During the 1970's Leica and Minolta had a collaboration together with the lower end rangefinders (very good quality) with the CL and CLE models as well as the R3-R5 model designs. Now that it's nearly 2 decades after the collaboration, which company benefited more in your opinion from this business partnership--Leica or Minolta?

-- Albert Wang (albert.wang@ibx.com), October 09, 2001

Answers

totally baseless speculation here, but i think they both benefitted quite a bit: leica needed a marketable slr badly at the time, and the minolta partnership made this possible. it wasn't an earthshaking success but it was a big boost in an era when the m5 was struggling to hold up its end of the bargain. minolta got a tremendous image benefit, which had to have a lasting effect in the marketability of their own products.

minolta probably gained more in cash terms, but it was probably more significant to leica, who otherwise might not have been around to move on to the m6 and other later advances.

rick :)=

-- Rick Oleson (rick_oleson@yahoo.com), October 09, 2001.

By category:

Prestige? Minolta -It was a tremendous boost to Minolta's image.

Profit? Minolta - Minolta made more money on CLs than Leica did.

Rangefinder cameras? Minolta The CL singlehandedly stopped all rangefinder production in 1974. Only by moving production to Canada was the M camera saved.

SLR cameras? Leica - I know the SL2 was a wonderful camera (I own one) but Leica lost money on every one sold. The Minolta derived R cameras saved their bacon.

Cheers,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@powersurfr.com), October 09, 2001.

Sounds good. At least I guess that I wouldn't worry when I'm using my Minolta Maxxum 5xi now :) :)

cheers too, Alfie

-- Alfie Wang (albert.wang@ibx.com), October 11, 2001.

Leica undoubtedly gained the most - new electronics and lenses. Minolta got little as they folded the CLE themselves despite its nice reviews. I think the link up with Leica was and is small fry for Minolta - I think they had visions of their own electronic M cameras selling like hotcakes, to find that the r/f market is small and insignificant compared to SLRs in volume. Leica also thought their CL would deepen the market too - it did but it just reduced their revenue as people voted with their wallets. This is why Leica will not produce a "cheaper" Leica M body again. VC/Cosina are trying to do this anew - maybe it will work for them, maybe not, the jury is out.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), October 16, 2001.