[Leica] Re: Unbelievable

[henningw at archiphoto.com (Henning Wulff)]

Jayanand, I don't think the demand for the M8 is price inelastic (I'm 
not Frank, nor do I speak for him, but I will jump in). It just 
provides appropriate value, especially if you've acquired an 
appreciation for the results of Leica optics. This is a hard sell, 
but I don't think Leica would sell enough more M8's at 75% (say) of 
the current selling price to make enough difference for them. 
Rangefinders are just enough of an oddity right now that I don't 
think a somewhat lower price would have done much for them. 
Suggesting a price at 50% or lower of the actual selling price would 
seem a bit naiive. You can't make up a loss on each item by selling 
in greater quantities.

There is no ideal digital camera. There is no ideal film camera. 
There is only a camera which is a bit better for taking the pictures 
that you want/can/aspire to take.

The M8 is such a camera for a lot of the things I want to shoot for 
myself. It does not do much for my professional photography, but I 
enjoy both the shooting and the results from the M8 more than those I 
get from the 5D and now the 5D MkII. The choices Leica has made with 
the camera body and the quality of the Leica lenses make the files 
sing. The Canon has problems.

I still shoot 4x5 and panoramic formats on film and get them scanned; 
I still shoot B&W 35mm on M6, M7, MDa, etc but the majority of my 
discretionary shooting is with the M8. I have the best that Canon has 
to offer in lenses, and I'll get the 21 Zeiss when it becomes 
available, but the Canons have a tough row to hoe to compete with the 
M8.

The 5D MkII FF raw files are up to 40Mb in size, yet they can't beat 
the content of the Leica 1.3x crop 10.1Mb files. It's like scanning 
800 ISO 35mm film at 5400dpi and getting a 250Mb 16 bit file and 
finding out it doesn't have as much info as a 6 megapixel DSLR raw 
file.

Size only matters if it actually contains something significant. If 
the Canon had WA lenses that were good, and if it didn't soften the 
images at the sensor or software too much, then it would outdo the 
Leica. As it is, the 5D MkII has excellent low light performance 
(pretty much equivalent to the D700 or D3 if the file is reduced to 
12Mpixels), lots of features, a great movie mode etc, but few lenses 
to truly exploit the 21Mp sensor. Under most conditions, it can't 
outperform the M8 because the M8 has no smearing in the sensor/basic 
processing and it has outstanding lenses. Yes, the 5D has great 6400 
ISO performance, but it does not have great ISO 400 performance 
compared with the M8. More of my pictures require ISO 400 than 6400, 
and it's likely to remain that way. So the M8 works, and the 5DMkII 
lags. It appears likely to remain that way for a while, so the M8 
comes out on top and the price one has to pay, all things considered, 
seems reasonable. I'd like it to be lower, but I realize that I have 
to subsidize the R&D as well as the production costs. I don't think 
it's an unfair 'ripoff' price. It's also enough better than the only 
remote alternative, the RD-1, to justify the price.






>Frank,
>Are you saying the demand for the M8 is price inelastic? My view is that it
>may well be today, in the present economic climate, but at introduction,
>when the Leica cachet would have sold easily, a lower price would have
>translated into a larger installed base by now. I really hope that the S2
>system does well, considering the recession in the midst of which it will be
>born...
>Cheers
>Jayanand
>
>On Sun, Dec 21, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Frank Dernie
><Frank.Dernie@btinternet.com>wrote:
>
>>  My opinion is that the market is so small for a digi-rangefinder that 
>> none
>>  will ever fly off the shelves. If the sales had been good enough to pay 
>> for
>>  the development of the camera and a bit of profit the service would have
>>  been good and there would have been RD2 and RD3 by now. 
>> Cosina/Voigtlander
>>  would have continued if Epson did not.
>>  IMO the opinion that the M8 is overpriced profiteering is mistaken. At 
>> the
>>  market size for such a product the volume they produce will always be 
>> tiny
>>  and the tooling and R&D costs have to be amortised over a few units. It
>>  could well be a loss leader to sell more lenses :-)
>>  Frank
>>
>>
>>
>>  On 20 Dec, 2008, at 23:32, Richard Man wrote:
>>
>>   The alignment problem is exaggerated. It was very easy to fix by 
>> oneself.
>>>  If
>>>  they price is at $1500 to $2000, it may have flown off the shelves.
>>>
>>>
>>>  On Sat, Dec 20, 2008 at 3:06 PM, Harrison McClary <lists@mcclary.net>
>>>  wrote:
>>>
>>>   If it had not had all the problems I read about then I'd have gotten 
>>> one.
>>>>  But the stories about poor rangefinder alignment, and things like that
>>>>  kept
>>>>  me away...also it was not exactly in the category I was taking about, 
>>>> if
>>>>  I
>>>>  remember it was around 3 grand new.  They are still 1500 used or 
>>>> so...I'd
>>>>  rather save a few more pennies and get a used M8 with all I have hear
>>>>  about
>>>>  the RD1.  Now had the RD1 been a decent camera with good customer
>>>>  support...that'd have made a difference to me.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>>  --
>>>  // richard m: richard @imagecraft.com
>>>  // b: http://richardfman.wordpress.com
>>>
>>>  _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>
>>
>>  _______________________________________________
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>>
>
>_______________________________________________
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    *            Henning J. Wulff
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