denoir wrote:
Carsten, good summary, but that begs the question of what market segment Leica is aiming at.
See, I am not really sure that they know... It sounds a bit strange, but I get the feeling that marketing at Leica has always consisted on relying on the fact that there are people out there with enough money and appreciation for a quality product that they can somehow sell whatever they build. They are right, of course, but it probably isn't optimal. When you see their ads, the often don't feel like they are targeting the same people year after year. Zeiss is much better at marketing.
Zeiss is a different story. The lower income bracket of the Leica market segment is the upper or mid bracket of the Zeiss market segment. A Leica lens (the Summarits being an exception) is designed for optical performance and not price. A Zeiss lens is designed both for optical performance and price. Zeiss camera division is ten times as big as Leica camera division and they are playing the game differently.
Are you including motion camera lenses? If not, I would be surprised if you were right. ZM/ZF/ZE products are still niche, and the ZI doesn't sell fast.
Actually, Leica lenses *are* built to a price, but a significantly higher one than Zeiss. The Noctilux 50/1 was cancelled at some point due to the high cost of the glass, and I think maybe the 75 Lux as well.
charles.K wrote:
Historically, Luka you are correct, as there was a succint group that purchased the M series. I would suggest the M9 is being now acquired by a wide range of people, of different socio economic backgrounds.
Yes, very true. I think that a tiny bit of off-centre marketing and a lot of word of mouth and viral trends have made the Leica popular again. I hope it lasts, but it isn't quite clear where the push comes from. I see people saving for an M9 who would be stretched to buy a D700 cash... It is a great camera, but sometimes I wonder if people don't expect too much. It is, after all, still only a camera, and will primarily reflect the skill of the user.
Also, next week I hope to have some shots with 35 Summilux Asph II, which just arrived in Melbourne this morning
Hey, congratulations! Benches and ducks please!
My participation in this thread will be a bit delayed, as my Sigma 50/1.4 arrived yesterday, and I am spending next week in Paris (for work; I hope to find one or two free nights to go see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Louvre (from the outside) and La Defense) and will bring the Nikon, ZF21, Sigma 50 and 100MP, as well as a robust monopod, just in case.
carstenw wrote:
Yes, very true. I think that a tiny bit of off-centre marketing and a lot of word of mouth and viral trends have made the Leica popular again. I hope it lasts, but it isn't quite clear where the push comes from. I see people saving for an M9 who would be stretched to buy a D700 cash... It is a great camera, but sometimes I wonder if people don't expect too much. It is, after all, still only a camera, and will primarily reflect the skill of the user.
Hey, congratulations! Benches and ducks please!
My participation in this thread will be a bit delayed, as my Sigma 50/1.4 arrived yesterday, and I am spending next week in Paris (for work; I hope to find one or two free nights to go see the Eiffel Tower, Notre Dame, Louvre (from the outside) and La Defense) and will bring the Nikon, ZF21, Sigma 50 and 100MP, as well as a robust monopod, just in case....Show more →
I think Leica having in effect produced a FF compact camera, satisfied a niche, that has been ignored by the majors. This was so evident, when Fuji announced the X100. It was almost a relief by so many serious photographers, that a camera manufacturer was listening and produced a camera that went back to the basics but with a modern twist. I do think if Leica had not produced a FF version with the M9, their market share would have remained static. The M9 is kick starting sales of second hand M8's and other M bodies.
Thank you Have a great trip and do post shots along the way. It will be tough
I will post shots with the 35 Lux II hopefully in the next few days The delay is that I have sent it to the Camera Clinic, making sure the calibration is spot on.
charles.K wrote:
Ashwin can make lenses look great, but it is interesting to getting a feel for the images, as more 35 Lux II's are becoming available. The true test whether the lens suits, is really to try it.
Yes, I agree. And it usually takes some time. I personally require on average a month of intense shooting with a lens before I start feeling that I know it. It usually begins that I see some sample images that intrigue me and after I get the lens I use it exclusively for an extended period. That has not been my approach with the M9 lenses as I wanted to quickly build a kit. According to my LR database my currently most used lens is the 75 Cron and the least used the 25 Biogon. The reason is simple - the 25 Biogon is a classic Zeiss and I'm already familiar with that. The 75 Cron on the other hand is a completely new experience and I really wanted to like it and to understand what all the fuss around Leica glass was. Subsequently I've used it pretty intensely and it has in fact grown on me. It's still far from being a favorite but I also feel I need more time with it.
Ducks are good luck... have not found too many yet, but plenty of sea gulls
Hmm, is there really such a shortage of ducks in Australia? I have actually never been Down Under and will have to remedy that one day. I have however duck shots from among other places Ghana, South Africa, Japan, Brazil etc
charles.K wrote:
Thanks Kid There are some excellent copies around, if you are patient! I wasn't patient, but I was lucky
Some more shots from yesterday with the 75 Lux
The girl looks the same as the other shots. Was this from the same day, or does she follow you around and let you take photos of her??
Nice shots again BTW.
Also seen Ashwin's 35 shots, some good stuff.. Thanks for posting.
Oh and kidtexas, I actually ran into ZoomP (guy who did the 50 test) at a lens shop 3 weeks back, nice guy... He tried talking me into getting the 75 CV 1.8, since he was loving his so much.. I rarely visit my local forums, unless I'm trying to buy or sell something! Maybe I should read up on other M users from time to time, so thanks for posting that!
denoir, I liked your first tall grass shot, interesting bokeh up close.
carstenw wrote:
Yes, very true. I think that a tiny bit of off-centre marketing and a lot of word of mouth and viral trends have made the Leica popular again.
It also appears that there were a lot of older photographers who used to have an M (or some other small manual focus 35mm film camera) as an auxiliary camera that have since moved to digital. They had to leave that auxiliary camera behind, or still use their film one. There really hasn't been a satisfying small, high quality digital camera that can fully compete more or less head to head with the high quality full-frame dSLRs until the M9 came out. Ditto for manual focus cameras as well.
Sure there have been some great small digital cameras, but again, either the quality does quite match up with a full-frame dSLR, or the interface is hampered in some way.
adamdewilde wrote:
Oh and kidtexas, I actually ran into ZoomP (guy who did the 50 test) at a lens shop 3 weeks back, nice guy... He tried talking me into getting the 75 CV 1.8, since he was loving his so much.. I rarely visit my local forums, unless I'm trying to buy or sell something! Maybe I should read up on other M users from time to time, so thanks for posting that!
I found that through RFF, or some other site. Don't remember where.
Honestly, while this is a nice community, if you want info and discussion on non-Canon and Nikon digital SLRs, I've found that there are much better places to discuss some of this stuff. It is certainly interesting to discuss some of it here to get a different perspective, but for some things, there's no need to reinvent the wheel. When it comes to talking about the merits of different RF lenses (relative to other RF lenses, not necessarily SLR ones), RFF, l-camera-forum, and perusing the flickr M-mount group can be really helpful. RFF is particularly good if you want to start digging into some of the older lenses for M. When talking film, RFF, APUG, or photo.net are pretty good.
I'm not saying that this thread should be closed It's a good one. Just that there are other resources out there...
Datum Status
19.11.2010 Service order registered on
22.11.2010 Quotation sent on
22.11.2010 In repair
24.11.2010 Repair completed
25.11.2010 Shipment in process.
I got an email from the camera shop with a UPS tracking number. Apparently they upgraded my repair to an express repair, free of charge. Express repair is something they don't usually offer for issues covered by warranty.
Sounds great. Keep in mind though that on the rare occasion, equipment has come back without all issues fixed. I hope this isn't the case here, but the possibility exists. My 50 Lux ASPH had to go back 3 times!
Yes, I'm aware of that but I'm hoping for the best. I don't think they could mess up the rangefinder calibration, it's such a simple operation and one that they should have a lot of experience with. That is the most important part. The second issue was the front focusing of the 75 Cron, which is important and finally the third issue was that it focuses slightly beyond infinity at the mechanical stop. That last one is the least important as it is trivial to compensate for. If they have not fixed that then I'll wait until January, until after I come back from Egypt before I send it in again.
After testing it on the newly calibrated M9 I'll have to send my 50 Sonnar to Zeiss for front focus distance calibration at f/1.5 (it's optimized for f/2.8). I should also probably send in the 35/2 Biogon as there is play in the focus ring (perpendicular to the rotational movement), but I might wait with that as well.
Finally, I can also pick up my 18/4 Distagon + optical viewfinder that is waiting for me in a camera shop.
I will be curious to know how the ZM18 turns out. I wanted to buy one, since it has a good reputation on the M8 with the Leica 18 coding, but I wasn't so sure about the quality of the corrections on the M9.
Yeah, I'm a bit worried about the corrections as well. I'll first try to code it as an 18mm Leica and if that doesn't work well enough then I'll try to make an automated workflow with CornerFix.
Completely unrelated, but I got some prints of M9 images back today. I was very positively surprised. They were excellent - two sizes (700 x 1000 mm and 505 x 755 mm) and image quality is really high. You somehow don't realize what kind of resolution these cameras pack until you do a large print. Anyway, I was impressed.
carstenw wrote:
Are you including motion camera lenses? If not, I would be surprised if you were right. ZM/ZF/ZE products are still niche, and the ZI doesn't sell fast.
Probably. Leica Camera AG has 1,000 employees while Zeiss AG has 14,000 employees. The latter includes all of Zeiss while Leica has its microscope and geosystems as separate companies. As for ZE sales, I can't find the source but I've read somewhere that they are selling as many lenses for Canon as Sigma is. People using the Canons for video seem to prefer Zeiss over Canon.
Speaking of other uses, I remembered now that I'm actually a long time Leica rangefinder user. Laser rangefinder that is. I got a Leica D5 more than a year ago when I was redecorating (I used the Leica for measuring distances for a CAD model of my apartment).
joakim wrote:
A cat sitting on a bench, that's placed in front off a brick wall , looking at a duck = test shooter nirvana? Or will it be a system overload?
i'm pretty sure i have couple of those, i've avoided uploading them though because i'm afraid it might cause the internet to implode.
h00ligan wrote:
Wow,that repair was very ast, maybe they are listening to complaints. I decided to send the x1 in after thanksgiving..no point before.
Maybe they know that if it doesn't arrive back in time for his trip all hell will break loose on this board. Perhaps someone at Leica has realized that Luka probably has just as much of a halo effect on Leica sales through this thread as he probably has had for Zeiss sales on the Zeiss thread (and of course here as well).
Luka, thank you for the excellent shots of the ducks!!!
Good news about the quick turnaround with your gear
Adam, the shots were all on the one evening! I find with the M9, people really are not perturbed while you take shots. In the case the Mexican father with this young daughter in the rock pool, I made sure I connected and had his approval. After, I gave him a card with the website, where he can order a copy if he so wishes. This is the elegance of the zenfolio site, unobtrusive and people can order all sorts of products, while you maintain privacy by giving them a password to access a page.
This not the intent why I take photos, but it does allow for me to share with random people the oppurtunity to have photos for themselves afterwards.
Adam, you are welcome, there are some very nice shots with the 35 Summilux Asph II, that are appearing now.
Kidtexas, I am with there here, there is a vast amount of experience and information with RF's in the different forums. I find am learning something new every day from people who have had direct experiences and frustrations with a diversity of RF's.
carstenw wrote:
I will be curious to know how the ZM18 turns out. I wanted to buy one, since it has a good reputation on the M8 with the Leica 18 coding, but I wasn't so sure about the quality of the corrections on the M9.
With the WATE coding I still get a little red-edge and apparently you do with the 18mm Elmar coding as well. The ideal coding is the 21 elmarit-asph I have been told.
I have a full set of essentially perfect (corrects the whole frame to neutrality) profiles for cornerfix, taken at every aperture (assuming you shoot ISO160) at infinity with this lens.
If you shoot at other ISO's you may have to dial up the amount of luminance vignetting correction because the built in corrections do less to luminance vignetting as you increase ISO. If you decide to get one and code it as the WATE send me a PM and I'll email you the profiles.
rscheffler wrote:
Maybe they know that if it doesn't arrive back in time for his trip all hell will break loose on this board. Perhaps someone at Leica has realized that Luka probably has just as much of a halo effect on Leica sales through this thread as he probably has had for Zeiss sales on the Zeiss thread (and of course here as well).
, Hehe, thanks for the confidence Ron but if Leica has been following this thread it would be more reasonable for me to expect an assassination attempt rather than kindness. I have not exactly been uncritical of their stuff
charles.K wrote:
Luka, thank you for the excellent shots of the ducks!!!
Good news about the quick turnaround with your gear
Thanks Charles. I'll probably pick it up later today.
Adam, you are welcome, there are some very nice shots with the 35 Summilux Asph II, that are appearing now.
Yep, there are some nice ones. I'm actually starting to regret that I did not get it when I had the chance. Next time perhaps.
Have a great trip and do post shots along the way. It will be tough 
, Hehe, thanks for the confidence Ron but if Leica has been following this thread it would be more reasonable for me to expect an assassination attempt rather than kindness.