adamdewilde
Offline
• • • • •
Upload & Sell: Off
|
My take on Leica has remained the same for the last three years now.. But it's just getting more dire now that Sony's really starting to round out the FF lineup on the A7 series cameras. Which means consumers will be able to shoot in a format that is familiar to them (FF - I say familiar, but I mean hyped by marketing) and with lenses that cover a wide range of needs. But in a small package.
Luxury brands only really work if the people that buy them actually see a status value in using them (be it a purse, camera, watch, etc). And usually the prices have to be very high, and the production costs very low. For a company to reach that point. Their are tricks some companies use.. If you take Hermes, they've stopped giving out Bikins since 2010, and now in order to get one, you have to spend an undisclosed amount at their store on a variety of things that one doesn't usually associate with the brand (plates, mugs, blankets, chairs etc).. Before they'll offer you a status symbol bag. A brand like LV which is still doing extremely well. They spend a fortune on advertising, but bags run between $2k-$10k and the cost of them building a bag is in the $50 range and they pump them out QUICKLY. Another thing about being a luxury brand.. You REALLY need to bend over backwards for your customer, and make them feel as if you're treating them better then anyone else treats them. Leica doesn't really have this down, it's quite the opposite in fact.
For a tech company, R&D costs are expensive, REALLY expensive. That's a lot of coin that eats into the production costs, thus a lot less money that can be spent on relevant status building advertising. So if Leica wants to be a luxury brand, they need to stop innovating and start doing what Hasselblad does with Sony camera bodies.
In my opinion, Leica has two options (feel free to call me crazy):
1) Go off their rocker, create uber expensive crappy products and have no R&D costs thus no innovation. It might work if they have a strong advertising team. And have strong brand tie-ins.
2) Design more affordable camera lines, but still maintain quality and a slight price premium on lenses.
Two ways I've thought this would work:
1) A Mirrorless full frame RF (call it digital-RF). Very similar design, slightly lighter and a lot cheaper. Cheap enough to draw people into the brand with say a summicron lens, then later as people get hooked, they spend more on M lenses. But you have to make the camera look like the Leica M (this is important).
2) Keep innovating with RF bodies (but keep it a core values body, where the innovation is image quality centric). If we can get 4k video as a side thought, great.. But actual R&D dollars should be spent on core values. The digital-RF can share the RF body sensor. This will keep the die-hard fans happy. And this body shouldn't be upgraded so dramatically. All we really need is a better sensor every few years. We don't need huge jumps in bells and whistles.
3) Revamp all of the Leica M lenses for AF. Have a mirrorless AF-M body. Start with a few key lenses, summicrons maybe (but don't create new lenses). Don't release until there are at least 5 converted M lenses on launch date. And price is reasonable (for Leica).. Not like the S-system.
The reason I think this would work. The people who want top quality and the RF experience will stick with their M lenses and just keep getting the best RF bodies. Those people will also probably start to age and have worse eyesight, and might get the digital-RF until they really just have to buy themselves the AF-M body and a set of AF-M lenses. I hear tons of stories from M users who have switched to Sony due to failing health.
People drawn to Leica, but in need of AF, will go for the AF-M bodies, and the ones who get "good deals" on RF-M lenses, will be drawn into the RF and Digital-RF world.
With the AF-M bodies and lenses.. Their will be no debate of image quality, as you know and love the lenses already from RF shooting.
And yes they kind of did this with the T system, but let's face it.. Through marketing hype ect. APS-C gets a pretty bad rep, and it seems as if Leica is neglecting APS-C lenses. A M-AF set of lenses (there are already so many M lenses that can be adapted and Leica can easily turn them to AF). They recased most of their designs with their Cine Line.
Anyway, crazy rant, but makes sense in my mind.
|
