Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/02/12
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]John, You are right that Leica USA is/was out of 35mm Summicron-M at one point. I know when I suddenly get a flood of requests from US dealers. The same lens is in short supply globally and is the most-often backordered item. I do appreciate that the 35-70/2.8 ASPH had been a difficult lens for Leica to make profitably. One of the biggest problems was that Leica had not anticipated the high reject rate and sold the lens on too inexpensively. To the best of my knowledge the lenses left the factory at under US$1,500 each. What I did not mention was that in my earlier correspondence with Leica I had stated I was prepared to offer more than the original price for this lens and I was prepared to come up with the funds before they deliver the 100 lenses I wanted. I do not doubt that their production facilities are limited - some of the 500 Dragon 2000 black paint cameras we ordered last year are still no where to be seen..... Now that we have got over the Asian Flu I hope the forthcoming American Flu (hope there won't be one) won't hit Leica too hard. Regards, Joseph on 12/2/01 10:39 PM, John Collier at jbcollier@home.com wrote: > Leica has a shortage of production facilities and has trouble keeping up > with demand in the common, very profitable items. I believe one person > reported that for a brief period Leica USA was out of 35mm Summicrons! In > order to produce more 35-70/2.8 lenses they would have to take production > away from profitable items. I have heard it said on this list that the > 35-70/2.8 was not easy to make with a high number of rejected elements and > rejected finished lenses. There is a good chance that they lost money on > every 35-70/2.8 they sold. Perhaps they want to wait and do a redesign of > the lens so that it is easier to produce (warning - idle speculation alert). > They have a small optical design team and there probably is other more > important projects to do first. These are common problems for small > manufacturers. Should they add more production capacity? Well, considering > they almost went down the drain with the Asian Flu, I can understand Leica's > conservative approach. > > John Collier