Re: [Leica] Leica Lenses, Nikon Body

[dmorton@journalist.co.uk (David Morton)]

Frank Filippone wrote:

> We all agree the strength of Leica is the glass.  The image quality.  
> What
> about Leica producing AF lenses for other makers' cameras?  Sort of a 
> high
> end Sigma, Tamron, Vivitar, etc?  Would this work?  Would working pros 
> buy
> these lenses for their current F5?
> 
> As I remember it, the French lens maker Angenieux made ( makes?) lenses 
> for
> various cameras.   They were highly regarded as great, but pricey.  
> They did
> little to no advertising.  Can Leica focus on this market?

The obvious way into this market would be with the APO Telyt R module 
system. Leica would only need to make Nikon AFS and EOS versions of the 
three focus modules, the lens heads would stay the same.

However Angenieux bailed out of this market years ago after - by all 
accounts - losing a lot of money. OK *part* of that was the problem that 
Nikon users didn't like the Angenieux manual focus lenses because the 
focussing ring turned the opposite way to that on the Nikon manual focus 
lenses. AF would remove that marketing problem.

However we still return to Leica's stated position that you can't have the 
precision focussing mechanism needed for Leica quality, in an auto focus 
lens.

There's also a hard marketing decision here: would it *really* help 
Leica's name to line up with the likes of Vivitar, Sigma and Tamron?