by myrrh.ahn

Question by Mao J: is the leica s2 really that good since its worth 23,000? or are there better cheaper cams out there?
leica the finest cameras in the world made in germany
but are they really what they are cut up to be?
i think there are some pentax canons and nikons out there that can beat this leica.
in my mind the pentax k-7 is as just as god as you need a camera to be.

Best answer:

Answer by fakkinfack
Leica, as any company, must make a profit to survive. But excessive profitability is not the reason Leica is so expensive (they have lost money in recent years, actually). I own Leica myself, and have for more than 30 years. Leica’s standards of design, manufacture, and performance (optical and mechanical) are the world’s highest. Their lenses are state of the art in all respects, including mechanical aspects. Their durability is far greater than that of Japanese products. How is this achieved? It ain’t cheap. It costs money to research and produce the finest lenses. Just the raw glass itself (before cutting and polishing) for many Leica lenses costs more than the entire finished product of other companies at retail! Take the 50mm 1.4 Summilux-R, for example. It costs about $ 2000 retail. It’s also the best 50mm 1.4 in the world. (The raw galss alone costs more than a Nikkor or Canon 50mm 1.4.) To get this performance, Leica has invested in glass research and owns propreitary glass formulations that no-one else has, or that other companies can’t afford to use, because their cost would then be so high that they could not market the lens. Each company has a ‘niche’, and though Leica has a reputation that allows them the luxury of making and selling costly lenses, not every other firm can do that. In other words, Leica, being devoted to being the best AND achieving it, has earned them the marketing clout that enables them to sell that product. Other companies have not achieved the level that Leica does, and can’t afford to do so. That’s not their market.

You’ll note, though, that the extreme focal lengths of any camera company are all pretty expensive, regardless of make.

And yes, Leica lenses ARE worth it!

You should read the materials written by Erwin Puts on these topics:

Here’s his site

http://www.imx.nl/photosite/leica/leicahome.html

and Leica has some of his other lens analysis: http://www.leica-camera.com/index_e.html (Leica home)

http://www.leica-camera.com/produkte/rsystem/objektive/index_e.html (R lenses)

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