Future Lenses

[rsh]

Just a thought. Should Leica begin building its lenses in Japan in order to reduce prices? For those insistent on German made lenses, how about a la carte lenses.

[J. Borger]

Why should Leica have to cut prices? Premium products with premium prices are common.
Mercedes and BMW did not move production to Japan to cut prices.
Imagine every american industry moving production to Mexico to cut prices... where would that leave you?
It would be a great move to start killing their corporate and brand image though.

[georgl]

Leica-lenses with exactly the same quality as todays german-lenses won't become cheaper by outsourcing the production.
Leica, Carl Zeiss and Schneider-Kreuznach build the best lenses of the world - in Germany. Some tried to outsource production but especially the more complex designs always are "Made in Germany" - because Kyocera, Cosina... couldn't handle this quality standards. All Zeiss-Lenses made for professional cinematography are "Made in Germany".
What do you think you're paying for? Ok, Leica-lenses are produced in small numbers and you pay their machines and their development. I think a hessian worker costs about 40€/h - but they're also extremly productive.
The most healthiest german companys with the best quality didn't adapt to outsourcing into low-wage-countries, "lean-production" - 1980s quality of a Mercedes is not existing anymore in the car-industry, not with todays Mercs (still great cars) and especially not with the companies which started the fight about lower production-costs every year (Toyota, Honda....)...

Canon and Matsu****a noticed that, they started to stop production in low-wages-countries, and many german-companies learned that too. But many will break down, they invested to much into poland, china... lost their know-how (which is then used by chinese companies)...
Leica tried to reduce production costs with Canada and Portugal. Now they've sold ELCAN (makes the Panavison-lenses) and Portugal mostly makes accessoires, most parts are "Made in Germany" again (the top-plates were zinc-die-cast from Portugal, since a few years they're milled by a german supplier out of brass) - trying to reduce production costs just by producing in low-wages-countries nearly destroyed the company (like Rollei with production in Singapore)

It's not about the wages, it's about long-term effects, how reliable are the workers, can you rely on them in bad times? Are they interested in the company, its products? Or are they just scared to loose their job and starving? How effective is the production, how good is the infrastructure?

P.S.
Always these complex discussions in English - that's pretty tough for me - apologize my bad english ;-)

[VinceC]

Manufacturing costs (property and labor) in Japan today probably exceed those of Germany. They're certainly not appreciably cheaper.

[rxmd]

Originally Posted by georgl

1980s quality of a Mercedes is not existing anymore in the car-industry, not with todays Mercs (still great cars) and especially not with the companies which started the fight about lower production-costs every year (Toyota, Honda....)...

Actually it's Toyota that has been consistently coming out as the winner in car quality statistics in Germany over the last decade or so.

trying to reduce production costs just by producing in low-wages-countries nearly destroyed the company (like Rollei with production in Singapore)

Actually the problem with Rollei was that the production facility in Singapore was way too overdimensioned and that cameras weren't up to the technological standard set by other camera companies, not that you can't produce quality cameras in cheap labour countries in SE Asia. Nikon has been producing cameras in Malaysia for ages and it hasn't killed the company.

Ultimately, what Rollei had (and what Zeiss and Leica had, too) was a set of management problems. They failed to realise that you have to produce a product for a target audience with certain expectations, which may be raised by competitors' products (which killed Rollei SLRs) or by a general shift in the userbase (which killed the M5). They failed to realise that a product and a device are two different things. And they failed to realise that ultimately, if you want to run a healthy company in the long run, production costs are not identical with the expenses for building a particular line of cameras.

It's not about the wages, it's about long-term effects, how reliable are the workers, can you rely on them in bad times? Are they interested in the company, its products? Or are they just scared to loose their job and starving? How effective is the production, how good is the infrastructure?

Actually it's all about efficiency. It was about efficiency in the 1970s when people shifted things to cheap labour countries, it's about efficiency now. What has changed is mainly the way efficiency is being measured. Back then it was labour costs only, now it is an aggregate of labour costs and other long-term factors that were ignored back then.

Matsu****a

On a side name: interesting that this name falls through the spam filter because it has "shіt" in it.

Philipp

[yoshimura]

Japan isn't exactly a cheap labor country, wages must be at least as high as in Germany. Their advatage is that of industrial organization and quality control, where they outperform the Germans, and technical and quality related levels, which are topmost in the world (in spite of my pseudo, I am not Japanese...). This is why Leica outsourced many items and accessories to Japanes firms, such as the tri focal (21 24 28 mm) viewfinder, which is made in Japan. And if you dismantle a M8 (which I don't advise you to do), you will see that many parts are outsourced or not produced in Germany (the body in Leica's facility in Portugal, the shutter in Japan, it is a Coppal, what else...). It is then assembled in Germany. As to Mercs and BMW, they have been assembled worldwide for decades (US, Austria, South Africa, Thailand, etc, and now China!), you don't know where your German car from when you buy one...That's the way globalization works nowadays. So yes, it would be great for Leica to produce or outsource in Japan, but only if it means lower final prices, which no customer really wants...it's part of the game.

[jaapv]

Maybe Canon should start producing their 1D series in Europe to cut prices..

[rsh]

With so many members purchasing or thinking of purchasing Zeiss ZM or CV lenses because of the cost differential, this seemed like a timely thread.

The Browning OU is a prime example of dual production. You can buy a Citori made by Miroku, a fine gun, or you can order a Superposed from the factory in Belgium for a signifcantly higher price.

I, personally, would rather have German made lenses, but I also want Leica to be profitable so that it can survive in today's photographic world.

This is a terrific forum, with terrific forum members. I am grateful to be able to participate.

[Sonnar2]

I have a brand new Zeiss C-Sonnar here, Made in Japan. It's everything except cheapely made. Zeiss outsorced production (not quality control) to Cosina because they don't run still film lenses anymore in Germany. Cosina has capacities slots available.
Leica is different: Lens runs are smaller (hundreds instead of thousands). Premium prices with premium quality. That's for lenses. Camera production doesn't really earn money in Germany, but they need them to sell their lenses. And with the M8 they again have a premium product which is unique at the market. If the M8 fails on the market no other will follow "Made in Germany"...

cheers Frank

PS, my car is a Toyota Landcruiser. They usually work for 30 years and more... not many German brands left on the market with this reputation level.

[jaapv]

There is a very good reason for Leica to produce their top end in Solms and that has nothing to do with money. There they have a motivated, well trained and dedicated workforce of specialists and a 150 years tradition of precision optical production.Wetzlar and Solms are the only place they can be, they could not even move to another region in Germany. After all, the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic are within a few hundred kilometers of them and there the labour costs are les than 30% of those in Japan.

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by Sonnar2

I have a brand new Zeiss C-Sonnar here, Made in Japan. It's everything except cheapely made. Zeiss outsorced production (not quality control) to Cosina because they don't run still film lenses anymore in Germany. Cosina has capacities slots available.
Leica is different: Lens runs are smaller (hundreds instead of thousands). Premium prices with premium quality. That's for lenses. Camera production doesn't really earn money in Germany, but they need them to sell their lenses. And with the M8 they again have a premium product which is unique at the market. If the M8 fails on the market no other will follow "Made in Germany"...

cheers Frank

PS, my car is a Toyota Landcruiser. They usually work for 30 years and more... not many German brands left on the market with this reputation level.

If your car is a Toyota it is almost certainly made in Great Britain...

[newyorkone]

Originally Posted by Sonnar2

PS, my car is a Toyota Landcruiser. They usually work for 30 years and more... not many German brands left on the market with this reputation level.

A Land Cruiser is not a typical Toyota and if it is an older one then most certainly it was better built than more recent versions - I still doubt a LC that is really used can last 30 years without having to have extensive work/overhaul. Most Toyota passenger cars start falling apart at 150K or so miles - about 10-12 years on average. My family always bought Toyotas and we've gone through many of them and all of them had pretty much the same death timer. However, the engines never seem seem to die...just everything around it starts falling apart.

Someone else mentioned that Lexus and Infiniti is kicking Merc and BMW??? Merc maybe but not BMW and certainly not in Japan where they don't even sell Lexus and Infiniti. Why? Because I guess the Japanese know better that they are just souped up Toyotas and Nissans. The Japanese buy German luxury cars.

Who's better? It depends. Collaboration is good but by no means should a company compromise their ideals. I admire Leica for sticking to the old way of doing things but at the same time I also want to see them survive. I'm hoping that the M8 will help bring some wind to their sails again.

[VinceC]

>>The Japanese buy German luxury cars.<<

Sometimes there are just market tastes. In the U.S. and Japan, there are many affluent buyers who specifically want an IMPORTED high-performance car. There is, by definition, no way a domestic company can cater to that market.

[rxmd]

Originally Posted by jaapv

There they have a motivated, well trained and dedicated workforce of specialists and a 150 years tradition of precision optical production. Wetzlar and Solms are the only place they can be, they could not even move to another region in Germany.

Actually they could have. There was a huge body of skilled optics engineers in East Germany. That's why Zeiss Oberkochen invested heavily in VEB Carl Zeiss Jena after reunification, and while there were large numbers of layoffs (due to an internal crisis at Zeiss and the strains of German unification in general) Jena is now the seat of a flourishing optical industry and, besides Dresden, one of the few regions where the industrial tradition of East Germany could be kept up.

Originally Posted by jaapv

After all, the borders of Poland and the Czech Republic are within a few hundred kilometers of them and there the labour costs are les than 30% of those in Japan.

The Czech Republic actually has a good tradition of quality optical engineering. Meopta comes to mind, from customer products such as enlargers and cameras to military gear.

Philipp

[rxmd]

Originally Posted by newyorkone

My family always bought Toyotas and we've gone through many of them and all of them had pretty much the same death timer.

Could have been the usage pattern, though. A friend's Toyota began to fall apart at well over 300,000 km, and, as I mentioned, they regularly come out first in German car reliability surveys.

In many third-world countries Toyota pickups are the primary means of overland transportation and enjoy an excellent reputation of reliability (and, incidentally, they also enjoy a prominent reputation as the primary military vehicle in third-world conflicts, with a machine gun or small rocket launcher mounted at the back).

Philipp

[jaapv]

Originally Posted by rxmd

Actually they could have. There was a huge body of skilled optics engineers in East Germany. That's why Zeiss Oberkochen invested heavily in VEB Carl Zeiss Jena after reunification, and while there were large numbers of layoffs (due to an internal crisis at Zeiss and the strains of German unification in general) Jena is now the seat of a flourishing optical industry and, besides Dresden, one of the few regions where the industrial tradition of East Germany could be kept up.
Philipp

As a German, Philipp, I'm sure you are familiar with this tendency to regard even the next village as beyond the edge of the world...

[sdai]

Originally Posted by jaapv

Maybe Canon should start producing their 1D series in Europe to cut prices..

With the help of your powerful and all mighty unions, the cost could only rise.

The American businesses have always been advised NOT to touch the European firms.

[35mmdelux]

should Ferrari move its production lines to South Korea to save some yen? Maybe Louie Vuitton to China? Rolex to Japan?

[georgl]

The customer usually has no profit from products made in low-wages-countries. Shoes from Adidas and Nike are produced by workers that earn less than 100€/month - but did they become cheaper in the end?
Apple-products are mostly made in china, those workers get about 40€/month and build (or assemble) MP3-players that sell for over 300€!!!

Cosina-lenses are cheaper because their construction is more simple, quality control, 100% calibration (like Leica or real Zeiss) - it's all different. Maybe you're happy with this quality-level, but you get what you pay for with german-glass.

You want Carl Zeiss? You have to pay much money for that legendary quality - deal with it!

Of course, it's not only about outsourcing, but very often it was an important aspect of the proplems that occurred. As already mentionend, the companys with the best quality usually outsourced the least. Why do you think Germany is exporting more than any other nation although most of the employees have more vacation, get more money and work less than in most other countries? As already mentionend - it's more than just low wages, it's about efficiency, experience, know-how, mentality...
And in the end: every employee is also a consument, who is buying your stuff!!!

I'm in the car-industry since over 35 years now - and I've experienced a lot of changes, hypes started and passed away... There is no way of measureing quality of such a complex product as a car in a simple study. When people judge over their car you cannot just let somebody else judge over his (different) car and compare these two - both people need to know both cars - when is this happening?
They've introduced japanese management-principles where I work, some things got better, some things got worse but quality clearly lost this fight - it was all about reducing costs (without charing the profit with the workers or the customers) never really about quality.
I drove dozens of cars in my live and trust me, driving a E-Class (I had three of them with no single problem) or a BMW 5 on the Autobahn above 200km/h clearly shows how unreliable those studys are - how many idiots (also in press) are judging about cars. Of course, as a perfectionist (hey, I've payed over 10t€ for my Leicas ;-) I'm not happy with the way many things are made (too cheap, outsourced, made in Hungary/Poland...) but it's the same with Lexus (e.g. the Diesels are from Poland, while my MB-Diesel is made in Berlin with over 8x higher wages)... By the way, the german car-industry invests more into R&D than ANY other car-nation in the world...

But back to cameras:
Leicas are not a mass-product, they're something that is already lost in many industries: High-end, with a company that just cares about the product and not only about marketing, profit....
Of course, not all parts are "made in Germany" but mostly they are. The new M-WA-Finder is not from Cosina anymore, it's from Leica - this company thinks about quality, even if it is more expensive, let's honor that, there's already enough mediocre japanese/chinese stuff around...

"they don't run still film lenses anymore in Germany"
They do, all high-end-lenses are made there.

"There was a huge body of skilled optics engineers in East Germany"
Zeiss was divided - what part of the company (Zeiss Jena or Carl Zeiss Oberkochen) was superior after the reunion of Germany? Not the one with the lower wages...

[VinceC]

During my 12 years in Germany:
The Nissan Sunny drove itself to the junk yard ... ran fine but wouldn't pass inspection because of rust. Average 140km highway speed.
The Opel engine blew up. Average 140-150km highway speed.
The Mercedes engine threw a rod. Average 150km highway speed.
The Toyota Carina did a 120km per day roundrip commute at 140-150kph for three years. Sold with 200,000+ km on it because I was moving back to the States. Only repairs were a radiator and transmission replacement.
*My wife's Nissan Sentra station wagon ran fine throughout the 12-year-stay, and I drove it to the resale lot because it wasn't economical to ship it to the United States.
Also drove various Volkswagen company cars ... Diesels at 130-140kph, benzine engines at 140-150kph, with infrequent bursts to 180 (you really don't find that much open road very often).

[Harry Lime]

I think one of the biggest problems is that Leica probably has an archaic production pipeline that is very inefficient. They should be able to modernize their production methods without cutting into the quality of their products.

I also suspect that as sales have declined, prices have been increased beyond the rate of inflation etc. to prop up profit margins (yet they still are in the red).

My big worry is that the M8 will be a financial success for them and everyone will say: "Problems? What problems? We just made a ton of cash! Everything is just ducky!" and none of these issues will be addressed.

They need to be more effcient and tier their products. And get off the 4/3rds bandwagon, which in many people's opinion is a dead end. It's got the DOF of a digital Elph and the sensor is so small that as the megapixel count rises, they will never be able to control the noise. Leica should have gone with APS (x1.5) for their entry level cameras.

[newyorkone]

Originally Posted by Harry Lime

I think one of the biggest problems is that Leica probably has an archaic production pipeline that is very inefficient. They should be able to modernize their production methods without cutting into the quality of their products.

They need to be more effcient and tier their products. And get off the 4/3rds bandwagon, which in many people's opinion is a dead end. It's got the DOF of a digital Elph and the sensor is so small that as the megapixel count rises, they will never be able to control the noise. Leica should have gone with APS (x1.5) for their entry level cameras.

I really hope Leica sticks around and perhaps they need to change how they do things to accomplish that but I can't help feeling that perhaps that's an irreconcilable contradiction.

Attention to detail and hand made are inherently slow processes. If Leica changes how they manufacture then will they still really be Leica or will they end being like a Japanese manufacturer that has retained a legacy German name plate.

I do agree about 4/3 though. DEAD END. Small noisy sensors and no DOF. I'm no Physics professor but you don't need to be one to realize that you're already up against some pretty high physical walls from the start. APS would have been better but since they already paid for the development of the 1.33X sensor for the M8, they should have reused that!

Well, at least the M8 appears to be a step in the right direction. However, the future of Leica is still very uncertain.

[rxmd]

Originally Posted by georgl

The customer usually has no profit from products made in low-wages-countries. Shoes from Adidas and Nike are produced by workers that earn less than 100€/month - but did they become cheaper in the end?

That's the wrong argument. The customer clearly does have a profit from buying $50 no-name made-in-China shoes as opposed to $200 brandname made-in-China shoes. If a company decides to keep windfall profits from cheap labour for themselves, of course the consumer doesn't get to see it.

Originally Posted by georgl

Why do you think Germany is exporting more than any other nation although most of the employees have more vacation, get more money and work less than in most other countries? As already mentionend - it's more than just low wages, it's about efficiency, experience, know-how, mentality...

Actually if you want to talk about why Germany is exporting more than any other nation, the camera industry is a very bad example for obvious reasons.

Originally Posted by georgl

Leicas are not a mass-product, they're something that is already lost in many industries: High-end, with a company that just cares about the product and not only about marketing, profit....

Leica mainly cares about survival.

Originally Posted by georgl

this company thinks about quality, even if it is more expensive, let's honor that, there's already enough mediocre japanese/chinese stuff around...

I think you're not doing Japanese stuff justice here. You sound a lot like those late-1950s camera engineers sitting on the high horse and deriding their Japanese competition, when in fact the Japanese products were on par with their own qualitywise and in many areas more innovative. The West German camera industry died for a reason.

Originally Posted by georgl

They do, all high-end-lenses are made there.

At least in the ZM lineup, only the 15mm and 85mm lenses are made there, the others are made in Japan. I guess if it's good enough for Zeiss, it's good enough for everybody.

Originally Posted by georgl

Zeiss was divided - what part of the company (Zeiss Jena or Carl Zeiss Oberkochen) was superior after the reunion of Germany? Not the one with the lower wages...

Oh well, but that's a completely misleading question. I wasn't really making a comparison between the quality of West German vs. East German Zeiss products (even though there were some areas such as telescopes where the East German products actually were superior). In my answer to Jaap, I was stating that there are other places besides Wetzlar and Solms where you have a skilled workforce for high-end optical engineering. This was clearly the case in Jena, where an excellently skilled workforce existed, thanks to the East German education system which was one of the big assets of the GDR. Carl Zeiss Oberkochen realized this and quickly took over their Eastern counterpart to get the staff before someone else did. Building on this skilled workforce, Jena is now again one of the main centres of the German optical industry (and Dresden of the electronics industry). It's not the product that mattered - in general, VEB Carl Zeiss and VEB Robotron products were inferior. It's the heads and hands that mattered.

In that context, I think it makes little sense to ask whether the Eastern or Western Zeiss-labeled products were superior, and even less which company was superior, because (a) that was not at all what I was talking about and (b) there is really no metric to compare the "quality" of companies across competely different economic systems.

Philipp

[rsh]

In the past, I have never had problems with any of the Canadian lenses. The only two I currently own are the 50 Noctilux and the 180 Apo Telyt. That said, Midland was owned by Leitz and under the direction of the Germans. I wish the company still owned the factory.

I too feel 4/3 is a mistake. I do not agree with APS. Kodak /Leica Sensor is better because of lower crop factor. If they produce an R10, it should be full frame. I am less concerned about a full frame M.

[Nemo]

The 28/2 ASPH and 28/2.8 ASPH are quite similar.
The 28/2 ASPH is somewhat better al all apertures. The only remarkable difference is the performance at the borders and corners of the 35mm frame. The M8 sensor has a diagonal of about 32mm, so the center to corner distance is 16mm. Therefore, that difference between these lenses will not be noticiable in practice.

The new 28/2.8 ASPH is similar to one of the best M lenses in Leica catalogue: the 28/2 ASPH, perhaps the best lens with the 50/1,4 ASPH. The new Elmarit 28/2,8 ASPH, looking at the MTF graphs, is better than the 35/2 ASPH and 35/1,4 ASPH at the same apertures. These 35mm lenses are twins, and they are the older ASPH lenses:

50/1,4 ASPH (2004) 75/2 ASPH (2005) 28/2,8 ASPH (2006) Tri-Elmar 16-18-21 ASPH (2006)

35/1,4 "aspherical" (1988) 50/2 ASPH (1989) -Study by Peter Karbe- 35/1,4 ASPH (1994) 21/2,8 ASPH (1997) 35/2 ASPH (1997) Tri-Elmar 28-35-50 ASPH (1998) 24/2,8 ASPH (1998) 90/2 ASPH (1998) 28/2 ASPH (2000) Tri-Elmar 28-35-50 ASPH (2000)

50/1 (1976) 50/2 (1979) 75/1,4 (1980)

Therefore the trend is towards smaller and better performer lenses. The next lens to be revised will be the Summicron 50mm, I guess. The actual technology would allow a much better performer Noctilux keeping the same size.