Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/12/30
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 12:06 PM 12/30/97 +0100, you wrote: >For the past two years, the Leica company bought about 10 factories >dedicaced to scientific material, like tissue choppers, slicers and so on. That's a separate company. Leica Camera AG is not buying that stuff. It was spun off to get it away from such business. That Leica company is massive and has big money to throw around. I have a friend who just did a $250,000 contract for a Leica factory in the Chicago area. Has nothing to do with cameras. Separate company altogether. >less than 1.5% of the company. The trouble is that even they sell the best >cameras in the world, they do not sell so many. They are expensive like >hell, but I'm not sure they are making big money with these. Their market is >about 1/1000000 of Canon for intense...If you want the Leica Camera AG to Not quite accurate. Photo District News - a great magazine in the States aimed a pros - did a survey and found that Nikon made up something like 60 per cent of the pro market (Nikon can't like that drop, and those numbers are at least five years old), Canon had about 20 per cent, Leica had 15 per cent and the rest had 5 per cent. Strictly the 35mm part, that is. So Leica does better among pros than your exaggerated (on purpose, I'm sure) number would suggest. The Leica R sales has increased something like 91 per cent someone recently reported. Sounds rather healthy to me! They are selling everything they can make. Who else can make such a claim in the photo market. Canon builds bodies for a two-year market, and then hopes they sell. Leica makes them as fast as they can. >survive, they have to sell some shit around the cams otherwise, they should >stop it immediatly. The M6 or R8 are great stuff but they are not leaders on >the market anymore (like the M3 was). Sports photographers do not use a 400 >mm with a viso anymore... The M3 was not a leader for long, was it? The Nikon F took that away right quickly, something like four years later. And the R8 is dang good. The only thing it's missing that can't be easily corrected (lack of motors) is AF. And I don't care. >Moreover, if you like sharp negatives, why don't you buy Hasselblad? Because you can't put 1.4 lenses on them? (Though I lust for the 110mm f/2 lens on a Hassy!) ========== Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch Seek the wisdom of the ages, but look at the world through the eyes of a child. Ron Wild