Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1998/09/19
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 04:49 PM 9/19/98 -0400, you wrote: >While I think my M6 and its lenses are fabulous, I also think that Leica >equipment is over-priced compared to other excellent photographic equipment. >In fact, I would say that, with exception, much of the equipment is priced >at least $500 per lens and body above where it should be. Based on what? When Nikon looked into doing a rangefinder, they discovered it would cost more than a Leica M6 to do. Why? Because Leica's been doing it for so many years, and the tools are amortized. >One of the reasons for this is, quite simply, that the M is the last real >interchangable lens rangefinder. If you want a camera of this type, you have >to pay what ever Leitz demands. > >Also, because the equipment is the last of a breed, and because it is so >expensive, it is also extremely collectible. The prices in the used market >are kept up by the fact that so much of the early equipment disappears into >collectors cabinets, rather than into users camera bags. Thus one is forced >to pay what ever the manufacturer demands for new equipment. > >I wonder just how pricey Leica RF equipment would be if Nikon and Canon were >still in the game. Expensive? Yes. But as expensive? I doubt it. It would >have been interesting to see what would have happened to Leica prices had >the G1/2 been a "real" rangefinder. There certainly is not a >value-justifiable difference in the prices of its lenes - for instance, the >21 2.2, and the Leicas. > >But that's just my very humble opinion. > > - -- Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch The virtue of the camera is not the power it has to transform the photographer into an artist, but the impulse it gives him (and her) to keep on looking. - -Brooks Atkinson, 1951