Mirrorlessrumors reports the Leica SL with 24-90mm kit lens will cost over 10.000 Euro once it’s launched. The SL is a mirrorless Full Frame system camera with autofocus lens system. So while form a technical point of view this is indeed the first Sony A7 competitor the price will make it affordable for only a selected few.
One more thing: Canon will launch a sort of A5000 competitor within the next few days (Image and info again at Mirrolessrumors).
80 Responses
What…The…Hell
So much for competition… x2.
If that is the 24-90 might be a f4.
An A5000 competitor? Wow.
Push that boat out, Canon, it’s nearly all at sea.
so basically, it’s not a competitor…
Isn’t the eos-m a sort of a5000 competitor?
That depends on how you define “competitor”. Something that is trying to compete or something that IS actually competitive.
Yes that’s the one.
That a99 Hassy isnt looking all that expensive now huh???
The Leica SL will be bloody expensive, but at least an originary Leica development. Obviously. And most likely a pretty cool camera.
The price of the Hasselblad HV is totally irrelevant, because this thing is an embarrassment of the first order no matter how much it costs.
So, apples and oranges.
Not really. It’s not like we don’t have examples from Leica rebadging Panasonic products.
I hope this product is somewhat successful (unlike the T-type), in order to motivate Zeiss to launch its own FE-mount digital Ikon.
That would be awesome, but seeing how Zeiss is releasing Loxia lenses for Sony…
Rangefinder design and use will remain niche. Live view (EVF) is the future. Even Leica knows that with the introduction of LV focusing on the M 240.
I doubt Zeiss will produce its own camera again, knowing that the last Ikon did not sell as well, albeit it had better base length and brighter viewfinder than the then benchmark M7 (making it more versatile and more accurate)
So, if Zeiss was to make their digi-Ikon, it will likely be something where they can sell their M mount lenses but with EVF and not Rangefinder mechanics.
I’d love to see this. Not sure how likely it is though.
So this is not a competitor considering the price range, which is ridiculous. Why spend $10,000 in a camera when the best ones are around 3,000 to 4,000 dollars. I highly doubt it will be THAT better.
At this price point no one cares about the specs. This is the kind of consumer they are aiming for, and there’s a lot of “PROs” that behave in the exact same way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paJqHPHLExo
Leica is really overpriced, but the Q and T were impressive products for such a stuck-up company. I’d have to agree though – it won’t be that much better, there’s simply nothing exceptional they can offer.
It’s already established that Leica’s customer base isn’t focused on specs alone.
So they focus on brand name and prestige instead? Unlike high-end optics where one can say I can get 95% of the performance from a much less expensive lens, Leica camera can only perform 95% (often much less) of their competitor while pricing it much more. This is no rangefinder so one can pull that RF argument. The whole darn thing is electronic now.
It won’t be that better.
Compare a BMW 7 series and a Bentley – both can drive comfortable and fast, both are luxury, etc. But the Bentley is more luxury and even if the seats and the leather would be the same you would feel more comfortable in the Bentley because it is the Bentley you are sitting in.
And besides that – the Bentley customer doesn’t care much about the price.
🙂
The closest competitor to the 7-series, the Bentley Flying Spur sold roughly between 2000 and 4000 units per year. The average from 2005-2013 was 2600. The 7-series sold an average of 54000 over the same time span, or about 20x more.
I heard a story (dunno if it’s true), that Bentley (or was it RR?) does not specify the maximum speed of their cars. They just reassure it is “enough”.
It’s correct.
Did you ever used a Leica? Not just trying in the store, I mean really used over some time. The user experience is light years ahead of everything ever made by Sony. Nobody pays triple the price for the same specs, right? There must be something else.
Luxury toys for rich people. Not for everyone.
Should be released before christmas 2015, would make a great stocking stuffer. Also, it’s blasphemy to refer to any Leica lens as a “kit lens”.
Every single lens maker has great lenses and has some crappy lenses. Even Leica.
True. But the crappiest Leica (and Zeiss) lenses are still very good. I could not say the same about Canon, Nikon, Minolta or Sony.
I just think of the Minolta Leicas…
So, switching from RF to EVF apparently results in a huge price hike.
It’s hardly a competitor but it will most likely be awesome.
that is real competitor. real definition of ‘competitor’ a.k.a corruption = brought more expensively
Finally, a compact 35mm 1.4 lens for the full frame.!!!
35 1.4 compact AF lens? Where?
It’s not exactly a competitor then? A BMW 5-series isn’t exactly a competitor to a Camry
With price like that, Bentley would be a better analogy…
Why always the lame car analogies?
Most times they make it easily visible – lokk at mine below. 🙂
Why always the lame comments?
Haha, good one!
that’s a leica i’ll want to see heaps of news coverage and reviews for. won’t ever pick one up, the poor bugger i am, neither will the “99%”, but leica deperately need a head-turner to stay somewhat relevant and if the sl is worth it, they’d be well advised to put it – and their name – out there better. as a progressive contender on the market.
The kit lens might as well be the best aperture/ focal length combination I’ve seen: 24-90 f2.8-4
According MLR, there will be two more lenses – a 90-280/2.8-4 and a Summilux 50/1.4
Agreed.
Leica is done- dethroned. Those days are over. Goodbye, it was nice knowing you. Have fun playing catch up.
Playing catch up? Who else makes a digital rangfinder camera, or a 3.68M dot EVF, or lenses with comparable size and quality?
Well. Rangefinder is one thing and its slowly but surely going away. The limits of what a rangefinder can do and still be a rangefinder has been reached. So the technology will not evolve any further other than live view, sensor etc … But when that happens, it’s really no longer a rangefinder. Once you start using the EVF or rear display you are better off with a Sony, Olympus, Fuji etc …. If you want to shoot the M lenses, will the obvious adapter will suffice.
The irony here is that Leica started got us all started in photography with the first mass produced camera. Now, Sony has revolutionized photography with a new technology and are the new mass producers with Leica now attempting to salvage whatever dignity they have left in the industry.
To be honest, Leica lost it when every new updated camera was a cosmetic or limited edition of the same without producing anything exciting. Then the dysfunctional ridiculous T which has nothing new to offer other than a video of a technician polishing the body for an hour. Meanwhile, the others marched forward.
And lastly, the Leica glass can no longer stand on its own as superior glass. The competition has matched or surpassed some of the Leica glass in many ways including price.
BTW: I’m glad that Zeiss is pushing the envelope that hard recently. It makes sure that Leica doesn’t get lazy. 😉
I agree. What gets me upset is the ridiculous prices Leica charges. They make some interesting products but the past 4 years- it appears to me they’re just gouging the market. I hope it works out for them, but they need a new business model.
My guess: The problem is the quite diffucult switch from low volume to high volume. If they don’t have a bread and butter high volume product, they can’t make “sane” prices.
I read somewhere, that Leica sold 30,000 M9 in the first 3 years. Nikon sold the same amount of D800 every month! The M9 is “only” double the price, but was still profitable. Not bad.
I run away from Leica due to the insane prices. But i guess it’s the way how Leica’ business model works.
Leica was ‘done’ when film SLRs got useable AF (say Nikon D-801). They declined gently during the nineties (with their SLRs not having AF) and catastrophically during the early 2000s having no viable digital ILC. The M8 just come out early enough to stabilise them before collapse. The M9 set them back on a good growth path but from a very low volume.
But (manual focus) rangefinders can only take you so far, in particular with (non-rangefinder) mirrorless coming up strong. That is why they branched out into the X-series (and now Q-series), a niche with limited competition and the S series (a high-priced niche with limited competition). But like their SLRs loosing out because they did not have autofocus, the M-series without AF is also under threat. Thus the T and now SL-series. But whether Leica can either thrive as a high-priced niche manufacturer or actually get out of their niche is still very much up for debate. The T-series doesn’t bode to well here.
Now the nobles and celebrities are going to turn to Sony as a new toy maker?
German Größenwahnsinn ! 😉
Disagree.
Leica has done the development themselves and they will for sure sell less cameras than Sony does, so in order to earn money they will need the high price.
I seriously doubt that. It is quite probably almost entirely designed by Panasonic.
Don’t want to offend you badly!
More the three geniuses that vote up a nondescripting sentence.. 🙁
Designed by Panasonic. Probably.
But should that fact making them selling it for song?
Panasonic does not use FF sensors for their own branded cameras, so R&D will likely be similarly priced than another BTO.
Leica is using the production capacities of Panasonic. That should enable them to save a max. 20 percent as if they would do it themselves.
Let’s give it another 10 percent for the red dot exclusivity.
That would end up around something like 7k, if assuming that they put that as a margin on top (which is still double the price of the Sony).
We are not talking about cost-benefit review moreover reasonable sales price from a business case point of view.
I was simply discussing the idea that Leica developed it themselves and certainly not claiming a fact. What I am supposed to get offended at?
If you wish to discuss the pricing though, my guess (again, not a fact) is that there are two main factors in Leica’s over-pricing – the name and the sensor. The sensor, as commonly accepted, is the priciest part of the camera and Leica is known to source heavily tweaked sensors so they can work properly with their “amazing” lenses.
I voiced a very limited supposition, but you went into some numbers that are frankly way too far-fetched.
I don’t see a reason why. Usually, the cameras that Panasonic make for Leica are low end and rebadged, certainly not full frame with which they don’t have any experience.
I did not mean rebadging. I simply meant that they will probably use the know-how and production capabilities of Panasonic, as I seriously doubt they have those in-house. Plenty of companies do that.
Why not make a camera that people want, set a fair price, and then sell lots? What people want is a Q version of the M with a price about the same as the A7R.
IMO Leica tries too hard to protect the M sales, and in the process makes cameras which are nice, but really not compelling (they still try to sell models that are over 5 years old…). Aside from the X, the X2, the XV, the T, the Q, the S … only one is a hit, the M, and even that one has become a hard sell recently.
Zeiss is a hit for me, I think they have the right idea.
It’s hard to achieve large changes in market share unless you have something truly different and better.
Leica says they want more market share, but don’t act like it. Zeiss has some interesting lenses Otus/Milvus which work on a range of mounts. And Sony offer the A7Rii which is essentially the same as an A7ii, for twice the price (how they get away with that is pretty special).
For me Sony has the “different” won, no matter how horrible their cameras are to use they just fly of the shelves. And Zeiss has the “better” under control without a doubt.
And Leica is both different and better ….
This must be a joke. Because it makes no sense if you think the RII is the A7II at twice the price or that Leica is somehow “better.”
Leica is certainly different, but better? Not if you’re talking IQ, the A7rII mops the floor with everything below the S – and can give the S a run for its money at 1/10th the price. That’s pretty easy for anyone with eyes not blinded by red dots to see.
If you stick the red dot on a A7rII leicaphiles would gush about it – much like the rebadged Panasonic junk they sell is somehow better because of some magic pixie dust Leica sprinkles on Panasonic devices before jacking up the price. This camera is no different.
How Leica can get away with selling $7000 bodies with sensor tech that Canon’s inept engineers laugh at is pretty special. But there’s always a market for camera as jewelry crowd – and Leica fills it nicely. Kudos to them.
I believe Royal Royce is not planning to sell a car to everyone as Toyota/Honda does.
But those are the rebadged Panasonics which the SL is highly unlikely to be.
Even OOF that camera doesn’t look like it’ll be half as ugly as the original…what was that again…well at least that’s a relief.
“…Rangefinder … surely going away…”
People say that for decades. Yes, DECADES!!
But seriously, my point was, Leica found it’s own niche(s), where is no real immediate competition. That is the opposite of “playing catch up”.
I was a Leica M shooter back in the film days. They make very good lenses, but nothing what Zeiss and Nikon have done also.
Leica glass benefits from a good chunk of glorification. In my experience, there’s no Leica rendering, no Leica glow (what a BS).
They competed directly with Zeiss and Nikon in the old days, but now they don’t have real immediate competition. They created their own world. They escaped the specs race. That is an impressive achievement, which I highly respect.
If they would play catch up, they would not have survived the dawn of the SLR. I think, Leica is far from being dead.
Competition is good.
I guess if I was rich this camera would make sense to me. In a few years sony and others will have cameras that will spank this camera. I think they should just stick to making lenses, I can’t emagine spending that much on a body but if a lens was good enough I would actually consider it.
Don’t forget that you’ll need an adapter for your M and R glass.
They already have one for M.
One more thing:
When Leica releases its insanely expensive special editions, it’s the monetization of Leica’s glory. Glory based on a history of great products and it’s famous and infamous users (mostly icons of the photo universe). They feed this glory until this day.
I think it’s not a sign of Leica’s own degeneration. It’s just making money to fund R&D (and the shareholders of course).
BTW: Every Special Edition Leica is based on a great and unique product, developed and made by Leica. This is a significant difference to the embarrassing actions of companies like Hasselblad (Lunar … etc.).
The rebadged Panasonic cameras were priced 50-80 per cent higher than the originals for the added value (own firmware, longer warranty, slight design changes, Lightroom license).
Hasselblad added also some value, but priced it 300 per cent higher! They stay in the shelves for a reason.
That’s a difference, isn’t it?
Even so Leica is still cheap compared with Alpa, whose digital body could cost $50,000.
most of that 50k is the digital back ( phaseone) and the lenses ( Rodenstock)
Yet it’s much more than what SL costs.
It’s not the price that scares me away from Leica … It is the horror stories about poor quality control measures taken by Leica that do. Brand new uncalibrated rangefinders? 8k lenses that are coming apart after taken them out of the box? Yikes
I own 4 Leica’s. I can assure you that they don’t fall apart…
10,000 Euro, give me $10 and I’ll tattoo “Meathead” on their forehead!!