Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/06/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Sorry, but I couldn't resist responding. I'm a 28 year old Leica user who started out by purchasing an a screwmount elmar 90. It was all i could afford until my camera store took pity on me and allowed me to lay-by my Leica III. I couldn't afford my M at that point, and, quite frankly, if i tried to repeat the purchase of my M3 i couldn't do it again right now. Peter raised an interesting point about Leica marketing missing the Generation X market. Well I can honestly say I'm realistic about very little, and yet I think that Leica has probably correctly pin-pointed their market. Very few twenty-somethings can afford to buy Leica. That is an almost unequivocal statement. The exceptions, like my amateur self, probably started using cameras like my venerable old Dynax and discovered something at the camera store that arrived second-hand and were captured by the aesthetics and the history. That is, they were captured enough so that they saved or gradually paid-off their Leica. When my best friend asked me for camera advice i found out very quickly that he didn't really want it. He couldn't overcome the belief that he had to buy something new-instantly, with some form of international warranty, and it had to be an SLR with Nikon or Canon stamped upon it. I think he is also representative of those who appreciate the disposability of things. My M3 just looked too old and esoteric. Best wishes to you all, Gary Peter K wrote: " I am sure we will find some twenty somethings who use Leica Ms as well, but it was just a general statement. Most twenty somethings (and some thirty somethings and older) getting into photography will probably look elsewhere was my point. This large market of Generation X plus is being missed by Leica." ___________________________________________________________________________ "be a realist, demand the impossible" - -Censier Campus Graffiti May 1968 Gary Elshaw B.A. (Hons), Dip Arts Victoria University New Zealand http://members.tripod.com/~elshaw/index.html ___________________________________________________________________________