It’s strange to think that a company as storied as Leitz could fall so far from grace, and stranger still to think that they would ask for help.
#Leitz binoculars history professional#
Astronomical manufacturing costs as well as a comparatively disappointing feature set prevented Leica from competing in the cutthroat professional SLR market. Leitz also attempted to join the SLR gold rush by further developing the Leicaflex series of SLRs, but it was too little, too late. Leitz tried to hold onto the rangefinder dream with the redesigned Leica M5 in 1971 but only succeeded in alienating their remaining fans and nearly running the company into the ground.
An unwillingness to keep up with a professional market that was shifting to the SLR format cost them dearly. Leica of the 1970s (or more accurately, Leitz as the company was then known) was free falling towards the hard ground of bankruptcy.
#Leitz binoculars history how to#
This is the decade, after all, in which Leitz invented the auto-focus lens and then sold the patent to Minolta (Leitz said that their customers knew how to focus). While Nikon, Canon, and Pentax were flying high in the decade of disco, Leica would rather forget the 1970s ever happened. One could argue that most of the world’s biggest camera manufacturers reached their peak of sales success and cultural relevance in the ‘70s. These cameras were well made (well, most of them were) and they sold in incredible quantities. The decade brought us the apex of professional mechanical 35mm SLRs in the Nikon F2, and the beginning of the amateur 35mm SLR segment as we know it today, spearheaded by the Canon AE-1 and Pentax K1000. The 1970s were a great time for camera geeks.
0 kommentar(er)
