1. Bruce DeBoer on April 19, 2005 01:49 PM writes...

There is a list of reasons Leica is flirting with irrelevance but you hit on the main point. Many companies were better equipped to make the transition based purely on company culture. Nikon and Canon for example were well positioned because they paid better attention to market demands throughout their company history.

Personally I’d hold onto your Leica cameras. They will always be good cameras and film will never die in our lifetime. Just like in a conversation I’m having with Jennifer Rice on co-creation, consider film and digital two different tools – not film or digital but rather, film and digital. Especially as a fine art guy, you’ll find that film will always have a “look and feel” that you love. If you’re a master the craft with no economic factors driving your decision, stay with what works and add the capabilities of digital if it pleases you.

Another company in similar straights is Hasselblad. As a professional (http://www.brucedeboer.com) I loved that camera – in many ways it is the Leica of medium format photography. Today they are flirting with irrelevance because the smaller, more convenient 35mm style digital capture cameras are catching up to the digital capture quality possible with a combination of Hasselblad and a digital back. The price point of the smaller Canon 16 megapixel model is much lower than the cost of a Hasselblad / digital 16 megapixel combination. Soon there will be no difference. What will Hasselblad do? They are colliding head on with irrelevance unless they can respond quickly in a meaningful way.

This is sad to me but I can tell a similar story regarding my own business. I was a still life photographer for 20 years before making changes. Still life photography has been dominated by Stock Photography for years. Did I see it coming? Yes – and I made changes but it also meant that I had to abandon my original brand image. Sad but necessary.

Interesting stuff though isn't it?

2. jbr on April 19, 2005 04:00 PM writes...

probably already known to everyone, but a good book to read along these same lines is the Blue Ocean Strategy by Kim and Marborgne....
http://blueoceanstrategy.com/
easier said than done, but create(or co-create) your own product category where there is little competition and high demand....

3. simon on April 19, 2005 09:18 PM writes...

John, neither Kodak nor Fuji were late to digital photography. Kodak was one of the pioneers. Please get you facts right.

4. Andy Lark on April 19, 2005 10:52 PM writes...

Take a look at this weekends FT. A big story on the nearing death of Leica. April 16 edition:

"The crisis at Leica, whose cameras were used by star photographers such as Henri Cartier-Bresson and David Bailey, has deepened in recent months as sales have slumped and banks have started to terminate credit lines."

The simple answer is that even 100 year old brands need to evolve. Look at what The Times did in London by moving to a new format - they reversed a serious circ slide. As they say, it's not what you've got, it's what you do with it. And in Leica's case, that would appear to be not much at all.

5. john winsor on April 19, 2005 11:20 PM writes...

Thanks for the great comments, everyone. Simon, as an avid photographer I'd love to get a better sense of the history of digital photography. I do read DPReview.com quite regularly. Any other suggestions to get up to speed?

6. Andy Lark on April 20, 2005 01:14 AM writes...

Hey, and isn't hillarious that we are questioning the brand and value of the technology but the Google ads on the page are telling us where we can buy one. At what point do the ads tune to the tone of the copy and recommend the best alternative.

7. Jeremy Pepper on April 20, 2005 03:14 AM writes...

Well, Andy, the ad is for discounted Leica cameras.

And, while the photojournalism market has moved heavily into digital cameras, there will always be a market for film. Can Leica (or, noted here Hasselblad) survive the transition and remake themselves? Kodak was an early pioneer in professional digital cameras, and consumer digital cameras - and has continued to go down that path where it has a good market share in consumer digital cameras.

Can the others follow that lead, and mix the formats?

As for the death of the brand? I'm not sure that will happen. Look at the continued rebirth of Polaroid.

8. Derek Lowe on April 20, 2005 10:58 AM writes...

I'm not so sure that there's always going to be a market for film, unless you mean that in the sense that there's still a market for glass plates. I love Fuji Velvia for closeup nature photography, but the advantages of digital are overtaking it at great speed, and I don't see that slowing down.



Leica's problems go way back. The brand has always seemed to be too much of a cult for my liking. They've charged very high prices for differences in quality which are often very hard to discern under real-world conditions, and their non-stop issue of special-limited-heirloom-collector items hasn't made a good impression on me, either.

9. Bruce DeBoer on April 20, 2005 11:30 AM writes...

Derek - I believe you're right. Film will eventually be a very small niche market that's why I qualified my statement by saying, "in our lifetime". I know how old John and I are so ....

John - I was a beta testor for the original Kodak DCS digital camera. It was a Nikon body with Kodak electronics. Kodak is still in the forefront with their 14 megapixel professional camera. In my opinion they released it with too many bugs and took too many hits by professionals. When Canon and Nikon (most notably) released their comparable cameras they took center stage because they had all the bugs worked out. I sincerely hope Kodak stays in the hunt though.

10. simon on April 20, 2005 10:01 PM writes...

As a user of the Kodak 14 megapixal camera I must say that it is excellent and the detail it produces still amazes me.

11. Edward Cotton on April 21, 2005 09:13 AM writes...

Leica is obviously aware of this. Years back they formed a joint venture with Panasonic to produce digital cameras. Epson recently launched a model based on the Leica rangefinder.

Lecia's brand equity is photographic brilliance- this just needs to be transfered to relevant areas.

Leica obviously has brilliant optics and amazing ideas for quality photography, that have tremendous value, even in a digital age.

I would not say Leica is done yet, why can't we have Leica lenses on camera phones?