Re: [Leica] The Leica Brick

["Paul T. Collura" <pcollura@epix.net>]

Bill Erfurth wrote:


> If Herr Cohn ever wants to get rid of this mill-stone from around
> Leica's neck, he is going to have to take decisive action and cut the
> retail price another $300 and immediately implement a universal world
> wide 5 year guarantee.__________________________________________________
>

Mark Rabiner wrote:

> The problem when you make things cheap is nobody wants it.
> If people want AF you can't give them a manual focus camera, its going to end up
> rusting in the backyard next to the old Chevy.

I think both Bill and Mark have valid points.  There is  definite price resistance to a
$2000.00 camera body to which one must add lenses that average another $2000.00 a pop.  I
know many individuals that could affords these expenditures but would not spend that kind
of money on camera gear when there are cheaper reasonable quality alternatives. However, a
price reduction with longer guarantee should stimulate more sales and increase the user
base for R lenses.   The point Mark makes which is valid is that you cannot force manual
focus on an increasing AF world.  The R8 is a specialist's camera and the market for this
type of equipment is diminishing each year.  Even at half the price I don't think that
those who truly want AF Canon EOS or Nikon systems are going to be persuaded to buy Leica
MF instead.

Lets be honest. The R8 will never sell in big volumes and Leica will have to adapt to AF at
some point to stay competitive in the SLR market.  They could continue to sell two lines
- -perhaps the R8/ 6.2 manual focus system and the new AF R9 (or whatever it may be called).
This is probably best done in collaboration with Minolta or some other "partner".

Paul