG]

Do we need another me-too-camera? Another "Leica" with Minolta/Panasonic-parts?

 

 

Panasonic came up with the first new camera design for interchangeable lens cameras in many decades and that is a me-too-camera? I think Leica may make a go of it with the S2 and of course they have the established M system.

 

So what are you looking for in another line of cameras from them that will be so special? (.e.g. R10) And what breakthrough in manufacturing or design can they come up with that will allow them to make this in Germany and sell enough copies to be profitable? Could it just be so compelling a product that it won't matter what it will cost?

 

Leica could design a unique camera system and subcontract out parts, sub assemblies or the entire construction. It depends on how much capability they have in their own factory and how competitively priced it needs to be. Apple designs the iPhone and iPod, subcontracts the parts and assembly, yet nobody seems to think they are me-to products. Apple probably has the resources to build factories and construct all of its products in house but it doesn't do this. Maybe that is what companies need to do today in order be flexible enough to keep coming out with cutting edge products.

 

iPhone: Who's the real manufacturer? (It isn't Apple) | Texyt

 

"Panasonic has lots of experience with mass-production, but the technology needed for precision/hq-mechanics/optics is different and available for Leica in highest quality." I think it is the opposite. Mass assembly today requires the greatest level of precision. Don't you think all of those tiny components in p&s cameras have to be made and assembled with incredible precision?

[wildlightphoto]

Leica could design a unique camera system and subcontract out parts, sub assemblies or the entire construction.

 

Leica has been subcontracting parts, sub-assemblies and entire construction for decades. Design and QC is what matters more than who makes it or where.

[rosuna]

Alan, Leica's manufacturing capability is too expensive to compete in consumer markets. They need to develop a more diverse strategy for attacking the various high-end and pro markets. I don't see the 4/3 or micro-4/3 fitting into this. Who is going to pay that much for a system which maxes out somewhere around the equivalent to a 50D, which costs less than €1000? So it would have to be another re-badged Panasonic, which doesn't make it a real Leica like the M8, R9 or S2.

 

Leica can re-badge or codevelop a M4/3 camera with Panasonic. But Leica can develop lenses for te M4/3 system...

[ptomsu]

Leica still needs to buy parts from other vendors like the AF module for the S2, and this makes absolutely sense!

 

So there is not the camera where all parts and everything is made in Germany. It is developed in German and the final assembly and testing and shipping is done from Germany. Not more and not less.

 

A camera which they could have built with Panasonic would mean that Panasonic would manufacture it somewhere and this for much cheaper costs than in Germany. Phase does this with Mamiya and Hasselblad with does it as well. Both for cameras and lenses BTW! And are the results bad? Not t all!

 

SO Leica could have done the same thing, but they o not. So it is their own decision if they will have success or not with the path they chose.

[carstenw]

Phase only just bought into Mamiya, so it is bit early to say that they do it. The test would be if they would subcontract parts of their backs out, which I am not aware of. The same with Hasselblad and Fuji. Fuji makes only the lenses and the viewfinder, i.e. the optical parts, which Hasselblad cannot make. Hasselblad makes the rest, and they also do the assembly.

 

Leica could subcontract out some bits and pieces, but the larger the bits, the less control they have over the minute tolerances required in their cameras and lenses. I think when you are working at the very limits of our current manufacturing capabilities, you simply can't subcontract it because who is going to do it? Hasselblad found Fuji, but who can make a Leica lens other than Leica? I can only think of Rodenstock and Schneider. Even Zeiss outsources, and their current lineup, while very good in general, doesn't always measure up to their old ones, or to Leicas. More CA is one aspect of their new lenses, for example.

 

Perhaps Leica could outsource some part of their cameras, but the entire optical-sensor path must be under tight control to get the kind of image quality Leica is famous for, so that removes the body shell, sensor assembly (other than the manufacture of the electronics, which Kodak handles), bayonet, autofocus module, viewfinder, and focusing screen. What do you want to outsource here? And if the final assembly has to be done at Leica anyway, I don't see that there is a lot which can be saved.

 

In the end, outsourcing works well if your tolerances are industry-standard, and there are a lot of companies doing it, but when you have higher tolerances than the rest of the industry, and there aren't that many companies doing the work, it no longer works.

[georg]

"Design and QC is what matters more than who makes it or where."

Yes, when you don't work in production you could actually believe that.

 

I've seen it with my own eyes, my own job, what happens when you become lean, cheap, offshore and outsource everything...

 

IPhone, Macbook, Apple? Their production quality is crap - show a mechanical engineer the cnc-machined unibody, no German machining company would survive with this quality. But customers cannot compare anymore, because all MP3-players and most notebooks are made by chinese/taiwanese OEMs and besides the nice design and material choices of Apple, the whole industry works on a quite comparable quality-level - because the production is basically the same. We can be thankful that the automotive and camera-industry works differently than consumer-electronics, generating a much higher quality, the automotive industry is propably responsible for more than 50% of all production innovations over the last decades.

 

"A camera which they could have built with Panasonic would mean that Panasonic would manufacture it somewhere and this for much cheaper costs than in Germany. Phase does this with Mamiya and Hasselblad with does it as well. Both for cameras and lenses BTW! And are the results bad? Not t all!"

 

Why should it be cheaper? Who pays Panasonics margins? What would Panasonic do with the design-know-how they get from Leica to manufacture this camera? When they make it cheaper, they have to reduce quality, they are specialists for consumer-electronic production with fast assembly/plastic/metal-molding - they are not used to handle small-production-numbers and "strange" materials/machining (CNC, high-strength Al/Mg-alloys), that's what Clößner and Weller can do perfectly. Why do you think those companies also work for the space industry and not Panasonic? Who do you think makes high-quality electronics (boards, passive elements, assembly...) for space or oil-industry?

The AF-motor from the S-systems comes most likely from Maxon. Of course Panasonic has propably a nice range of motors for their consumer-stuff, but why do you think the Mars Rover has motors from this small swiss company and not from Panasonic, while they make millions of them?

Bigger and bigger wordwide cooperations with hundreds of production sites all over the world, offering all kinds of products and therefore working competitive and efficient. In theory, yes.

"Made in Germany" (Swiss/Austria, too) is basically defined by "hidden champions", most family-owned specialists with only 100-10000 employees, with much higher production depth than usual - around 600 of those world-market leaders are alone based around Stuttgart. They're not as famous as Siemens, Daimler or Panasonic, but they outpowered those giants with ease over the past decades, despite (or because?) of their size, of their strategy that's completly different than known management-strategies (aren't we finally through with those, anyhow?) and I hope Leica will become one of those long-sighted, succesful and unusual, exotic "hidden champions" themselves!

Right now, Leica can use those "hidden champions" for at least 50-70% of the supplied parts for the s-system and their other products (and they do, but not for their compact cameras).

 

Hasselblad cheap? They haven't lowered their prices when they outsourced and off-shored their production - that never happens!

But is the H-series a Hasselblad? The R3-7 or the Digilux3 a Leica? Even when Leica would design most of the new "Leica/Panasonic-DSLR" which should be as well made as a S2 but as small and cheap as a G1, how long would it take for Panasonic for crush Leica with their own know-how?

Their low production depth is already critical, they have to pay very high prices for the components made by suppliers, they outsourced production, they built facilities in Canada and Portugal and what has happened? Where are the cheap Leicas the managers have promised?

 

Of course design and QC is extremly important but it's not all.

 

Right now we have two extremes: perfectionized mass-production with very elegant, fast processes and consistent quality but by huge companies, which sometimes struggle over their own size, mixing up their pro-systems with consumer-grade in some details (materials, marketing...) and on the other side small specialists which try to offer all things which aren't interesting enough for the mass-producers (or markets that are not understood by those). But those also struggle with their size, especially with electronics, they have to buy too many standardized components.

 

Leica could fill this gap with the investments for the S-System and their size/know-how but this is propably the last chance for a very long time!

[ChrisC]

...Of course design and QC is extremly important but it's not all.....

 

Georg - You seem to be arguing for a former Leica reputation, not the damaged reputation caused by many shoddy design and quality control issues paid for at high German manufacturing rates by M8 customers. Leica have made efforts to redress and improve this area, but for many - too much damage to their trust in Leica has been done.

 

Design and quality control actually can be all when the design and quality control isn't value for money.

 

............. Chris

[jrc]

I have a G1 and an M8 and I've become accustomed to the G1's EVF. However, it's not nearly as good as the M8 and I doubt that an EVF ever will be, at least over the range that M8s are used in (15-135mm.) The biggest advantage of the EVF is that the camera can be very small, and still offer long zooms -- and that's where they impinge on the M8's space (the size and flexibility).

 

The G1 chip is not as good as Leica's 1.3x or as a Nikon or Canon FF, but it will get better...and I would be very surprised not to see the big makers move into this space with small cameras with larger chips. Watch for the Pentax K7D due out May 21. Rumors are that it's a metal-frame camera, smaller than the K20, and the K20 was barely bigger than an M8. Rumor also has it with a 1.3x sensor similar to Leica's, but, of course, a later generation. If it can use all those Pentax small DA primes, plus the zooms...

 

We all know the M8 arguments, but a drawback is that you really have to practice with an M8 to get good with it, and your eyesight has to be good, and your sense of touch. I would be willing to bet that if a person worked casually (~ hour a day, but every day) with an M8, in a month of this practice he could focus neither as quickly or as accurately as a G1 user could after a half-hour introduction to the camera. This is a huge problem, and is why I keep coming back to the necessity of some kind of focus confirmation for an M9. A M8's viewfinder is preferable in most ways over an EVF between the ranges of 15-75 or 90mm, but for 99% of the users will always be much slower and less accurate.

 

The other advantages of the Rangefinder will only show up if the focus problem can be solved.

 

JC

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[AlanG]

A camera with an EVF would have few moving parts and require way fewer adjustments during manufacturing than a rangefinder or an SLR requires. The lens mount to sensor distance will need to be accurate and they'll both need to be parallel. So it should not be very hard to find numerous companies that can work to this level of precision.

 

There will be no AF module or exposure metering sensor either. It basically is simply an box of electronics with a lens mount, shutter, and the viewing lens over an electronic viewfinder. Maybe the viewfinder and LCD will articulate so that will require a bit if design engineering. So the shape of the box will be open to interpretation.

 

The fact that the G1 has proven this can work (Of course it's not perfect) and the underlying simplicity will make this design an inevitable choice for numerous manufacturers in the future. What Leica does about this is anybody's guess.

[sdai]

I'm with Alan, Ruben et al on the next approach Leica should adopt although I'm not quite into the 4/3 concept. As I've said in a previous post, a 35mm FF R10 makes no sense when Leica already has a successful S system. They need enough gap to justify maintaining a separate line in terms of IQ, ergonomics, pricing etc.

 

But, 4/3 is way too a picture frame and when it comes to pixel density it'll be very limiting.

 

I suggest to unify their R and M systems with the APS-H standard, with the adoption of live view ... I mean, this is to create a whole new system with full backward compatibility with legacy R and M lenses, everybody should be happy.