Articles
Leica, the Steinway of photography?
The very best of any product involves increasingly expensive ingredients and processes, and exponentially so because small incremental gains towards a goal of perfection come at exponentially higher cost.
Just as such manufacturing requires passion, the markets for such products require customers with a keen eye and a passion for both the products and their use.
[Taken with Leica's Summicron-M 35mm ASPH lens at maximum aperture of f2. All straight lines are perfectly straight from axis to the far edges; all the finest details of the brickwork are superbly resolved.]
Leica and Steinway share all those things in common, but their greatest challenge in common lies in their ability to survive; to continue to be commercially viable; to intimately understand their customers and potential customers' desires. While the world around them continues to change, adapt and move forward, every year or decade poses increasing threats to their survival while they remain committed to their paradigm.
As the world and these companies' customers move on at increasingly rapid paces, these companies are not only committed to maintaining their respectively unique positions of excellence they too must change and adapt or else they face extinction. While how they change and adapt need not mean that they desert their passion for the highest levels of quality; but it does require outstanding business and marketing skills.
So Steinway and Leica share common risks - their greatest strengths are their greatest weaknesses! And while such a view may seem obvious, it is their shared greatest marketing challenge that is not so obvious.
Now, so why is Leica the Steinway of photography? What is their not so obviously shared issue today - what is the critical marketing issue that they share in common?
No, the answer is not that they are both German companies and leverage off quality German products' generic reputation for excellence of design, engineering and production - because Steinway is not a German company. Despite a common
miss-impression, Steinway is indeed an American company. Yes, there is at least one American company that leads the world in product quality!
[Taken with the beautiful Summicron-M 50mm lens. Arguably one of the finest 35mm format lenses made, the excellent performance and exceptional correction of optical aberrations are achieved through a classic optical design and without the need for "high-tech" a-spherical element surfaces. Its tonality and "pretty" resolution of very fine details make it a favourite of many Leica users.]
The important marketing issue they share in common is a fundamental one - their largest competitor - they share the same largest competitor. Themselves!
Steinway & Sons’ largest single competitor is used Steinway pianos. That fact is well recorded in documentary studies.
However, while one cannot definitively say that Leica's M-lenses' largest single competitor is statistically measured on record as used Leica lenses, it is very likely the case.
The Leica and Steinway brands are so strong and their product quality so outstanding, those who do not pay the price of new Leica optics or Steinway pianos, prefer to buy used versions rather than settle for another manufacturer's product.
Until Carl Zeiss recently launched the Zeiss Ikon and its range of M-mount lenses, the only other manufacturer of new M-mount lenses was Voigtlander Cosina, which has positioned itself in the "value for money" 35mm rangefinder camera and lens segments. It makes relatively low cost and good quality lenses in Leica's M-mount as well as Leica's screw mount adaptable to the M-mount bayonet fitting.
[Taken with the Elmarit-M 90mm lens, which is one of the very best performers among all Leica lenses. Wide open at f2.8, this lens achieves Leica's overall design paradigm of optimal performance at maximum aperture - brilliant performance at that. One stop down sees minor improvement and signs of diffraction from an unusually large aperture of f5.6! Its compact size and weight, superb performance and relatively low price make this lens exceptional value for money.]
The market for used Leica M-mount lenses is world-wide and very significant. Dealers will anecdotally comment that customers seeking a Leica M-mount lens prefer to buy a used current or earlier Leica made version if their budget will not stretch to a new product. There is even a significant sub-segment of customers with Leica rangefinder M-mount compatible cameras who specifically seek out older versions of Leica's lenses.
The marketing issues posed by such customer behaviour are indeed significant. And before you get the wrong idea, no, the same issue dos not apply to other mainstream camera manufacturers like Canon and Nikon. Why? Simply because they offer price point alternatives that mass-production and less stringent design and engineering allow. In some cases they may offer more than one version of a lens at different price-points. Additionally there is a very mature market of alternative "after-market" manufacturers that offer competitive alternatives - both higher end and budget versions. So, while there is still a significant used market for mainstream manufacturer's products, there are also very attractive original manufacturer and after-market alternatives available.
The challenge that both Leica and Steinway face lies in their pricing and product strategies. There must have been many occasions when these companies have seriously considered launching "second tier" product lines - such a strategy would be self-cannibalising" and become a self-defeating disaster! Why? The answer is simple - brand conflict. It is illogical to be positioned as the highest quality manufacturer in your field only to offer lower quality products. The brand sets expectations; these expectations should not be contradicted with "budget" products. While on one hand some new customers will be won, many of the higher value customers and the commensurate contribution margins will be lost. Do the math and you will see the folly in the idea.
About 10 years ago, Carl Zeiss and Hasselblad attempted such an unwise marketing initiative with the launch of the "CB" lenses for Hasselblad's 6x6 V series cameras. At that time (pre-digital imaging) Hasselblad continued to hold it's market leading reputation for the world's finest medium format cameras and lenses - in fact much of the customer demand was principally drawn from their desire to have the very finest medium format lenses - a thirst for the superb Carl Zeiss optics.
For a moment Hasselblad and Zeiss lost the plot. They forgot who their customers were and why they bought Hasselblad lenses and cameras - they want the very best! The lenses were withdrawn from the market within little more than a year - probably the swift withdrawal of the CB lenses saved the companies any damaging cannibalisation.
[Taken with the super-sharp Summicron-M 35mm ASPH lens. its ability to evenly resolve crisp fine details from axis to the far edges is obvious. Using an a-spherical lens element, Leica have probably taken this lens design to the limits of excellence. The optical correction of aberrations is to such a high standard that the very minimal ditortion at the edges provides an excellent flatness of field for a wide-angle lens.]
At that time many customers were confused. Internet forums were littered (and remain so today) with discussion and opinions on the CB range: "How visible is the image quality difference?"; "Should I just buy a used CF version?". The Internet was littered with miss-information as well - uninformed comments. But perceptions are everything!
The correct answers were that the lenses were every bit the equal of Hasselblad's current range (CFE/CFi) and the penultimate generation of CF lenses. In fact not only were they optically identical (save the CB 160mm, which was a completely new focal length to the Hasselblad system), they in fact shared some of the enhancements offered in the new generation of CFE/CFi lenses recently launched - the new lens mount and bayonet metals; the new shutter spring’s hi-tech metal) and the new internal barrel coating. The only missing feature was the ability to be used on the F series focal-plane shutter cameras.
What has prompted this article is Leica's recent announcement of an additional range of M-mount 35mm rangefinder camera lenses - the Summarit range. A recipe for disaster? No, it would seem not. Why? Because it seems Leica is now becoming a clever marketer - customer and market focuses.
While the information released is limited, it seems that this new "budget" range of fully featured Leica lenses, simply uses one feature as the product differentiator - in all respects the lenses will be made to Leica's superlative standards. The feature lies in the 1/2 f-stop smaller maximum aperture of f2.5. Based on the optical design truism that every 1/2 stop or more additional maximum aperture requires a disproportionately more challenging design, glass surface treatment and precious glass raw material (thus dramatically increasing the production costs), these lenses will preform to the same standards Leica is famous for. Therefore, the Summarit lenses can be designed and built without high-tech lens element surfaces; without rare and special glass and less complex optical design and still perform to Leica’s legendary standards optically and mechanically.
The Summarit-M lenses are promised to have the same / similar (nothing in lenses is ever really the same) optical performance as their brothers; they promise to remain hand-made and to have exactly the same mechanical excellence as their brothers. In all respects they will mostly be the same as their brothers – the use of one feature that will not adversely affect the Leica brand, to enable a significantly reduced price is more likely to attract new customers who would otherwise seek a used Leica lens. It is likely that Leica’s traditional customers will still prefer to pay the significantly higher price for a “traditional” faster Leica lens (the more expensive brother lenses are Summicron-M f2.0 lens with the only exception being the Elmarit-M f2.8 90mm lens)
Leica might just be cleverly using one minor (is f2.5 versus f2 such a feature draw-back to those attracted to Leica's great brand reputation?) feature as its differentiator of a new "second-tier" product range to enable it to price-point them extremely competitively without disadvantaging its brand legacy – without making the buyer feel he is getting an “inferior” product!
In fact Leica may just become a case study of how to successfully wrestle away some significant market share from it's largest single competitor - ITSELF!
' height='267'>[Taken with the legendary Tele-Elmar 135mm lens. This lens' optical performance is so outstanding that there is no visible imaging improvement as the aperture is stopped down from its maximum of f4. It was the lens that challenged the Zeiss Sonnar 135mm which ruled as the ultimate of such a focal length. This classic Leica design was so outstanding that it remained unchanged from its launch in 1965 until apo-chromatic correction became possible in its successor launched in 1998.