the r-2 has been the subject of a fair amount of discussion here. the orders must be piling up, right? well . . . i just spoke with schneider optics in ny, the sole usa distributor for voigtlander products. i was told that, as of today, not a single order has been received for any bessa r-2 cameras, despite the fact that they are available for shipment from cosina in japan. not one single order. he told me that schneider may not even begin stocking the camera until orders start coming in -- assuming that ever happens. he told me (and i am only repeating what he said) that anyone selling r-2s in the usa is selling grey cameras that will not be covered by a usa warranty.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), April 22, 2002

Answers

The role/purpose/job or a manufacturer's distributor is to co-promote the product with the manufacturer, and get out there and SELL the product to the market base, and the dealers.

Schneider is not doing this it seems.

-- Charles (cbarcellona@telocity.com), April 22, 2002.

hmm, I talked to a Schneider rep that was visiting a local photo store while I was there a while back. we started talking and i asked about the R2, he said that received 12 early copies that went out in a heart beat and they were expecting to sell quite a few of these. funny how that works...

-- pat (modlabs@yahoo.com), April 22, 2002.

Too sad that it seems Schneider is doing even worse job then THK did. So far it seems that grey market is the only game in town. Stephen Gandy has black R2s in stock and they are selling as hot cakes.

-- Alexander Grekhov (grekhov@wgukraine.com), April 22, 2002.

i talked to the person (steve) in charge of voigtlander products at schneider (i also met him at photoplus east). he was quite clear that not a single camera had been ordered/shipped. as for a distributor's responsibility for advertising, i don't know. i will say that the r-2 is not even on schneider's site (just the r); also, a number of the lens offerings likewise are omitted. i also know that since schneider took over distribution, the number of dealers actually stocking voigtlander in the boston metro area has dropped from ten to zero. needless to say, any schneider filter dealer can order the stuff, but a year ago many stores (hunts, levines, bromfield, n e photo, zeff, newtonville, etc.) actually had a fair amount of the gear on hand. now they are just selling off remaining stocks. several of these dealers told me they thought voigt no longer had a usa distributor -- EVEN THOUGH THESE SAME DEALERS SELL SCHNEIDER (b+w) FILTERS AND SO MUST SEE THE SCHNEIDER REP FROM TIME TO TIME. amazing!! why did thk give it up??? and as for gandy's sales volume ("selling like hotcakes"), i bet he's only sold ten r-2s.

-- roger michel (michel@tcn.org), April 22, 2002.

I think that though we all love the idea of the Voigtlander, not all that many people are buying it, in the grand scheme of things. Here in Canada Voigtlander has been distributed by Gentec Marketing, but they announced last week that, due to poor sales they were dropping the line as of May 1st. I know that where I work (largest independent photo retailer in Western Canada), we've sold 5 or 6 Voigt R bodies since its introduction, and maybe a dozen lenses. Though Leica is used to these sorts of figures, I think most distributors would look at this and laugh. Consider that in the same time period we probably sold 100 or more Cosina bodies in the guise of Nikon FM10, Olympus 2000, etc.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), April 23, 2002.

I have to believe that Voigtlander would be better off selling only body the R-2, as either a screwmount or M-mount. All of the others, the Bessa-L and Bessa T offer too little compared to the R-2, and either cheapen the brand or make it seem like an oddball make rather than a credible contender in the rangefinder market.

-- Chris Henry (henryjc@concentric.net), April 27, 2002.