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Where is X1 made?


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Erwin Puts has published a new (interesting) article on his blog:

 

Blog

 

The X1 and several components of the S2 are made by... Fuji !!! (maybe also the X1's lens). Sanyo/Panasonic aren't involved...

 

and to add

theres a rumour getting around that Fuji are going to go mFT

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Erwin Puts has published a new (interesting) article on his blog:

 

Blog

 

The X1 and several components of the S2 are made by... Fuji !!! (maybe also the X1's lens). Sanyo/Panasonic aren't involved...

 

I think Erwin is confused. Fuji had nothing to do with the S2. The S2 uses the Maestro image processor, which was specially designed for Leica by Fujitsu. Big difference between Fuji and Fujitsu, as they are separate companies.

 

I'm pretty confident that Fuji isn't involved with the X1 either.

 

David

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Fujifilm has moved all of their digital camera facilities to Suzhou (near Shanghai) in China since 2 or 3 years ago, if Erwin is correct, then this is the first Leica camera ever built in China, I guess a lot of forum members will get pissed or, at morally offended. :D

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The X1 and several components of the S2 are made by... Fuji !!!

Unfortunately he fails to quote a source for his bold statement: “It is natural to assume that Fuji could be involved in this product as the company is also actively involved in the S2.” Nobody so far has ever suggested that Fujifilm was involved in any way with the S2 project. As David said, Puts most likely shares the common misconception that Fujitsu and Fujifilm were related when in fact they are independent companies with nothing more in common than the letters ‘fuji’ in their respective names.

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So he is suggesting something wrong... I assumed he had some "inside" information. I thought he was suggesting the S2 motherboard, AF processor, and other electronic components (not the Maestro) were made by Fuji(film). It makes sense considering Fuji expertise in this type of optics (they manufacture the lenses of the Hasselblad H system). He should check more carefully the information...

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It makes no difference where the individual parts may or may not be made. We live in a global environment. The days of a workshop filled with craftsmen dressed in Leiderhosen with Alpen views out the windows have been over for 40 - 50 years..(if indeed they ever really existed). What's important is it is made by Leica... and has the Leica logo on it. The rest is fantasy and self-delusionment (to phrase it politely)...spend your time learning to shoot with it, rather than worrying about it...

Really.

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In regard to Erwin, we're concentrating on unimportant items here, obviously because the topic of the thread is "Where is the X1 made?"

 

But these are minutiae IMHO. The overall point of his blog post, as he has said many times in the past, is that with digital we have to do major re-thinking of everything we thought we knew. That's something that is slowly breaking on the rest of us.

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Fujifilm has moved all of their digital camera facilities to Suzhou (near Shanghai) in China since 2 or 3 years ago, if Erwin is correct, then this is the first Leica camera ever built in China, I guess a lot of forum members will get pissed or, at morally offended. :D

 

 

The battery and charger for the R8 and R9 motordrive were made in China. I had two "duds" before eventually getting a set that charged properly. The motordrive was made in Portugal.

 

Cheers

 

dunk

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The Maestro-processor is from Fujitsu, the other electronics of the S2 are not. Fujifilm has nothing to do with it!

 

The Leica C1 and other compact cameras were made in China - had nothing to do with Leica except for the brand and design. Low-quality for high price...

 

@cmatter

Work in production for a few years in different locations and you will change your mind.

 

Standards, infrastructure and educational systems are different all over the world, quite often even within "international production networks".

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The Maestro-processor is from Fujitsu, the other electronics of the S2 are not. Fujifilm has nothing to do with it!

 

The Leica C1 and other compact cameras were made in China - had nothing to do with Leica except for the brand and design. Low-quality for high price...

 

@cmatter

Work in production for a few years in different locations and you will change your mind.

 

Standards, infrastructure and educational systems are different all over the world, quite often even within "international production networks".

 

heh.....

while all that is very true

you sound like you come from the auto industry, ok maybe only 'sound like'

 

if so you might recall Toyota setting up shop in Detroit in a defunct derelict plant with cast off workers from GM, and applying their own standards with some success.

 

which makes the inverse true too, doesnt it?

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The X1 feeling is not that of a Leica M... not at all.

 

I don't like the general design (painted large rectangular buttons, two wheels at the back... the menus' structure and look), neither I like the finish of the camera (the wheels don't feel like those of the Ms, the "skin" has a strange plastic texture...). It was a pre-production model, but it will no change too much in final production models. Let's see.

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@riley

 

Of course you can improve quality with better QM and know-how, but do you think it's a coincidence that Toyota manufactures all new-technologies and flagship-models in Japan?

We had Toyota as a customer, they didn't care more about quality than others, as long the price was right...

Of course the quality within the "international production network" was always the same, it only took a few weeks to get the parts for quality-audtions from our "cheap" (the labour was, the production costs overall were not) facilities and all new technology and production problems had to be solved in Germany... And some clients insisted on parts from the German-HQ... Then this know-how was transfered to other facilities all over the world...

I'm sorry that I've become quite sensitive about these topics and the discussed half-truths seeing tenthousands skilled craftsmen loosing their job and customers that don't care...

 

When the X1 is manufactured with the same standards as "real Leicas" it will be quite expensive, it doesn't matter where it's made. But it's surely easier to find proper suppliers for these standards in Germany. We'll have to wait for the final production cameras, but the mechanical parts are popably not manufactured up to classic Leica-standards - I hope I'm wrong and the lens will be manufactured in Solms (all the other work is done by suppliers anyway).

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@riley

 

Of course you can improve quality with better QM and know-how, but do you think it's a coincidence that Toyota manufactures all new-technologies and flagship-models in Japan?

We had Toyota as a customer, they didn't care more about quality than others, as long the price was right...

Of course the quality within the "international production network" was always the same, it only took a few weeks to get the parts for quality-audtions from our "cheap" (the labour was, the production costs overall were not) facilities and all new technology and production problems had to be solved in Germany... And some clients insisted on parts from the German-HQ... Then this know-how was transfered to other facilities all over the world...

I'm sorry that I've become quite sensitive about these topics and the discussed half-truths seeing tenthousands skilled craftsmen loosing their job and customers that don't care...

 

maybe too sensitive

but you would have heard that story I put to you before right? its well documented

 

Toyota beat GM at its own game against the odds with cast off workers (and you know what that means) and a plant GM considered unusable. Even after all that, GM just didnt get it, and installed these management methods piecemeal as they saw fit. Where are they now....

 

When the X1 is manufactured with the same standards as "real Leicas" it will be quite expensive, it doesn't matter where it's made. But it's surely easier to find proper suppliers for these standards in Germany. We'll have to wait for the final production cameras, but the mechanical parts are popably not manufactured up to classic Leica-standards - I hope I'm wrong and the lens will be manufactured in Solms (all the other work is done by suppliers anyway).

 

 

Well maybe you are aware that pretty much all the hardware for cameras comes from China or similar now anyway. There was a story about Panasonics FZ superzoom lenses being the same glass billets from the same foundry in China as their competitor Canon's for their S2. The difference was design and QC, but the difference was obvious...

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rosuna, I hear a lot of people complaining about the design, but a noob like myself, it looks like a near replica of the M9... I think it looks awesome, I just wish the red Leica dot was a bit closer to the middle, so your hands wouldn't cover it, so when you take pics you can proudly show the red dot

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The X1 feeling is not that of a Leica M... not at all.

 

I don't like the general design (painted large rectangular buttons, two wheels at the back... the menus' structure and look), neither I like the finish of the camera (the wheels don't feel like those of the Ms, the "skin" has a strange plastic texture...). It was a pre-production model, but it will no change too much in final production models. Let's see.

 

I'm pretty sure it actually has plastic knobs underneath with the metal "bottlecaps" screwed on top of them. The rectangular buttons with the lettering silkscreened onto them is unfortunate. This is certainly a collaborative effort, just not with Panasonic this time. Most likely Nikon. I'm sure we'll see their version soon enough and it will share some of these same design elements to simplify production such as the rectangular buttons. Otherwise they surely would have used the same buttons as the Ms.

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Erwin Puts has published a new (interesting) article on his blog:

 

Blog

 

The X1 and several components of the S2 are made by... Fuji !!! (maybe also the X1's lens). Sanyo/Panasonic aren't involved...

 

 

isn't it just an assumption: " It is natural to assume that Fuji could be involved ................." ;)

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