So, Photokina 2010 has been over for some time now and it’s given me some time to think about everything that was shown.
Oh, if you were expecting a wine tasting, you’re going to be disappointed. While the Layer Cake is the next video, it won’t be the next post. Don’t have time this week to make a video/cook something nice to go with a bottle of wine .
Anyway, Photokina. If you don’t know, Photokina is a trade fair/convention for all of the photography/videography/imaging companies that occurs every two years in Cologne, Germany. It’s a way for press and consumers to check out a bunch of just-announced products.
I went kinda nuts during the show since each day, different companies would announce or show off their products. Some, like Canon, kinda laid everything out just before the show so that their booth was more a demo station. Others, like Sigma, seemed to play their cards much closer to their chests.
The company I would like to acknowledge as the most ridiculous?
Leica. Hands down.
Why?
Well, let’s start off with the “entry level” cameras introduced.
D-Lux 5:
This shouldn’t really fool anyone, but this is another of the Leica/Panasonic joint ventures. Leica designs the lens…and Panasonic does literally everything else, resulting in a Panasonic camera. Later, Leica takes said camera, slightly changes the design (firmware, exterior, etc), slaps a Red Dot on it, and sells it at a much higher price. In this case, the Panasonic camera is the LX5.
Physically, the exteriors are different…all the specs are the same. Now, Panasonic took quite some flak for the LX5 as it is a direct competitor to the Canon S95, which seems to be regarded as the best compact camera on the market right now (even I want one as a mini camera). The two cameras supposedly have roughly equal image quality and trade off certain advantages to the other, but the main issue is that the Canon is $400, while the Panasonic is $500. Leica took the quite expensive LX-5…and added $300 to the price.
Yes, the Leica D-Lux 5 is $800. Nuts.
Leica V-Lux 2:
This is the same deal as the D-Lux 5 and LX-5. Here, the Panasonic camera is the FZ100.
Red Dot tax this time? $350; the V-Lux 2 is $850.
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Sadly, this is expected of Leica with their compacts, always. They did more than this to earn my “Most Ridiculous” honors.
Leica M9 Titanium:
This camera…is nuts. First off, Leica got the chief designer from Volkswagen Group (Walter de’Silva) and his Audi Design Team to “reinterpret and envisage” the design of the original M9. This resulted in “a unique camera with a new rendering of the characteristic features of Leica rangefinder cameras, which lends precision engineering, unique style, and solid titanium to extraordinary formal design.”
Basically: it looks exactly the frakking same.
Oh, wait, sorry. The leather hand strap. That’s a new feature. So is the rangefinder display, but I can’t easily show the differences (it has LED illumination for the grid lines). The fancy lens hood for the M9Ti is not unusual, as the regular 35 mm 1.4 Summilux hood has the same design.
Leica will only make 500 of these cameras. They will sell with the fancy, awesome, and expensive Titanium 35mm 1.4 Summilux as a kit. The price?
$26,500.
Analysts have predicted that the camera will sell out completely, easily. This is nuts. The regular M9 is $7,000, body only. If you can find one.
And here is why I think Leica was the most ridiculous company at Photokina. It is well-acknowledged that Leica simply cannot make enough M9′s. I’ve watched as a few vendors will get a total of 3-5 of the cameras and they will sell out within 6 hours. Most M9′s that are in stock are sold over MSRP. Leica themselves have admitted that they cannot match the demand.
So…why the frak…would you have production shifted to this ridiculous special edition? I don’t know how many M9′s have been sold, but the limited run of 500 M9Ti’s sound like a fairly significant portion of annual regular M9 production.
Maybe I’m just upset because I WANT an M9 with the 35mm 1.4 Summilux and 50mm 0.95 Noctilux…and either the 21mm 1.4 Summilux, 24mm 1.4 Summilux, or 28mm 2.0 Summicron…with the Zeiss Distagon T* 15mm 2.8
*slap*
Oh, my, sorry, I got lost in gear lust. Right, my point is: I would love an M9. I’m probably going to rent one from LensRentals if I get a long weekend in a cool place (street photography in San Fran, Austin, etc)…when I have excess money (ha.ha.ha.). I’d love for them to be readily available slightly below MSRP…heck, I’d settle for available at MSRP. But instead, the available supply diminishes more…
But, I should settle down…I mean, they’re doing it because they know they’ll make a boatload of money and it’s not like Leica announced a completely different special edition M9 only two weeks after Photokina ended, right?
Leica M9 Neiman Marcus Edition: 50 copies at $17,500 with 35mm 2.0 Summicron
….FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF
