Today, at the opening of the Twenty First Century Photokina, Leica introduced the 1925 "O" Leica. Think of the engineering effort and capital expenditure put into this piece of useless fake antiquity, instead of developing up-to-date products. If they have no vision of the future, no more Corporate purpose than this, why don't they just close the shop doors and sell the brand name to some Japanese company? I will shed a bitter tear with you.

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), September 18, 2000

Answers

They had all the old tooling, it is not a complicated camera, a grand total of two members of their staff are doing all the production work and they are making a hefty profit! Sounds like a good idea to me.

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), September 18, 2000.

I'm with you both, especially the profit part. But what I want to know is who is going to buy it! Not me. I'd like to see one, though.

-- Tony Rowlett (rowlett@mail.com), September 18, 2000.

When the Besse L came out (of nowhere) it was very retro, but due to the lenses offered it was also usable. 25 and 15mm lenses are not a problem with their extensive depth of field and conservative maximum apertures. When the company wanted to expand the lens line it knew it couldn't just provide a different viewfinder... maybe a slow 35mm lens would be the limit for a none focus confirmed optic.

The new / old Leica has a fifty. It would be fine outdoors at close to infinity, with fast film... but other than an exercise in demonstating how bad things use to be, what is the point? I'm sure they will sell out of them, but I'd bet you won't see them in use... wouldn't want to scratch that future collectable.

My M6 classic gets more valuable to me every year.

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), September 18, 2000.

This is getting ridiculous.

Where is the aperture priority rangefinder? What about a new CLE size body? A rear loading model? A redesigned long base rangefinder with a life size (1.0x) image and high eyepoint? A quieter shutter (Rollei TLR users will know what I mean)? Lighter weight? Focusing tab on the new Summicron?

Something, anything, other than this tomfoolery.

There, I've said it, its out of my system.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), September 18, 2000.

I must admit, I have always been puzzled by the marketing research and product development people at several companies that make products I own, Leica being one of them. Maybe there are those at Leica who are pushing for some really new stuff, and they are running into a big conservative wall. Is the company nearly broke by any chance? My own experience with business is that when a company isn't doing well financially, often they get more conservative with there decisions, which is counter to what is often needed. By the way, I'm still mad at Alfa Romeo (another European company that seems to have never figured out what Americans wanted to buy)for not bringing out a "Miata" 10 years ago. At least you can still buy new Leicas in the States-at least for now.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), September 19, 2000.

I have uploaded some information on Leica Camera AG to my page on photo.net . The information is in .bmp (bitmap) format, for which apologies. The company is losing money, alas.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), September 19, 2000.

When they close the place down and have their garage sale of stuff they find in the backs of drawers I sure don't want to miss it. :-)

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), September 19, 2000.

I think without doubt all us at this site are Leica fans ! Whether we are pro or amateur or both,we are concerned about the way the company is going.I for one will add Voigtlander lens or two for ones stolen.I cannot justify Leica prices...dont work for National Geographic etc..so for price of badly worn,really old Leica lens can have new very good lens.The company worries too much about collectors.They are not photographers but a blemish on the landscape.Badge engineering is sad but fact of life...the compacts.The Hunchback of Solms (R8) is awful.For those of you requiring a camera for quick work,most pro jobs these days,everybody in a hurry,no patience,I am considering, touching,holding a modern auto-everything camera.I hate being dependent on batteries but fact of life.I have Pentax equipment that has worked very hard with no problems.Also old.Leica needs to build a simpler RNGFDR and a more complex SLR.Rolex watches was going way of Dodo bird till they saw the light.A huge success story for small company.

-- jason gold (jason1155234@webtv.net), September 19, 2000.

The O-series seems like a sound business decision to me. Minimal investment, predictable sales revenue to Leica history buffs and collectors.

Leica has always done well with their "special model" M cameras. People always ridicule these, but I don't have a problem with them. Even though I'll never buy one, I'm a Leica M user and I'm glad that they exist, are helping to keep the company viable, and are providing R&D funding for new M-series optics and other improvements. The same logic applies to the O-series.

The O-series is a fairly radical departure from the special M models, though, and I'm a bit confused why anyone would consider this to be "conservative".

I've already made my last point in another thread, but I'll repeat it here: if the O-series does well, and additional Barnack-type cameras are produced including interchangeable lens models, then Leica will end up producing new screw-mount lenses. Thinks about that for a minute. O-series customers will buy them. Bessa-R and T981 customers will buy them. And thousands of owners of Canon 7s, Leica IIIc,f,g and other LTM cameras will buy them. If any of them are unique, then Leica M owners will also buy them.

If you're not interested in the O-series, fine. I don't intend to buy one either. But I don't see how making a profit on the O-series is going to send the Leica company into bankruptcy.

-- Joe Buechler (jbuechler@toad.net), September 19, 2000.

I don't know about sound business decision, it's beginning to look like what Rollei did to the TLR line. Rather than produce a new model that would sell well (I would have bought one to replace an old Rollei TLR I replaced with a Mamiya 7), they produce one commerative edition after another. You know, exotic animal skins, gold, names of special events, one after another.

The big indicator of the collector's market dominating that I have seen came when I went out looking for a beater M6 and couldn't find one. Given how long the camera has been around, it was surprising that I couldn't find one that was well-used. Everything was in top- notch condition. Pro SLR models that came out two years ago are available in beat-up condition. It reflects use, rather than collecting. Now I know some of the people on this board use their cameras, but it doesn't look like a lot of people do.

-- Jeff Spirer (jeff@spirer.com), September 19, 2000.

Jeff,

Don't overlook the other possibility... the one that applies to me. I have no confidence to trade in my 1988 classic M6 for a new camera. My camera would be considered in the category you are looking for, but it is mechanically perfect. I have my doubts that a replacement would be. This is just my opinion, so don't flame me, but I believe the 1988 Leica was a different company than it is now. If the web is any indicator, many others feel the same. The cameras you are looking for are being horded... by users.

Al

-- Al Smith (smith58@msn.com), September 19, 2000.

My post and page are misleading as they represent year old information. Leica Camera has indeed turned the corner and made a small profit for the year 1999/2000 (not shown on my page). Good news indeed, and my sincere apologies for misleading anyone. Up to date corporatate information, as Robin correctly points out is available at

www.leica-camera.de

Notwithstanding which I agree with several of the comments in this and the other related thread.

-- Mani Sitaraman (bindumani@pacific.net.sg), September 19, 2000.

Al

1988 I am not so sure about - the early nineties showed a lot of good new M lenses coming on stream and much reinvestment. However, I think that no one would argue that the Leitz of, say, 1962 was very different from today. The relevance of the Leica in photography has undoubtedly slipped as has the German camera/optics industry in general. I do to a certain extent agree with you though with respect to Jeff's point. Surely the lack of good users means that people are still using them and don't want to give them up? This is the way with good Leicas used by photographers who actually take photographs with them. There is little point in "upgrading" to a newer Leica as many users of screw mounts and M3/M2 will assert. If you have an M6 - why should you sell it - what else would you buy?

Leica produced 1972 special Munich Olympic models so the "special issues" have been around at least as long as this. If the special issues help keep the company in business then I am all in favor of it.

-- Robin Smith (rsmith@springer-ny.com), September 22, 2000.

If you thought the "O" camera was crazy, get a load of this. At Photokina, Minox (which is now said to be a division of Leica) announced a 1/3 scale copy of the Leica IIIf with a three element lens which uses Minox cassettes. Are they out of their little cotton- pickin' minds?

-- Bill Mitchell (bmitch@home.com), September 22, 2000.

"Are they out of their little cotton- pickin' minds?"

Maybe. But in regard to the Minox IIIf, apparently not. From what I've heard this is one popular little camera. Go figure.

-- Rob Schneider (robslaurat@earthlink.net), October 26, 2000.

1) The name "Leica" has already being sold by Ernst Leitz to a company in Switzerland. "Leica" is a Swiss company, which sells from electronic microscope to GPS system, Leica-Camera group is a spin off from Leica of Switzerland. 2) Leica IIIf 8x11 is a big hit, selling like hotcake, it is a money maker for Leica, like to Beetle for VW. Some times retro is a great marketing tool.

-- martin tai (martin.tai@capcanada.com), October 27, 2000.