Will you pay $7,195 for the new 50 'cron Asph?

[Livesteamer]

For the wealthy few that buy this lens, do you think they will actually use it or put it in a collection and wait for its price to rise? Joe

[jsrockit]

The problem is that most people here are not any manufacturer's customer base. We are a weird bunch at RFF. We just keep wondering why nobody builds the camera we want at the price we want. They never will I have a feeling.

[Archlich]

Originally Posted by jsrockit

The problem is that most people here are not any manufacturer's customer base. We are a weird bunch at RFF. We just keep wondering why nobody builds the camera we want at the price we want. They never will I have a feeling.

This points out that, how far Leica has drifted away from photogs.

[icebear]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

They wouldn't move 'as many as possible' if they didn't produce very good equipment at a price that people can afford. The fact that they produce cameras used by an enormous percentage of professionals shows that they want us as customers. They make equipment that does what we need at a price working pros can afford. Did you really need that spelled out?

I'm not sure if there are figures out there how much profit Canon or Nikon for that matter make with PRO equipement used by pros vs ambitious amateurs that buy the latest and greatest camera with ISO 125000, shoots 25 fps and has 750 page instruction manual for the gazillion of features. Canon lost me after the T90 when my FD primes got useless for the next genaration.

I also bought all my Leica stuff used, same as you but although this does not directly contribute into Leica's pocket, it ensures the high resale value of Leica lenses and bodies (except M8) that are older than 2 generations of Canon stuff.

And no, I'll not by the Apo 2/50 'cron unless I hit the lottery. I'm happy with my type 2 'cron. I shoot on the street , I don't do lab testing

[semilog]

Originally Posted by Araakii

I just read today from NY times that 7% of american households have over $1M in cash.

Do you have an actual reference for that pseudostatistic?

[jsrockit]

Sure does Archlich. Sometimes I believe it is why film is so popular here. If there were more affordable full frame digital mechanical rangefinder cameras, I bet there'd be a lot less film use here. Of course the diehards would still do it and most wouldn't give it up completely, but digital would be more popular than it is now (at RFF).

[semilog]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

My problem is with Leica basically abandoning working photographers. For that reason, I will never buy a new item from them. That's my right in a free society, and if you don't like it, well too damn bad. The people who buy my work don't give a damn about who I buy my gear from; my attitudes toward Leica have not hurt me a bit.

I find it fascinating how many people will blindly defend businesses. We owe business NOTHING. We're the customers, they owe US.

Perfect. Couldn't have said it better.

[Araakii]

Originally Posted by semilog

Do you have an actual reference for that pseudostatistic?

Based on its research, the consulting firm, Spectrem Group, said about 8.6 million American households had a net worth of at least $1 million last year, not including their equity in a home — just over 7 percent of the 117 million American households.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/bu...-egg-last.html

[Araakii]

Originally Posted by jsrockit

The problem is that most people here are not any manufacturer's customer base. We are a weird bunch at RFF. We just keep wondering why nobody builds the camera we want at the price we want. They never will I have a feeling.

I think the problem is not that Leica is charging too much. It's simply that "working photographers" are making too little nowadays. Professional photographers in the old days used to be more scarce and they made good money. Nowadays, everyone is a photographer even though there's insufficient income.

[awilder]

While the price is astronomical, so is the performance based on their published MTF graphs! For example wide open, it handily exceeds the 50 ASPH Summilux at it's optimal aperture of f/4 or f/5.6 across the frame. Stopping the ASPH Summicron further takes it to levels never seen before and I wonder if it's even possible to exploit it with Leica's mechanically coupled RF. So for the price, what you are getting the sharpest 50 ever made or quite likely ever to be made. The Summilux ASPH gives great low light performance and the Noctilux ASPH great ultra low light performance but the Summicron gives the best sharpness by far of the three 50's. Don't get me wrong, I'd never spend the money for such an optic having moved away from Leicas, but it's nice to see such an optic now actually exists.

[digitalintrigue]

I just read today from NY times that 7% of american households have over $1M in cash.

Based on its research, the consulting firm, Spectrem Group, said about 8.6 million American households had a net worth of at least $1 million last year, not including their equity in a home — just over 7 percent of the 117 million American households.

$1M in net worth does not necessarily equal $1M in cash. In fact it could be very little or no cash at all.

[nebraska]

Originally Posted by Chriscrawfordphoto

I have a Hasselblad, two Leicas, and a Canon 5DmkII (plus a lot of other very nice gear) I bought the Canon new, as well as my collection of ZM lenses. I have nothing against people who own nice stuff, because I do too.

My problem is with Leica basically abandoning working photographers. For that reason, I will never buy a new item from them. That's my right in a free society, and if you don't like it, well too damn bad. The people who buy my work don't give a damn about who I buy my gear from; my attitudes toward Leica have not hurt me a bit.

I find it fascinating how many people will blindly defend businesses. We owe business NOTHING. We're the customers, they owe US. I've said this time and again: people who fall all over themselves to defend the actions of businesses only hurt themselves through the higher and higher prices they end up paying when corporate leaders realize that their customers are idiots who will pay ANYTHING.

I'll continue to buy Canon gear because they make great cameras and sell them at realistic prices. Same with Nikon. They actually see professional photographers as a market worth serving. Why should I buy anything from a company that is not committed to serving me? Anything else is a bad investment. This is business for me, I have to make a profit from my work, so I have to be smart about what I buy.

Right on! Your outrage is quite on target. The new Leica corporation has moved very far from the values of the old (family owned) company of decades ago.

[digitalintrigue]

We owe business NOTHING. We're the customers, they owe US.

The only things businesses are required to do is make money for their shareholders -- that's their fiduciary responsibility. Of course to accomplish this, they need customers, and they'll get customers if they provide value. They don't 'owe' customers anything. If customers don't think there is value, then the business will either fix the problem or they will fail. This is the way things should work.

It appears that Leica is making their shareholders happy of late, so they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. If that success exploits a market niche that some people here are not in, so be it.

I'm not in the niche, btw.

[Ken Ford]

Originally Posted by bob338

Do you really think CaNikon have become market leaders by nurturing their customer base? I don't. I think they advertise the s**t out of their products and keep the prices competitive by selling volume instead of quality. I don't have a source for this, but I remember reading in a book years ago that in the early 60s Nikon supplied a bunch of newspapers with free, or at cost, gear for their PJs. This is when Leica lost that market. People started seeing PJs using Nikons and assumed they must be the best, just like they did with Leicas a decade before.

If Nikon was nurturing its base they would have come out with a digital SP by now. They reissued the SP and S3, which was pretty amazing, but they then went on to cry that they lost money on it.

If Cosina was nurturing their base, they would have come out with a digital RF by now. I think Cosina does a pretty good job with most everything they do, but they have really dropped the ball on this issue. People want an affordable digital RF and they are probably the only company that can make it, and they won't. They are serving the whim of their owner, not their customers.

I think Leica is serving their customers, and the whim of their owners. Leica could have sat back for another 3 years and let the M9 peter out before introducing anything new. But they didn't, they introduced a (potentially) revolutionary camera. They also introduced a new 50mm when they could have left the lowly Summicron alone, where it would sell in its present formulation for many more years. They also introduced the Summarit line for people on a budget.

Anyway, just my .02.

Bob

Yeah, if they do all that you described in your first paragraph they sell X number of units. If they also nurture their base they sell the same X plus an additional amount.

I guess you don't buy into the "raving fans" school of business relationships? Either that, or we have two different ideas of what "nurturing" means in this context.

[Ken Ford]

Originally Posted by digitalintrigue

$1M in net worth does not necessarily equal $1M in cash. In fact it could be very little or no cash at all.

Like a whole boatload of 401K and other retirement savings.

[nebraska]

Originally Posted by digitalintrigue

The only things businesses are required to do is make money for their shareholders -- that's their fiduciary responsibility. Of course to accomplish this, they need customers, and they'll get customers if they provide value. They don't 'owe' customers anything. If customers don't think there is value, then the business will either fix the problem or they will fail. This is the way things should work.

It appears that Leica is making their shareholders happy of late, so they are doing exactly what they are supposed to be doing. If that success exploits a market niche that some people here are not in, so be it.

I'm not in the niche, btw.

I slightly disagree with this statement. A company has, in my opinion, a responsibility to both shareholders as well as customers. Leica's (and Canon's) abandonment of loyal customers, the former with outrages prices and basically throwing R users under the bus and the latter by adopting a new lens mount and also repudiating loyal FD users, have revealed an attitude or entrepreneurial mindset that is quite troubling.

[semilog]

Originally Posted by digitalintrigue

The only things businesses are required to do is make money for their shareholders

As proven by IG Farben in WWII.

Right? Or perhaps that word -- "only" -- does not mean what you think it means.

[semilog]

Originally Posted by awilder

but the Summicron gives the best sharpness by far of the three 50's.

Possibly. That's an MTF on an MTF testing machine (probably manufactured by Zeiss, by the way). What it does on an actual camera in the field, versus other complete imaging chains, remains to be seen. It's an interesting technical exercise, at any rate.

[semilog]

Originally Posted by nebraska

I slightly disagree with this statement. A company has, in my opinion, a responsibility to both shareholders as well as customers. Leica's (and Canon's) abandonment of loyal customers, the former with outrages prices and basically throwing R users under the bus and the latter by adopting a new lens mount and also repudiating loyal FD users, have revealed an attitude or entrepreneurial mindset that is quite troubling.

Canon did the right thing by ditching the FD mount. Their subsequent success attests to that. And Leica might not have survived if they'd continued with the R system. They may have lost you as a customer just as Leica lost me awhile back.

We should not confuse ethical obligation with business necessity any more than we should assume that good business is equivalent to moral good.

[redisburning]

Originally Posted by semilog

Possibly. That's an MTF on an MTF testing machine (probably manufactured by Zeiss, by the way). What it does on an actual camera in the field, versus other complete imaging chains, remains to be seen. It's an interesting technical exercise, at any rate.

precisely.

now for a general comment:

I don't understand the offense that some people are taking. Leica set out to make the best 50mm lens money could buy and it turned out that you need a lot of money to do so. If you don't like it, don't buy it. If, like me, you want it but can't afford it, don't buy it.

Someone asked Sal Glesser (the owner and head honcho of Spyderco) if he could make a knife as good as a Sebenza (an expensive, well made knife). He replied that he could, but it would cost about the same as a Sebenza.

I should remind you all that a Canon 400mm f2.8 costs $11,614.95 How about some of you go cry at Canon for pricing people out of the market?

I chuckle at all of the Hermes edition cameras or the ones made out of Titanium (having owned a bunch of knives made of the stuff, I can't imagine why you would want a camera coated with it since it takes scratches just by looking at it) but I don't get pissed about it. I think it's far more useful to be incensed about some people's senseless lack of money than other people's abundance of it.

[mynikonf2]

...could never bring myself to pay that amount for a 50mm/2 lens, just would not feel comfortable knowing that I could be that selfish. There is a serious sense of greed running through-out the pricing of Leica products which spilled into the used Leica market place, with a vengeance, over these last couple of years. The greed becomes painfully apparent in the disconnect between the pricing of their equipment and the actual value of these products. This lens is a prime example of that disconnect along with the B&W M9 and let's not forget the illegitimate (NOTE: the blog censored me & would not allow me to use that other word for illegitimate which starts with a bas and ends with a tard, just how funny is that?) S2 camera format, a format not needed by anyone, a format not requested by anyone (that I know of [the qualifier]) nor better than what already exists...but a format created nonetheless to generate enormous price tags. Oh, did I say that I would not be purchasing the new Leica 50?

[semilog]

I sold my 50mm Summicron (IV) because I didn't like the FL. The performance was just fine. Incrementally higher performance -- and the increase is only incremental -- would not make me like the FL. Thus, the lens is worth this much to me: nothing.

[kknox]

You can buy a nice used car for that kinda money. Not a chance in h_ll.

[Keith]

Has anyone said ''Yes!'' yet?

I can't be bothered reading back through this thread!

[JHutchins]

MTF curves aren't everything, but they are something. They unequivocally show that this lens is significantly different from and (at least on the margins measured by MTF curves) better than the 50 Summilux which is certainly an extraordinary lens (whether it happens to be to your taste or not).

They are evidence that this lens is not just the same old thing thrown out at a higher price tag, this required a lot of thinking and a lot of ingenuity. Two points on that: 1) it's expensive. 2) It creates benefits even for people who don't buy the lens. It seems a little unfair to make this lens a cudgel to beat Leica for insensitivity to the needs of photographers because it does evidence a commitment -- a very serious commitment -- to advance the art of lens design.

The Hermes edition? Sure, it's absurd. Aim arrows there, I don't care (on the other hand, it probably required little to nothing in the way of company resources to develop -- just some project farmed out to an outside designer and probably paid for by the folks who buy it).

The monochrome M? I'm not sure what I think of that.

The Summicron -- I'm glad Leica did it, even though I'm not going to buy one. I suspect that, just like the outrageously expensive racing programs maintained by some car manufacturers -- this sort of activity will lead to benefits for everyone else in the long run.