Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/02/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Right now Leica (and Mr. Cohn) has to realise that the R8 will never ever recover the r&d investment and, in addition to that, may pull down R lens sales as well. In the light of the company's limited resources the number of options are very limited as well: suffer from low sales at high prices or vice versa close the eyes and pretend that the R8 is a great product that deserves the high price and blame the largely ignorant market, with the exception of some competent enthusiasts, of course, admit that the product is actually not so great, reduce prices accordingly, accept the dent in your reputation and eventually piss off early buyers who paid the fully price and who will suffer from deteriorating re-sale value, invest additional funds in upgrading the R8, get rid of the current stock and revive the interest in R lenses squeeze the R8 into a smaller body, preferably with electronic/mechanical hybrid shutter (help!), that means through away all moulding tools and make new ones (outch!) , make new motor winder and motor drive (arrrg!) squeeze more functions into the existing R8 body, e.g. motor drive, electronic focus indicator etc.(with off-switch), to better justify price, weight and size invest REAL money by introducing AF, REALLY pissing off early R8 buyers AND owners of new or upgraded ROM lenses As a matter of fact, the entire history of Leica SLRs is that of an indecisive management and a permanent shortage of capital for other than minor modifications to the existing product line. Leica never managed to establish a commercially viably production number with competitive production cost, let alone initiating innovations and hence was trapped in its niche market. Leica's attempt to enter the SLR market in the mid 1960s resulted in the Leicaflex which came several years later than the Nikon F and even lacked TTL meter. After being upgraded to SL and SL2, production cost were reported to be higher than the price Leica could ask from the dealers. To get a commercially viable product on the market, Leica decided to utilise and improve existing Minolta designs (XE1 and XD7) and set-up low labour cost production facilities in Portugal. Of course Leica users began to ask why they should pay Leica prices for a Minolta design made in Portugal, but at least the R3 and R4 were modern cameras at the time. Since the mid 1980s and long after Minolta had discontinued their XD7 Leica continued to muddle through with the R4/XD7 design. Back in the 90s, Leica R users were lusting for a mechanical R. Indeed, 10 years after the introduction of the R4, Leica introduced the R6 with a mechanical shutter. Although the shutter was not particularly fast (1/100s x synch, 1/1000s, in comparison to Nikon's FM2), designed and manufactured "in co-operation with Copal" (read purchased), Leica's marketing hype praised the R6 as if it was genuine Leica space technology. In fact the R6 was priced a couple of hundred marks above the M6 at that time. To some extend, the R8 resembles the history of the M5. The customers did not like the additional bulk and shape in comparison to the classic M body. Leica then discontinued the M5, re-issued the M4 and customers had to wait for the M6, until Leica was able to find a supplier for the TTL device who could economically design and manufacture for a small production number and who was able to shoehorn the device into the classic M body. In contrast to that, Kyocera marketed a completely new Contax 645 AF system, comprising a complete new AF body and a line of completely new AF lenses (new optical design, new negative format and new lens barrels with integrated ultrasonic AF motors). I doubt that Zeiss contributed more than the brand name or, maybe, some computer runs for the optical design. Despite Kyocera's rather limited experience with AF SLRs, the Contax 645 competes reasonably well with the big players (Canon, Nikon). I don't know for what market volume the Contax 645 system was designed, but it certainly is closer to the Leica R's than to Nikon's or Canon's. With interchangeable prism finder, film back, integrated winder and AF it is cheaper than the R8, lacking all these features, using more purchased standard components and a smaller negative! Hans-Peter