Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/28
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> The reason that the Noct is made in Canada is simple economics and
> production capacity.
Erwin,
First, thanks for your detailed information. Surely it is fair to
extrapolate from your above comment and the unfortunate withdrawal of the
35-70/2.8 that Solms is not economically capable of producing the lenses
(and motors and numerous other items) that they have said they would in the
manner they announced they would. In which case it would be preferable to
outsource as much as possible. No-one doubts that Solms is technically
capable of making the 35-70/2.8 and the Noctilux and much more besides but
the (unprecedented?) withdrawal of the former and the spotty availability of
the latter (and a number of other items) and failure to shift production to
Solms shows if nothing else that they have failed to do what they said they
would.
Of course in legal terms they are under no obligation to produce the goods
they announce nor continue to produce the goods they don't want to but it is
surely reasonable to be disappointed and even sceptical about the failure to
keep up with even their own declared intentions.
How to keep up? It would appear that the relationship with Minolta is long
over and that the few items made in cooperation with them (16, 24, parts for
R4-7?) are being sold as new old stock: some very old - even the latest 16s
are marked 'Wetzlar' which dates them back to late 1980s at best. The one
item made by Zeiss is now out of the catalogue before a replacement is
available or even formally announced. Even Sigma has been cut out (or cut
themselves out) and Sal tells us the very success of the Kyocera produced
items may spell their doom. So what are Solms able to do to counter our
concerns? Can they even supply what is in the current catalogue let alone
come up with new items? This remains to be seen.
By my assessment the line is losing more items than it is gaining and this
is a worry: what is next for the chop? Someone mentioned a day or two ago
the 180/2 is off the list. Whilst this is indeed a fine lens it is hardly
the kind of product that was ever likely to sell much nor make much profit
which makes me wonder what kind of people decide what goes in the product
line. How about a more popular lens like a wide zoom or a fast wide lens
(wider than 35mm that is) or a 1.4 converter that works with the shorter
lenses (or the 180, 70-180 2.8s at least)? This is surely more the sort of
thing Leica needs to get to market than a set of manual Apo modular lenses
that in some cases are 50% heavier than the lenses they replaced (about
which no-one ever complained to my knowledge) and which in any case are
addressing a market Leica lost almost completely with the advent of AF.
We are of course a forgiving lot we Leica fans but it would be nice to see
that the company has a clear strategy and sense of direction: the
advertising I see seems to be all over the place with references to past
glory one day and technical wow the next, fashion icon here and serious tool
there. Even when strong products are down to annual sales in the triple or
even double digits Leica does not read the market to see why people are not
buying: sometimes just a small adjustment might make it viable. In the case
of the 35-70/2.8 the necessary adjustment seems from your and others'
accounts to have been simply to raise the price. The revival of screw mount
lenses, a pretty basic manufacturing proposition but a profitable one from a
marketing point of view, seems to have been entirely due to the initiative
of a Japanese business.
We all of us have a wish list of things Leica could make but don't and there
are even a few of us who can afford to pay for them!
The single policy I would pursue if I were in charge of Leica would be to
show as many great photos as possible taken with the products: even most
pros have never seen how good Leica R lenses are so they would never get
serious consideration. For myself it was only through a series of chance
encounters that I ever got to see what the magic of Leica's best lenses
meant in photographs and I only knew they were Leica lenses because of the
extraordinary passion for the stuff exhibited by the photographers. Leica
themselves did not seem to do anything to promote thisrr...When it was Leitz
there seemed to be more of this kind of promotion and overt love of
photography but that may be just my jaded view of things.
Bests
Adrian
- --
Adrian Bradshaw
Corporate and Editorial Photography
Beijing, China
tel/fax +86 10 6532 5112
mobile +86 139 108 22292
e-mail apbbeijing@yahoo.com
OR adrianpeterbradshaw@compuserve.com
website: http://www.apbphoto.com
http://www.liaisonintl.com/bradshaw.htm
http://www.liaisonintl.com/bradshaw_e.htm
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