By MICK YATES, LEICA, PHOTOGRAPHY
Dr Andreas H Kaufmann,
Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Leica, and whose family is the majority
owner of the Leica Company, invited us to visit Wetzlar. Good friend and fellow
Leica shooter James Kezman also joined the visit. This followed a recent, friendly
discussion on Facebook about Leica Manufacturing and Marketing (more on that
below), so the trip was arranged rather quickly.
We visited Wetzlar
yesterday (October 17th), and it was both enjoyable and illuminating. It was my
first time to Leitz Park, an impressive complex.
The main reception area is
partly photo gallery and partly a showcase for Leica products. At the moment
there is a temporary exhibition showing cameras made by other manufacturers –
all influenced by Leica and some bluntly copied! There was also an exhibition
of Dieter Huber’s work, and Jens Umbach.
There is also a permanent
exhibition of some of the most striking images ever taken, all using Leica
cameras. 36 images chosen from 100 years of Leica photography. Impressive, and
helpful to a project I am separately doing for PhotoBath on ‘Iconic Images’.
Before meeting with Dr
Kaufmann, we were greeted by Michel Razafimahefa, of Customer Service. James
had pre-arranged a sensor cleaning, and I had a new Summicron 35mm that somehow
had just started to rattle. Michel took these, and the two other sensor
cleanings we asked for, to get things sorted.
He was good enough to
demonstrate the entire cleaning process, which included a meticulous
pre-cleaning of the body and the lens before tackling the sensor. One takeaway
– don’t blow air on the sensor to get rid of dust. Suck it out. And always take
a dust reference image to highlight where the problems are. Now, maybe readers
knew that, but I didn’t. In any event, three pristine cameras and a perfect
Summicron were ready in less than two hours. Great service!
Dr K’s PA, Yvonne Rudolph,
had organised the day with both good humour and professionalism, and it was
nice to meet in person. Next up was a visit to the factory, while our cameras
were being cared for. Sven Kupfer showed us around. He is the Head of Leica
Customer Care, with responsibility across the world, including the US and
Japanese Customer Care centres.
Our favourite quote of
Sven’s, when referring to how Leica prospers:
‘There are many strawberry
flavours, but people still like to eat real strawberries’.
There is a section of the
production line visible to the public through glass – in itself revealing as it
showed the calm, dedicated and manually intensive process of assembly and
quality checking. Fortunately we were then invited onto the shop floor proper.
It seems that DP Review
had also visited recently. Their comments captured the essence of the lens
making process, so rather than reinvent the wheel:
“Creating a lens is a
lengthy, complex process. As they progress through the factory from cakes of
raw glass to measured, polished elements, individual glass elements are painted
with a protective black varnish, which is rinsed off before each stage. Only
when they’ve undergone final polishing are the components transferred to a
temperature and humidity-controlled environment for lacquering and coating.
This is a different
approach to that which we’ve seen in other factories, (like Canon’s Utsunomiya
plant for example) where virtually the entire process from raw glass to
finished lens takes place in a highly controlled clean-room environment.
The logic behind Leica’s
method is pretty simple: At least until final assembly, it’s much easier to
keep the individual components of a lens clean via multiple cleaning processes
as required, than it is to sterilise the entire environment in which they’re
handled.”
You certainly begin to
understand why Leica lenses are so good – and pricey. Handcrafting.
I had visited the LeicaFactory in Porto just a few months ago, where the M10 body is built, before
transfer to Wetzlar for assembly. An equally impressive blend of machine and
experts, all working to tiny tolerances with rigorous quality control.
The tour with Sven was
thorough, showing lens production and assembly. He showed us both ultra modern
technology and some of the older style, used depending on the lens. He also
included a walk through the customer care department (where my Summicron was
happily being sorted out). Our tour took about 45 minutes.
Somewhat to our surprise,
Dr Kaufmann had also arranged for us to visit R&D. We were accompanied by
project managers Jürgen Häberle and Holger Wiegand, both longstanding Leica
employees. Sorry, folks, we signed NDAs so we can’t tell you what we saw –
other than there are exciting things afoot.
For those of you that have
visited Leitz Park, you know that there is a rather pleasant cafe on the site,
so our next stop was for a quick coffee as we were running well behind
schedule. Too much to see, questions to ask, and a friendly set of guides.
Dr Kaufmann met us in the
main lobby, and we went to his office. As one would expect, Andreas is a
thoughtful, knowledgeable man, with great passion both for the brand and the
people of Leica.
Dr Kaufmann, a former
teacher, took over the ailing Leica business in 2004, purchasing 95% of the
company for $85 million. The brand’s subsequent renaissance is well-known. In
our conversation, and bearing in mind recent news, Andreas described the
investment firm Blackstone (who bought 44% in 2011) as ‘good partners’.
What was most striking,
though, was the intensity with which Andreas talked about customers. Like many
manufacturers, Leica used to be very retailer driven. Now it is clear that the
intent is to focus and organise more around the customer. In fact, that is
essentially why we were invited – as customers.
Backtracking to the
original FaceBook discussion, it was about the extent to which Leica recognises
in its marketing both the importance of the Wetzlar based, German expertise,
and that of the Porto organisation. M10 marketing talks of the “exclusively
manufactured by the highly qualified specialists of our factory in Wetzlar,
Germany”. In the FaceBook conversation, Dr Kauffman was very clear about
Porto’s role and others as part of a global supply and expertise chain, and
invited us to come see for ourselves.
Portugal has a long
history for Leica. The Leitz Family was looking for new production sites as
long ago as 1973 – they considered Ireland, Tunisia and Portugal. Porto was
chosen given its highly skilled, precision engineering workforce and strong
educational system. A very good choice, confirmed Andreas. The subsequent
decision to actually build the new state of the art plant was delayed due to
the financial crisis. The Famalicão factory, opened in March, 2013, employs
over 700 people and is key to Leica’s current success. Dr Kaufmann is clearly
very proud of the plant and its people.
The overall ‘Made in
Germany’ tag for the M10 accurately reflects the R&D, value added in Wetzlar
in the assembly process – and it is good marketing. Still, I couldn’t resist
suggesting a couple of points from an ‘old’ marketing hand about the
‘exclusivity’ phraseology. Andreas was a sympathetic listener. That was, after
all, how this visit came about.
We then had a much broader
conversation. We started with the history of Leitz Park (opened officially in
May 2014) and its major extension due to open next June. This will include a 4
star hotel, the World of Leica Experience, the Leica Akademie, a Museum and
more. And it’s all being built with the low rise, environmentally friendly and
green ethos of the current Park. A top quality campus.
Moving to the cameras,
Andreas made an interesting point on pricing and value. In the 1930’s the
classic M and a decent lens would cost around 2.5/2.75 times the monthly salary
of a German worker. Today, it’s rather less than that, around 2.25 times. Food
for thought.
This led to the obvious
question – what does the next 3/5 years hold for Leica?
Andreas’ first point was
that the M is here to stay and will evolve as it always has done. It’s part of
the ‘genetic code’ of Leica (my words). And the SL/TL and S systems will
continue to develop. No surprises there.
Surveying the technology
scene, it’s hard to see Leica competing in the very ‘low price’ APS-C arena –
yet it is equally hard to ignore the ‘megapixel race’ at the top end of the
market pursued so ardently by Sony, Canon, Nikon and others.
Anyone that shoots with a
Q, SL or M10 knows how good those 24 megapixel sensors are – the combination of
pixels and processing is the key. But with full frame competitors pushing 50
megapixels, what this means to Leica … well, let’s just say the question was
left hanging.
A major point made by Dr
Kaufmann was that cameras on mobile phones had changed the game at the ‘lower’
end of the market. And that the new generation of ‘lens array’ double camera
phones – think iPhone Plus, and the Huawei models jointly developed with Leica
– could show the future. These will rapidly evolve as chips and software
develop.
Interestingly, Andreas is
on record as saying a true ‘Leica Phone’ would be his dream. He believes that
every smartphone is wrong for photography right now, yet it is a device that
makes photography accessible to all.
On another tack, he was
also excited about the new, reborn classic soft-focus portrait lens, the 90mm
F/2.2 Thambar-M, originally from 1935.
He was less excited when I
mentioned I sometimes use my Lomography Petzvals on the SL – just not his
style, I guess … However we both agreed that the ability of the SL, via
adapters, to use many kinds of lenses is a selling point. I even use my more
exotic Nikkor’s.
At this point, and my
words not those of Dr Kauffman, it seemed clear that, for Leica, the essence of
all of this activity was the pursuit of the image, rather than the technology
per se.
Andreas was then very
generous in sharing some of his future thinking on branding and technology. Can’t
write much about that, but suffice to say that James and I came way quite
excited about Leica’s future.
Moving from the brand and
its technology, it was time for some more personal questions. Which
photographers inspire Dr Kaufmann? He offered an interesting choice:
- Dr Paul Wolff, who did some iconic urban and architectural work in the mid 20th century. He’s featured in the Gallery in the reception hall, and there may be a major exhibition.
- Henri Cartier-Bresson, always hard to ignore.
- Jeff Mermelstein, in the modern era. Andreas follows his Instagram feed.
It was also fun to see
photos that Andreas had shot on the Q, often his companion, and transferred to
his phone, which illustrated his own personal photographic style. Urban, lines,
light and architecture.
So it was time to end. We
spent almost an hour and a half with the Chairman. You can’t help but like his
cheerful yet thoughtful approach – the man is a good listener, and he
encourages everyone to ‘walk the talk’ about customers. His passion for Leica
is clear.
James and I were very
grateful for his time, and we learnt a lot.
In all, we spent close to
6 hours in Leitz Park. Beyond the technology, we were impressed by the team
spirit. In my other life, I have spent decades leading at Board level and then
consulting on senior management teams. We witnessed a good team at work.
Oh, and other than being
offered and taking a couple of reject lens elements as souvenirs, neither James
nor I bought anything new at the Leica Store. Yet …
For other articles on this blog scroll down in the column to the right to BLOG ARCHIVE
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