Collectors Should Be Shot (or at least, they should learn to shoot)

[firecracker]

... if you are broke and want a great camera, buy a Kodak Retinette, Afga Silette, Voigtländer Vito, etc. - a mint example can be yours for £25 or even (much) less...

These cameras are known as collectable cameras in the Japanese market, and some are always priced unreasonably high. Vitos' used market values went up a while ago as soon as they were introduced in a amateur photo magazine called Asahi camera, which is a good example of what I was trying to explain earlier.

It's hard to find under-appreciated cameras and lenses in this country.

[Chan Tran]

Good to know that in the "land of cameras" the people there appreciate them. Please don't shoot the collectors, I am one of them and since when collecting cameras is a crime?

[Claire Senft]

What would Zues do? Perhaps make up his mind to start shooting.

[snegron]

I hate to be the one to mention this little known fact, but many average income people such as myself can not afford Leicas. They are expensive. Leica lenses are also very expensive. When new, they are twice or three times as much as lenses of the same focal length from other camera manufacturers. In my humble (and poverty stricken) opinion, Leicas are collecters items from the day they were made. The used market just caters to those big spenders who were unable to collect a particular model or lens when new. I am sure that Cartier-Bresson could have gotten the same pics with a Nikon M or S, but Leica was part of the mistique of exclusivity. I think I will go and hide under my bed now before the tounge-lashing begins.

[copake_ham]

I hate to be the one to mention this little known fact, but many average income people such as myself can not afford Leicas. They are expensive. Leica lenses are also very expensive. When new, they are twice or three times as much as lenses of the same focal length from other camera manufacturers. In my humble (and poverty stricken) opinion, Leicas are collecters items from the day they were made. The used market just caters to those big spenders who were unable to collect a particular model or lens when new. I am sure that Cartier-Bresson could have gotten the same pics with a Nikon M or S, but Leica was part of the mistique of exclusivity. I think I will go and hide under my bed now before the tounge-lashing begins.

Well, before you go - I will say I generally agree with you. It might be that in HCB's hey day a Leica was one choice among many and while probably the priciest - not totally out of question.

Nowadays they are the Rollex of cameras - they want to be seen as a luxury good and are priced accordingly. No matter how marginally better a Leica/Leitz set up may be - it is NOT worth the difference in price it commands. There is a high mark up for the "snob factor" figured into the pricing of this gear!

Now I too will go run and hide!

[Flotsam]

My Contax S2 is engraved with the "60th Year" logo.
It doesn't seem to either improve or harm the pictures that I take with it at all. All my cameras are users. Plenty of scratches around the tripod socket.

[Lee Shively]

"...many average income people such as myself can not afford Leicas."

Not necessarily. My household income is average or slightly below the national average and I own a couple of Leicas. It comes down to priorities. For instance, I don't go out to eat very often and I can't remember the last movie I saw in a theatre. I cut my own hair, change the oil in both my and my wife's vehicles myself and I mow my own lawn. There are probably lots of things average people do that cost money that I don't do.

I can't help but remember a conversation I had with a physician acquaintance of mine several years ago. He was interested in buying a 35mm camera but didn't want to spend a lot of money. I suggested a Canon EOS Rebel with a couple of lenses which would do everything he was interested in doing. When I showed him the prices from a B&H ad, he totally lost interest. He had no intention of spending that much money for...a camera! He said he couldn't afford something like that.

Here's a guy knocking back 10 times what I make a year and he says he can't afford a cheap SLR like a Canon Rebel! But he probably really can't afford it because he doesn't consider a camera to be a high priority item. He will spend $65,000 on a new car but not $300 on a camera. It's where you place your priorities.

[Lee Shively]

Oh, yeah. Just so everyone knows, I don't collect--I acquire. I bought both my Leica M6's used after shopping around for months for each. Both of them look a lot worse for wear now than they did when I bought them. I wouldn't own something I couldn't use.

[bjorke]

Collectors pay huge sums of money for (a) new Leicas, thereby helping keep Leica in business...

It's not at all unreasonable to be of the opposite opinion: that Leitz/Leica's recognition of the collector market, and their focus on beling "the Rolex of cameras" to the exclusion of pretty much all other aspects of photography, draws a straight line from the dominance of Leica 40 years ago to its meager scraping-by as a niche player today. Rather than making tools they decided to focus on being a jewelry company.

Now, sometimes this approach is lauded as innovative business wisdom: as an example, Harley-Davidson doesn't sell motorcycles, they sell the ability for a 43-year-old accountant to dress in black leather, ride through small towns, and think people are afraid of him. *

But what happens when that "lifestyle company" design choice is seen as passe? Or what, as in the case of Leica, if the "lifestyle" item was never accompanied by any overarching sense of promoting that lifestyle (but instead was aligned with obvious BS about the "inadequacies" of built in metering even as Leica stumbled over and over again in making electronic SLRs). (It's actually in the interest of collectors for Leica to go under -- just as the death of an artist potentially enhances the value of their works)

They have forgotten their origins and I suspect the gods will not be satisfied until far more blood has been shed. They have killed the little unborn pictures, and must pay.

kb


* ...in the words of Harley CEO Rich Teerlink

[Claire Senft]

I believe that Leica is willing to sell to everyone. I also believe that their product has become so expensive and the competition stiff enough that they may well have cooked their own goose.

What a shame.