Want it!?
05/04/09 20:34 Filed in: Personal
The standard response to a new product has been: I want it!. Be it a Canon 5D II, a Canon 1 Ds Mk III, a Nikon D3X or D700 or D3 or you name it: as soon as the specs are out, the blogoshere and the interactive forums (or should it be fora?) start buzzing with expressions of buying lust. And the companies are feeding this lust by introducing every six months new products with more features. It does not matter that most of these features offer no added value for most photographic goals. The introduction of Live View and HD Movie capability might be interpreted as turning points in the culture and state of modern photography, They are not indispensable as are most of the more than 60 separate features that are now standard on most cameras. Do we need sixty features to master?
When using the new DSX film/developer combination I only needed a handful of parameters to master and could use equipment that in some cases is more than 20 years old. It functions optimally and I can use these new films in my fifty years old M3. Put a new lens in front of the M3, load it with modern film and you can get state of the art imagery, better than what you get with a costly DSLR that is obsolete in two years time.
I do want to give the impression that old is better, but I would ask for some reflections on the unrestrained buying pattern that has emerged in the last decade.
It is evident that the current crisis will fundamentally alter the way consumers will shop and look at new products. Saving more, buying less and even try to limit your spending habit to what you really need will be tomorrows pattern. Less reliance on brand names and more value for money would be another trend for the near future.
Leica made an interesting statement some time ago, when they noted that an investment in the M8 would be a long term affair. The camera was modular in its software and components and both could be gradually upgraded to stay in tune with current developments.
The introduction of the M8.2 and the possibility of replacing many parts of the M8 to get an M8.1 or even an M8.15 put this philosophy into practice. At least so it seems. But in fact the company created a state of confusion, by simultaneously dropping the price of the M8, and adding a hefty price tag for the replacements, but later reduced the prices to a more manageable level.
What could have been a forward looking and innovative concept, became a matter of confusion.
The matter is indeed complicated and a clear strategy is difficult to create and implement.
In the film-loading past. Leica could sell the same bodies over a longer period of time, leaving it to emulsion makers to improve the quality of the capture technology and selling lenses to an expanding group of users. The bodies kept their value and could be used for decades.
Now in the digital age, you cannot rely on a strategy to design and manufacture a camera body for a decade and just add new lenses to expand the market. Most buyers know that a product will be upgraded and become cheaper over a short period of time. At least this is the common knowledge.
In the new culture of restrained consumerism and less buying power, this philosophy may be loosing its appeal.
I am very happy with the performance of the TMax 100 film now on the market for two decades. And I am sure I will be satisfied with this performance for the next ten years. The same is true for the M8 sensor. The seven micron pixel size and the ten million pixels produce beautiful imagery and will do so over the next ten years.
We can be certain that in 2019 the world of digital capture will be totally different form today and presumably we have sensors that can handle 30+ million pixels and we have software that can manipulate these pixels with ease. But The M8 will still deliver the same performance as today and that will be enough. Just as Tri-X film was good thirty years ago and is good now.
Perhaps it is time to change the rule that more is better with the rule that enough is enough. Perhaps we change focus from specifications to meaningful results.
The car industry is showing the way by in fact introducing smaller cars that are more fuel efficient, and where the focus on performance has been redirected to lifestyle, culture and design.
Aa another example we may refer to the upcoming new version of the Operating System of the Mac computer: not more performance and more features, but more user convenience and more reliability.
Would it be a pipe dream to have a Leica M that is totally reliable under all conditions and over a life time, that is a marvel of user oriented functional design, and is so expert in its operation that you can connect it directly to the printer and get the results you had imagined during that elusive decisive moment of pressing the shutter release.
With the M5, Leica tried to break out of the mould in which the M development had been pressed for decades. That was a very brave act. The fact that it did not work, should not be the argument not to try it again.
When using the new DSX film/developer combination I only needed a handful of parameters to master and could use equipment that in some cases is more than 20 years old. It functions optimally and I can use these new films in my fifty years old M3. Put a new lens in front of the M3, load it with modern film and you can get state of the art imagery, better than what you get with a costly DSLR that is obsolete in two years time.
I do want to give the impression that old is better, but I would ask for some reflections on the unrestrained buying pattern that has emerged in the last decade.
It is evident that the current crisis will fundamentally alter the way consumers will shop and look at new products. Saving more, buying less and even try to limit your spending habit to what you really need will be tomorrows pattern. Less reliance on brand names and more value for money would be another trend for the near future.
Leica made an interesting statement some time ago, when they noted that an investment in the M8 would be a long term affair. The camera was modular in its software and components and both could be gradually upgraded to stay in tune with current developments.
The introduction of the M8.2 and the possibility of replacing many parts of the M8 to get an M8.1 or even an M8.15 put this philosophy into practice. At least so it seems. But in fact the company created a state of confusion, by simultaneously dropping the price of the M8, and adding a hefty price tag for the replacements, but later reduced the prices to a more manageable level.
What could have been a forward looking and innovative concept, became a matter of confusion.
The matter is indeed complicated and a clear strategy is difficult to create and implement.
In the film-loading past. Leica could sell the same bodies over a longer period of time, leaving it to emulsion makers to improve the quality of the capture technology and selling lenses to an expanding group of users. The bodies kept their value and could be used for decades.
Now in the digital age, you cannot rely on a strategy to design and manufacture a camera body for a decade and just add new lenses to expand the market. Most buyers know that a product will be upgraded and become cheaper over a short period of time. At least this is the common knowledge.
In the new culture of restrained consumerism and less buying power, this philosophy may be loosing its appeal.
I am very happy with the performance of the TMax 100 film now on the market for two decades. And I am sure I will be satisfied with this performance for the next ten years. The same is true for the M8 sensor. The seven micron pixel size and the ten million pixels produce beautiful imagery and will do so over the next ten years.
We can be certain that in 2019 the world of digital capture will be totally different form today and presumably we have sensors that can handle 30+ million pixels and we have software that can manipulate these pixels with ease. But The M8 will still deliver the same performance as today and that will be enough. Just as Tri-X film was good thirty years ago and is good now.
Perhaps it is time to change the rule that more is better with the rule that enough is enough. Perhaps we change focus from specifications to meaningful results.
The car industry is showing the way by in fact introducing smaller cars that are more fuel efficient, and where the focus on performance has been redirected to lifestyle, culture and design.
Aa another example we may refer to the upcoming new version of the Operating System of the Mac computer: not more performance and more features, but more user convenience and more reliability.
Would it be a pipe dream to have a Leica M that is totally reliable under all conditions and over a life time, that is a marvel of user oriented functional design, and is so expert in its operation that you can connect it directly to the printer and get the results you had imagined during that elusive decisive moment of pressing the shutter release.
With the M5, Leica tried to break out of the mould in which the M development had been pressed for decades. That was a very brave act. The fact that it did not work, should not be the argument not to try it again.