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I never quite understood Leica. The quality of their products is undoubtedly extremely high, I won't try to deny that and they deserve credit for decades of exc
by VeejayRampay 11y ago
I never quite understood Leica. The quality of their products is undoubtedly extremely high, I won't try to deny that and they deserve credit for decades of excellence in the field.
But as the owner of a Voigtländer R4A coupled with a Nokton 35mm f/1.4 (bought for a total of $1200, which was quite the investment for me) I can't help but be amazed by how much it would have cost me to buy the Leica equivalent (5 times that amount). It's quite obvious looking at the results that Leica does not offer that superior a result for that hefty price (and even though I know that it's a tad simplistic to reason in those terms, it certainly wouldn't have bought me 5 times the quality).
Leica reminds me of Apple, it's all about status and perceived value. Hats off to them for reaching that lucrative niche market.
- bryanrasmussen 11y agoIf I were wealthy (let us say the 1%) I would probably pay 10 times the price for double the quality, because at that level the value of money is not that great because one is oversupplied with it.
- fennecfoxen 11y agoYou might also pay that much if you shot photos professionally, instead of as an amateur like most of HN probably does.
- ska 11y agoEspecially for build quality, if it is a daily tool. Professionals are mostly likely to be more objective about what they need and are buying, if they view it as a tool (in my experience, at least).
- bryanrasmussen 11y agoexactly, there are scenarios in which even very small improvements in quality of a product will be worth a great increase in price to the target market. another situation would be a serious hobbyist, that is to say taking photos is their main enjoyment away from work. They might be willing to spend a lot more even with small benefit.
- VeejayRampay 11y agoWhile I understand the sentiment, the thing is you do NOT get twice the Bessa's quality when purchasing a Leica camera. Hard to quantify, but it's probably more in the 1.2x range.
- jayvanguard 11y agoYes, definitely not double. In fact, they aren't actually better than other top end competitors, they are just a bit different, which gives enough wiggle room for fanboys to claim something "magical". http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Leica-M-review-How-does-the-new-24-megapixel-CMOS-sensor-in-Leica-s-latest-rangefinder-perform/Leica-M-versus-competition http://www.dxomark.com/Reviews/Leica-M-review-How-does-the-n... That said, I really like the manual focus tabs on the lenses and the mechanism on the Q looks interesting. The Q is also newer so likely has a few improvements, but in general Leica has always been a bit behind the likes of Nikon, Sony, and Fuji in terms of electronics and firmware. Where they win is build quality.
- pepve 11y ago> it's all about status and perceived value Yet the author of this post taped off the lettering to make it look like a generic camera.
- michrassena 11y agoTaping the logo is an anti-theft measure.
- greggman 11y agoHere in Asia Leica is sold in high end fashion malls, not in the photography equipment or electronics area of town. In fact in Japan there's a Leica counter in the men's fashion accessories area of Mitsukoshi Mens in Ginza. In Hong Kong there's one in Harbour City, a high end fashion mall. In Singapore there's one in ION Orchard, another fashion mall. Where as if you want any other brand of camera in all those cities you go to the electronics area of town. Akihabara or Shinjuku's Yodobashi Camera in Japan, Mong Kok in HK, Sim Lim or Funan Digitallife Mall in SG In other words, Leica themselves are positioning their cameras as fashion accessories. Something to show you have $$$$$$
- rogeryu 11y agoIf I were Leica and I could sell my camera as accessory in a fashion mall, why not? This tells me more about the people shopping there, than about Leica. It's probably not Leica positioning themselves there, but some smart business people seeing good margins.
- jdietrich 11y agoThe market for luxury fashion items is a lot bigger than the market for specialist cameras.
- slantyyz 11y agoI notice the more serious Leica shooters, especially street photogs, tape the lettering. Probably to stay inconspicuous to both their subjects and watchful thieves. IIRC, Leica has a couple of recent models where the red dot has been removed from the face of the camera. I'm guessing most status shooters leave the face untouched to show the world that they're using a Leica.
- ska 11y agoCamera's, like many complex to produce object, suffer badly from the effect of economy of scale. This way you end up paying far more for incremental improvements. Think of the price curve in, say a 50mm prime from 1.8, to 1.4, to 1.2 (and beyond). You can end up with 10x the cost, not because you are getting something objectively 10x better, but because relatively few are made. If the extra couple of stops really buy you something, or you love the optics, and you can pay the 10x, maybe you will (build quality is in there somewhere).
- danielvf 11y agoThis is true. Though, a Canon 50mm 1.2L is ludicrously bigger than a 50mm 1.8. You might actually be paying the same per pound of glass. (Okay, so one weighs 4oz, and the other 14oz)
- cromulent 11y agoWell, for me Apple is nothing about status nor perceived value. I'm just much more productive using their laptops than others. Cover it in black paint, same result. And once you are looking for high-end laptops, the margin is not such a big thing, really. But yeah, Leica gear is out of the question for me (and most others I would guess), price-wise.
- vinay427 11y agoAt least for me, productivity on laptops is very high after a large initial hurdle when using something like Arch Linux, for instance. In my grade school days I spent a good amount of time familiarizing myself with package managers, desktop environments, etc. and now that I have found an ideal setup (i3 WM) I've stuck with it for years. I find my system is faster due to the lighter environment, more consistent on a day-to-day level due to no automatic updates, and more flexible if I ever need to change my workflow. Additionally, with Linux I more feel like I'm working with most developer tooling rather than against. Given the downsides of traveling this road, I wouldn't recommend it to many people, however.
- skykooler 11y agoI think avoiding that large initial hurdle is a large part of Apple's value.
- thebaer 11y agoIt's absolutely valuable if Mac / OS X is your first and only computing environment. But the hurdle comes when you work in multiple desktop environments, and everything else works similarly enough except for your Mac.
- swah 11y agoYeah, I hate their shortcuts. I'm actually selling mine because of this, and just run Windows+Linux. (I use Windows at work)
- dombili 11y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good
- michrassena 11y agoWhat I was going to say. I've heard Leicas more than once called dentists' cameras. Edit: No disrespect to dentists intended.
- _ph_ 11y agoLeica is certainly very expensive. But I have both the Voigtländer 40/1.4 and the Leica 50/1.4. The 40 is a very nice lens and certainly the better bang for the buck. On the other side it is very clear that the 50 is the technical superior lens. It has a lot more contrast, especially wide open, and is the sharper lens. And as some photos in the article show, Leica lenses have a special way of rendering an image. Is this worth the extra you pay for a Leica lens? Everyone has to decide for himself. But when I see people spending more money on a set of fancy rims for their car, I rather have the Leica lens.
- rogeryu 11y ago> Leica reminds me of Apple, it's all about status and perceived value. For me Apple stands for high quality products that really work. Just recently I sold a 7 year old Macbook for 250 euro. Back then it was the cheapest aluminium Macbook for about 1200 euro. The aluminium body was as new. I don't know any other laptop that looks like new after seven years of heavy use. Let alone that you can get 20% of the value back. Take a look at the built quality: the body, keyboard, touchpad, power connector - this is design that works. It works for me at least, and I can't imagine that all these people I see nowadays with their really expensive laptops and iphones, that they still buy if for status. Take my iPods. The first one, first generation touch, is still working as music player. The second broke after five years of living in my jeans with heat and cold, sweat and rain. I've used my first Mac, a G4 desktop, for 9 years. All these were relatively expensive products, but totally worth the money.
- ekianjo 11y ago> Let alone that you can get 20% of the value back. Then you have never heard of Thinkpads. > Take my iPods. The first one, first generation touch, is still working as music player. Lucky if the battery is not dead. If it is, you need to bring it to an Apple Store to replace it. Perfect design.
- reitoei 11y agoOut of curiosity, how many power adapters did you get though with the Macbook Pro?
- mikestew 11y agoNot the parent, but I've still got a MBP adapter that has to be at least seven years old, and it still get regular use. Out of the four or five MBP/Airs between the wife and I, we've never had a power adapter go bad. We also don't have contests to see who can wrap the wires of the adapter the tightest with the tightest loops, so that might have some bearing on our results.
- zippergz 11y agoFWIW, I don't recall ever having to replace a modern-style Mac power adapter. I had one of the early first generation Magsafe ones fail, but the later ones of those have lasted years, and so far all of the second-generation (thin) Magsafe ones are fine too. Pre-magsafe I went through a lot.
- melted 11y agoWrong on several counts: 1. Their digital bodies are garbage (that's how they're different from Apple). I owned an M9 and between its crappy sensor and faux leather peeling off, I was not impressed at all. The only good thing about that camera was the rangefinder. 2. Their lenses, on the other hand, really have no equal in the industry, and as the very best they rightfully command a steep premium. I had two: 50mm and 35mm Summiluxes. They really put everything else to shame, and they most certainly do offer a superior result. What other f/1.4 lenses do you know of that can be actually used at f/1.4 without significant resolution loss or veiling? OK, nowadays there's Zeiss Otus at 55mm, but it's also not cheap and it's three times the size. Add to that also that Leica lenses are extremely well made and compact, and you'll see why people are willing to part with large quantities of cash to own them.
- vvanders 11y agoI'd argue if you're using Canon's 35mm F1.4 at anything other than F1.4 you're wasting a lot of money. I hear the v2 rev is also very sharp compared to the original. Although I find the rendering of the original quite good enough.
- brudgers 11y agoTo a first approximation, $1200 probably sounds like "too much to pay" for a camera to the same number of people that $5000 does. We all have our baseline for what a camera "should" cost...and somewhere, I suspect, someone is thinking "$1200? I can get a DSLR for $500!" and to that "I will just use my phone, thank you very much." One of the things about Lecia is that it supports it's customers and will repair their cameras. Nobody fixes Coolpix L11's.