Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1996/10/05
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 02:30 PM 10/5/96 BST-1, you wrote: >In-Reply-To: <32561915.7057@pi.net> >Bert wrote: > >> > This just isn't true, you can count the number of manufacturers of >> > high >> > refractive index and other specialist glasses on the fingers of one >> > mitten, and the German lens manufacturers use the same sources as >> > everyone else. Nikon in particular have been innovative in their use >> > of >> > such materials in their 'serious' lens designs (though I accept that >> > these days they make a lot of price-driven crap). >> >> Sorry David, but I've got to disagree with you. Japanese companies >> design >> and manufacture lenses for specific parts (amateur/pro) of the market. >> They decide what kind of lens to make and then set a price for that >> lens. Leica reverses this, they make a lens and after that they >> calculate the price. Japanese companies work this way because they have >> compete with each other. Erwin Puts, a Dutch Leica specialist put it >> this way: >> >> Nikon competes with Canon, Minolta competes with Pentax, but Leica >> competes with Leica. > >I've been lens shopping recently, and while my list isn't comprehensive >because it includes only those lenses I'm interested in at present (for >various reasons), if we compare Leica R lenses with their closest Nikon >MF equivalents we get an interesting picture: > >(all prices in UK pounds) > Leica R Nikon MF Difference >35mm f1.4 2116 990 214% >85mm f1.4 2100 1090 93% > >and this would tend to support your thesis, although I would suggest that >economies of scale are quite large enough to explain the difference. > >However if we look further down the list: > > Leica R Nikon MF Difference >400mm f2.8 9980 8760 14% >80-200mm f4 1400 1200 17% > >which hardly lends credence to your 'designed without a thought for the >price' argument, does it? > >Indeed I would suggest that the price points show that Leica are >*directly* competing with Nikon in this area. And once they've chosen to >compete, they will be blown by the same economic winds which affect every >other manufacturing company. > > I took a course at the Leica School some years ago, and one of the teachers, in answer to this sort of question, said that Nikon and Canon produce some excellent lenses, and they can produce lenses as good as Leica's if they are committed to spending the money. In what you say, the case is made: on the complex flagship teles that pros need, Nikon and Canon do spend the money. On a 50 mm. low-end lens, they don't--so you get a low-quality, poorly built piece. Others fit somewhere in between. Of course, in all this, as you say, you have to make allowances for economy of scale (I don't expect Nikon sells a whole lot of 400 2.8's, so prices get closer). Charles E. Love, Jr. 517 Warren Place Ithaca, New York 14850 607-272-7338 CEL14@CORNELL.EDU