LEICA: still sought after?

[Richard Man]

Do you have a link for that?

"that" referring to?

 

[faberryman]

"that" referring to?

The research supporting your assertion that "people who consistently complain about the price of Leica don't have much great photograph to show for either."

 

[blockend]

This is what APUG has become and this is what will dominate on ex-apug soon.

Your Fuji box is not rangefinder and your Fuji box is not 35 mm camera. This is it. If you want rangefinder, not Fuji fake, it is Leica. If you want 35mm it is not Fuji-crop, it is Leica.

Let's back track to the original point. David asked whether film Leica cameras were still economically viable. I don't know how the Leica divisions are carved up, but without the company's digital output I very much doubt the film manufacturing department could stay afloat, even at the prices asked. They certainly had a history of economic crisis when film was the only game in town.

Leica digital have made the shrewd marketing decision to keep the lens mount and manual focusing system, but that's the only carry over from film days. The rest is micro-gubbins from Gubbinesia, like everyone else's cameras, no white coats and slide rules required. So a certain realism is helpful when appraising a digital Leica camera compared to the competition, and especially the highpoint of late Barnack manufacture when a few men carved the bodies from solid Unobtanium and polished lenses on the thighs of Rhine Maidens. The "Fuji box", Leica box, Panasonic and Olympus boxes are all at the mercy of The Man, and he'll tell you what sensor you'll be fitting in 5 year's time.

Your point about sensor crop is irrelevant, "full frame" being an arbitrary anachronism carried over from film days, while APS is the designation of a short lived and ill fated film format. Neither have any resonance technologically, which is why 50mm can mean telephoto to ultrawide depending on the camera in question. The point being that new film camera sales are all but an irrelevance commercially and for the future of film manufacture. Truth is .000whatever of film use is dependent on old gear. By all means use your Barnacks and M3s, but don't pretend the world they were born into is the same one an M9 inhabits.

 

[Richard Man]

The research supporting your posit

The research supporting your assertion that "people who consistently complain about the price of Leica don't have much great photograph to show for either."

Just an opinion, no different from all the other opinions opined so far. OTOH, how many Magnum photographers frequent forums and talk about gear? ~_o

 

[blockend]

Just an opinion, no different from all the other opinions opined so far. OTOH, how many Magnum photographers frequent forums and talk about gear? ~_o

Perhaps they're busy using their free gear like every other YouTube photographer with a few subscribers?

 

[Chan Tran]

You might not be happy with the prices but the product usually sells when the price is right. Since those K1000s are selling then people must be willing to pay for the quality and reputation the camera enjoys. Which, IMHO, is very well deserved from holding up to years and years of student abuse.

Leica enjoys that same reputation, not from years of students but from years of photo journalists.

OK! So I am picking up a bunch of cameras this weekend and the only one I am going to sell is the K1000. I would keep the KX.

 

[Richard Man]

Perhaps they're busy using their free gear like every other YouTube photographer with a few subscribers?

Everyone is free to their opinions of course, but everyone can look at the Magnum photographers' output.

 

[faberryman]

Everyone is free to their opinions of course, but everyone can look at the Magnum photographers' output.

As a point of clarification, do all Magnum photographers use Leica cameras? Is it a requirement to be a member of Magnum? Is there a resource to determine which Magnum photographers use what equipment?

 

[RattyMouse]

I'm not here to defend Fujifilm, or digital photography, I'm saying the company have come from nowhere as a camera producer to giving Canon and Nikon night sweats.

Thank GOD I am reading this in the evening. Had I read it this morning I would have to replace my computer due to a coffee spill. No offense, seriously, but a more hilarious statement is hard to imagine. Fujifilm is LAST in market share. It's Canon, Nikon, Sony, Olympus/Panasonic, and then bringing up the rear is Fujifilm. Fujifilm does not even have a 5% marketshare in total. Canon alone has 30+% in marketshare. You are dramatically optimistic in your assessment of Fujifilm if you think Canon is sweating over little ol' Fujifilm. Hilarious! Fujifilm has a long, lustrous history of losing millions of dollars with their digital cameras. The only reason Fujifilm makes a profit from their Imaging Solutions division is because of their film (INSTAX) and photo processing. If you read Fujifilm's financial statements as I have, you will see that they very cleverly never make a clear and unambiguous statement that they make a profit from digital cameras. Never.

As someone interested in photography as a whole, that trajectory interests me.

It's not difficult to tell the X-Pro isn't a rangefinder camera, but it does have an optical and digital viewfinder which puts it into "classic" territory, and manufacturers are beginning to make manual lenses in Fuji mount, so there's an old school appeal. Someone who wants a rangefinder focusing system in a digital camera doesn't have any choice, but there are others who like looking through an OVF and pushing the back focus button. The viewfinder frames the scene according to focal length, like a Leica. Fuji have an ongoing firmware plan, including their old cameras. I'm not sure how you make focus buttons, joysticks and EVF "going back to camera design of the 1970's" - it isn't a Nikon Df.

And I dont see how you consider focus buttons, joysticks and an EVF innovation from Fujifilm. Cameras have had these for ages. Fujifilm don't even make EVF's. They buy them (from Epson I've read) and install them in their cameras. Hardly innovation.

If I had the best part of six grand to spend on a digital camera I'd probably buy Fuji's medium format offering over the Leica 10 on IQ alone.

X-T1 values plummeted because it was superseded by the X-T2 some time ago. I don't know what the price of an M8 was, but I'll bet it's now a fraction of its original market value. Anyone hoping for a camera with strong residuals shouldn't be looking at digital.

The M8 was released in 2011. You can be sure that 6 years later is has lost value. The XT-1 was the #1 camera at Fuji less than 2 years ago. Today it has depreciated 50%. A Canon 1DX was not 50% cheaper once the 1DXII appeared.

 

[NB23]

Oh behave. Fuji have been a player in high quality optics for years as I pointed out. In 35mm I know one person who owned a 605 and none who owned the 701 or 901, and as we're talking 35mm cameras the comparisons are obvious. The company's progress in high quality consumer digital cameras has been nothing less than startling. The only similar rise in profile is Panasonic. Sigma made some excellent cameras and gave up on the consumer photographic market, so getting under the public's nose is no easy task.

Oh behave, Fuji isn't even a 35mm camera.

 

[chip j]

As a point of clarification, do all Magnum photographers use Leica cameras? Is it a requirement to be a member of Magnum? Is there a resource to determine which Magnum photographers use what equipment?

Some great Magnum photogs have switched to digial, even larger digital than 35mm--Salgado, for one. He hated taking film thru airports a zillion times & keeping a supply on hand. D__ is also better for low-light PJs.

 

[Theo Sulphate]

... the highpoint of late Barnack manufacture when a few men ... polished lenses on the thighs of Rhine Maidens. ...

Someone should've photographed that.

All this Fuji talk... I wish them well because the external controls on the X-series cameras are so well designed and would be totally familiar to analog camera users (well, from the Nikon F4 era). They provided their customers with a plan for all the new lenses, met that plan, they are highly responsive to their customers, and even provide firmware upgrades to their "ancient" 2012 cameras. {end digital content}

 

[Richard Man]

Salgado was not a Magnum photographer. Yes, I even went to his talk when he was talking about converting his Canon digital to shoot 645 format.

As for Magnum and Leica. I personally took a workshop by David Alan Harvey, and have gone to talk by Alex and Rebecca Webb and have at least a dozen+ books by various Magnum photographers and others like Mary Ellen Mark, Peter Turnley etc., and friend of Ted Grant, and no, having a Leica is not a requirement, but this conversation is getting to be "twilight zone" territory. My point is always "go take photos". So that'ts that.

 

[AgX]

You better hurry. Leica abruptly changed the terms of the warranty a couple of months ago, and free replacement of the defective M9/MM sensors ends 8/15/2017. After that, it will run ~$1000. A lot of M9/MM owners felt betrayed by Leica as a result of that move.

Seemingly the return rate is so big that the involved expenses outnumber the estimated profit from the company image created by the free replacement.

One thus may also conclude that meanwhile by consumers longevity is lesser is linked to the brand, and thus may be cared for less by the company.

 

[blockend]

Fujifilm does not even have a 5% marketshare in total.

Have you seen the amount of internet churn Fuji cameras generate? In 2017 presence is market share in waiting. The same way 2 guys in a bedsit sell their start up for millions before they've made a damned thing or generated a penny. If that was not the case, why would Leica along with everyone else be giving away cameras to any YouTube punter with an opinion? Fuji have challenged a number of shibboleths, the quality needs to be expensive, that full frame is a given, that cameras need a mirror, the all digital cameras should look like a 1980s Canon, that professionals need something big and heavy. Along with companies like Panasonic who have revolutionised the moving image in consumer stills cameras. Has the irony of a hipster extolling the virtues of his Leica II and fogged Summicron from the flippy screen of a GH5 passed you by? It isn't either-or, it's both-and.

Incidentally, the X-T1 was not Fuji's top camera the X-Pro1 was. It lasted 5 years on top spot. Only the Leica M9 had a longer shelf life.

 

[blockend]

Oh behave, Fuji isn't even a 35mm camera.

Tell that to STX-1 owners.

 

[RattyMouse]

Tell that to STX-1 owners.

The STX-1 was a complete failure for Fujifilm.

 

[blockend]

Some great Magnum photogs have switched to digial, even larger digital than 35mm--Salgado, for one. He hated taking film thru airports a zillion times & keeping a supply on hand. D__ is also better for low-light PJs.

Salgado also claimed Kodak had tweaked Tri-X and the quality had gone. This lead to him using a contrived and expensive film to digital process to keep the appearance of grain in a digital image. Magnum has had some great photographers, none greater than Josef Koudelka who wandered the globe with his Leica for decades. He then used an X-Pan. Has he gone digital? Trent Parke, perhaps the definite modern 35mm film user at Magnum, was shooting digital last time I looked. The relationship between great images and the medium they were captured on is a complex one, and attributing them to a brand of camera is even more tentative. Parke shot with a Leica. He also used an EOS 1.

 

[blockend]

The STX-1 was a complete failure for Fujifilm.

But it was a 35mm camera.

 

[fstop]

The research supporting your assertion that "people who consistently complain about the price of Leica don't have much great photograph to show for either."

R-5's are cheap these days.

 

[AgX]

The STX-1 was a complete failure for Fujifilm.

I got one out of a rummage box, still with Hg-battery. Works as a charm.

 

[RattyMouse]

Have you seen the amount of internet churn Fuji cameras generate?

Yep. Lots of gear slobbing fan boys love Fuji, that's for sure. I own a ton of Fuji cameras, but am pretty disgusted by the brazen fan boyism that I read.

In 2017 presence is market share in waiting.

Fujifilm is not gaining any market share. Bank on it. They dont need it, they dont want it. Digital cameras are less than 5% of their total business.

Fuji have challenged a number of shibboleths, the quality needs to be expensive, that full frame is a given, that cameras need a mirror, the all digital cameras should look like a 1980s Canon, that professionals need something big and heavy. Along with companies like Panasonic who have revolutionised the moving image in consumer stills cameras. Has the irony of a hipster extolling the virtues of his Leica II and fogged Summicron from the flippy screen of a GH5 passed you by? It isn't either-or, it's both-and.

Fujifilm has dont nothing of the kind. They are dead last in market share. Further, Fujifilm's APS-C cameras ARE expensive. Compare the price of the XT-2 to a Canon or Nikon APS-C DSLR. The Fuji is MORE than double the price. The DSLR's are every bit as capable as the Fuji's. Fujifilm cameras are ridiculously overpriced. That is why they drop in value so quickly.

 

[blockend]

Yep. Lots of gear slobbing fan boys love Fuji, that's for sure.

That's DPReview language, personal identification with a brand and the consumerist lifestyle twaddle that accompanies it.
1) Fuji are not making cameras as a vanity project, you can bet your life a business as successful as Fuji have a plan. Company profit margins are completely irrelevant to consumers.
2) Equating a film or sensor size with price and value is idiotic. By your criterion any 5 x 4 is better value than 35mm, and a Sony A7 is better than a Panasonic with an MFT sensor which should cost a third of the price.
3) Like most digital cameras Fuji begin pricy for early adopters and drop as the competition hots up and they recover R&D costs. Learn to love the last big thing and your bank manger will love you. Only Leica manage to sell last generation technology at next generation prices.
4) As AgX pointed out, Leica's digital pricing strategy and their reliability and support history lean heavily on their film camera heritage, not on the standards of digital market leaders. This is the company who see Rolf Sachs ping pong coverings and pre-brassed limited editions as the future.

The OP's question is whether new Leica film cameras represent good value for money.

 

[faberryman]

As for Magnum and Leica...having a Leica is not a requirement, but this conversation is getting to be "twilight zone" territory.

You were the one that took us into the twilight zone by repeatedly holding up Magnum members as examples of great Leica photographers. Turns out Magnum photographers use all different type of equipment, so it is clearly not the camera that make the difference.

 

[E. von Hoegh]

*grabs Canonet and heads for the door...*