Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/07/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]bmw wrote >Oddly, the last article I saw about the white >house's own photographers (folks who work >for the President, rather than the press) >said they used .... Lecias.... Well they might in certain situations (in the Oval Office for example) but the mainstay of this kind of event photography really needs AF and fast zooms to keep up and that is what the White House photographer at the event I covered was using (Nikon F5s FWIW w/20-35 and 80-200). You might be interested to know that even the German federal press office switched from Leica to Nikon (after making extensive tests, especially of the flash systems, of everything on the market). One of the motivating factors to switch was, according to their photographer covering the Helmut Kohl tour of Asia I was covering then for Der Spiegel, that Leica were charging simply outrageous sums for servicing equipment: such as a repair to a 400/2.8 that cost more than a new Canon or Nikon (400/2.8) lens would have. And that is in Germany for their highest profile customers! Of the press corps covering Kohl in China, Hong Kong, Singapore and Vietnam I was the only one to be using Leicas (and not often at that). Quite a few of the German diplomats and govt officials en route had Leicas old and new though! Which brings me back to my point that Leica's cachet is and always has been that it is the ultimate professional 35mm camera however this is less and less true as time goes on: in crude generalisations, those who want small, quiet and unobtrusive look elsewhere, those who want ultimate image quality look to larger formats, those who want fast and versatile look to Canon/Nikon AF so Leica's niche is looking more and more like one based upon an engineer's or a jewel collector's idea of photographic excellence and not that of a working photographer. Therein lies the crux of my argument that Leica needs to concentrate on satisfying its most important customers before it is too late: just look what happened to Kodak when they forgot that pleasing professionals is their most important marketing objective... In UK or most of the rest of the world IME repairs run about double the German rate with the exception of USA which seems cheaper. They had also got fed up using Tamron 80-200/2.8 lenses for years whilst Leica promised them they would have a Leica version any moment... What say y'all to this? Bests Adrian Adrian Bradshaw Photojournalist Shanghai, China