Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/10/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Guy Bennett wrote: > aaron & others, Snip: > but i can't help but feel that trying to support a > company well known and loved for making high quality, precision instruments > by creating a line of lesser quality cameras aimed at a market they would > be hard pressed to compete in seems to me both foolhardy and improbable. > > guy (who already owns a cosina camera: the nikon fe10!) Guy, why is it, that everybody ,when it comes to a less expensive Leica Camera, Talks about either cheap or lesser quality. When Leitz made more than 1 model of cameras concurrently, they didn't make the lower priced models with a lower quality. These cameras had less functions. However the functions they had, where of as high a quality as the same functions on the more expensive models. Or are you trying to tell me, that a IIIf camera was of a lower quality than a IIf, or a M2 camera was of a lower quality, than the M3? . In the end, the less expensive M2 had more advanced features than the M3. Or are you trying to tell me, that the 50mm Elmars where of a lesser quality than a F2 lens, available at the same time. Just tell me, why did Leitz have differing models? Was it just plain stupidity? or did they have a commercial reason? Many people, so I've read, compare the Leica to the Mercedes. Well the Mercedes has many different models and even the same model have a varying amount of goodies in them. Are you trying to tell me, that a mercedes without electric seats and without inbuilt coffee machine is of a lesser quality than its counter part with those features. The main difference is the price. That's all. Everybody is very happy and pleased with the one model range finder Leica makes. But it seems there are just not enough very happy M6 users. Of course 99,9% of us are not privy to the internal Leica management workings. But something, at least at the moment, seems to be amiss. The company makes losses. Maybe they, the upper charges in the company, should go and find out, why most people don't have a Leica. Go and ask the common folks who spend money buying photographic goods why not, and why they prefer another brand.. Lots of them are not as brainless and without ideas as the big managers think. Maybe they should collect this information and bring it up at board meetings and not have only a bunch of single tracked executives talking to each other and saying what they want to hear. If it is true, what a lot of the LUGers say:" Leica hasn't got the money to develop new products." Then they either have to get it, or its by, by. Look, the whole discussion is , I am sure, not for the sake of knocking Leica, it is because everybody who owes a Leica, wants Leica to survive. You'll never know, somebody at Leica may read the LUG comments. It may be a slim chance, but never the less, the chance is there. Like most people interested in photography and in Leica products in particular, I like to look and browse in camera shops. Its incredible how few even have a Leica symbol somewhere displayed in the shop. That's how it is in Melbourne and it is not much different in Germany. The shop that has a Leica symbol, normally has the Leica stuff somewhere hidden in the second floor and only one sales person knows about it. The reason he knows something, is because he is a collector, and he is as old as a standard leica. No such problems in the second hand shops. In there everybody talks Leica. But second hand goods don't make any money for Leica. Regards, Horst Schmidt