[Leica] New M mount Sonnar 1.5 50mm

[hoppyman at bigpond.net.au (G Hopkinson)]

Don, are you referring to Contax badged products regarding marketing acumen?
That's a whole other tragedy that still wounds me deeply! 
I meant to highlight the new ZI RF range and their new Nikon and M42 mount
manual focus lenses.

CZ have stated that they had 3500 cameras in customer's hands from Nov 2005
to Feb 2006 with 2.5 lenses per camera sold. They also claimed that their
production of 1000 cameras per month was accounted for several months in
advance. Those are tiny figures compared to a giant like say, Canon, of
course.
Still I think it is encouraging that they think the niche worth servicing.
I'm sure some knowledgeable LUG member would be able to tell me what the M
production comparison would be. Anyone?

I completely agree with Jeffery and other posters that it's sad to see
CameraQuest have to stop selling the CZ products. Stephen's site has always
been a good resource and of course he champions the CV products.

I don't know all of the mechanics of Hasselblad USA distribution. In
Australia, as far as I know, it's just one of the brands also distributed by
one company (who is primarily the Pentax distributor)
This is the same company that imports the ZI range, but you'd never know it
from their public presence. 

Reportedly exactly FIVE of the original ZI RF bodies came to OZ. Two were on
dealers shelves down south, one in Sydney with a completely film committed
dealer and one is cycling endlessly on eBay AU. Maybe I could buy one and
send it to Kyle for the FrankenBarbie treatment. Now THAT would be a rare
collectors item.

Cheers 
Hoppy
Dull, overcast day here, but some B/W negs to scan.


-----Original Message-----

------------------------------

Message: 9
Date: Sun, 18 Jun 2006 10:07:29 -0400
From: "Don Dory" <don.dory@gmail.com>
Subject: Re: RE: Subject: Re: [Leica] New M mount Sonnar 1.5 50mm
        (hoax?)
To: "Leica Users Group" <lug@leica-users.org>
Message-ID:
        <9b678e0606180707k1197ec68ocd7ca129c9379594@mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed

Well, for cameras at least Zeiss hasn't been especially intelligent in the
marketing department.  I wonder what they are planning to do, selling a very
much niche market that depends very much on some dealers out there to push
the brand and the associated products?  Time will tell.

Don
don.dory@gmail.com


On 6/18/06, Daniel Ridings <dlridings@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On 6/18/06, G Hopkinson <hoppyman@bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>
> > In Australia, the current distributor (who is also the Hasselblad
> > distributor) don't even have a single word on them on their web site.
> > Interesting marketing strategy for an (admittedly niche)quality product.
>
> I think Zeiss has decided to take back distribution from Hasselblad
> and do it themselves. That's probably why. I think they're right in
> the middle of this now. Stephen Gandy at CameraQuest had some issues
> in connection with this change in marketing (he got shafted).
>
> Daniel
>
> _______________________________________________
> Leica Users Group.
> See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information
>