[Leica] Sony cleans up; takes no prisoners.

[hopsternew at gmail.com (Geoff Hopkinson)]

Gary I've seen your work of course and there is no question that you can and
do produce professional results irrespective of equipment.
In my view Olympus reacted to market expectation. They entered the dSLR
market with innovative and different designs but the majority of customers
preferred more conventional forms for their dSLRs. Now they are much more
successful and their E620 for example looks to represent excellent value.
Technical excellence alone won't sell cameras, they need to be what the
customers want. Of course all of that is between Olympus and their
customers. I guess that you are active somewhere there in representing your
views?

In my view all of that applies even more so for M cameras and really their
position in the market place is still consistent, just as it's been since
Rangefinders were sidelined by the advent of the SLR.

There are many many other options if you want or need the whole range of
capabilities that a dSLR offers. The little sub-group of people who want
M's  want them to be exactly that. It is doubtless simplistic but probably
the best example of that in Leica Camera history is the M5.

I can imagine your frustration when your Leica rep said "Zat is not en
M!"  although you were trying to illustrate what could be done with the
equipment you have, but it is essentially true and moving the M line towards
more dSLR type features or an innovative non-traditional design sounds
attractive initially . There is a grave danger though that you end up with a
camera that will not be able to compete directly on features, costs a lot
more and manages to alienate their customer base while trying to attract new
customers from a very overcrowded field.

I wouldn't expect you to agree with my mindset on this and of course respect
your opinions. I think that you would agree though that Leica Camera are
enjoying considerable success now and own their niche doing things exactly
the way they are.

Cheers
Geoff
http://www.pbase.com/hoppyman


  I think you are saying, Mark, that the way a camera handles is very
>  important. I believe that, too, even if we need to sacrifice a bit in
>  just how big of an enlargement will hold up. Of all the cameras
>  discussed on this thread, I have experienced the FourThirds Oly E-330
>  as the best compromise - small, a live-view electronic LCD finder
>  plus an optical finder with the M -like quality of being on the left
>  corner of the body instead of in the middle under the prism hump. The
>  E-330 handles very much like an M, and the Zuiko optics in their
>  pro-line are superb. After four years, I am EXTREMELY disappointed
>  that Olympus has abandoned the E-330 design. I had hoped that they
>  would continue its revolutionary features with better and larger
>  megapixels. I am equally disappointed that Leica seems to have
>  designed the M as a luxury item with a retro charm that takes
>  advantage of about 10 percent of the digital camera revolution.
>
>  In fact, I believe that the FourThirds instant-live-view feature of
>  the E-330 is exactly what the M should have evolved to. With my 25mm
>  f1.4 Leica Summilux attached to the E-330
>  ( http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Gary+Todoroff/Leica25mm/ ), I am
>  experiencing an increase in photographic creativity which is as much
>  or more as when I switched from an SLR to my Leica M2's many years
>  ago. When I tried to show this approach to a Leica rep, showing him
>  how beautifully the Olympus met the *intent* of Leica photography,
>  the instant and condescending response was, "Zat is not en M!"  For
>  me, I want photographs that look like they were taken with the very
>  best that a Leica approach can give and could care less if the camera
>  still looks like an M. Except of course, for the aforementioned small
>  and quiet approach that both the M and the E-330 share.
>
>  So unless I need a 20x30 enlargement, for me the FourThirds E-330 has
>  taken the M concept into the 21st century. However, for what I have
>  discovered in the photographic capability of the E-330, neither
>  Olympus nor Leica seems to want to take cameras in that revolutionary
>  direction.
>
>  Gary Todoroff
> > Tree LUGger
>
>
>