Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/05/05

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Subject: [Leica] ten years behind
From: kitmc at acmefoto.com (Kit McChesney)
Date: Wed May 5 10:01:15 2004

With all due respect, has it not occurred to anyone that perhaps Leica never
desired to be a mass-market, high-volume brand? The cache of the
brand--which is in a large measure an emotional intangible--lies in the
exclusivity of it, just as with any other luxury brand. To Walmartize it
would be to defeat the purpose. In that arena, they'd have gone out of
business long ago, since they would have had to create products that were
commodity items, and we know what a nasty word "commodity" is these days. It
ranks up there with that other word, "outsource!" 

Kit (kitmc@acmefoto.com)



-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+kitmc=acmefoto.com@leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+kitmc=acmefoto.com@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of Douglas
M. Sharp
Sent: Wednesday, May 05, 2004 9:25 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: [Leica] ten years behind

Leica, built for the future with yesterdays technology !

On the state of the art as represented by Leica cameras I can only agree 
with Ted, but wasn't Leica always the world leader in
high quality optics ? If they hadn't been so pig-headed with their 
philosophy of "Leica lenses only for Leica cameras" they
could have made a fortune producing for other mounts. After all the 
camera body is only a box for holding the film
and partly governing the amount of light which reaches it, it's the lens 
(the German word "Objektiv" is a lot more descriptive)
that does the real work of getting the quality of image  that the 
photographer wants. This was admirably proved by the Bessa L,
a lens with a camera on it.

Douglas
BTW  I personally hate the design of the R8 and R9, they may be 
ergonomically designed but they look awful.

>
> Ted Grant wrote:
>
>> B. D. said:
>>
>>
>>>>>> The bottom line is that most PEOPLE don't know that Leica ever 
>>>>>> existed,
>>>>>
>>>
>>> or exists. Since at least the 1970s Leica has been a boutique brand 
>>> in a
>>> WalMart world.....<<<
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> Leica were ten years behind all other SLR manufactures and to date 
>> haven't
>> caught up, let alone in the digital manufacturing of a digital 
>> camera. Yep
>> the digi back is coming? So are twelve blue moons in the southern 
>> sky! If it
>> works as they claim that's great, yes some folks will buy it, but at 
>> what
>> cost? It isn't like buying an amazing piece of Leica created glass.
>>
>>
>>
>> ted
>>


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