|
|
Leica and Value in Optics
by Wayne van Zwoll
"I'd git me a spottin' scope t'morrow if this outfit'd pay me what I'm worth." The cowboy picked yellow horse-teeth with a pine sliver from the debris on the flatbed. His old pickup smelled of sunburned steel and last year's hay. A veteran blue heeler eyed me as he might a trespassing cat. In this noon-white heat, he'd keep to the shade under the tack rack, I thought. Still, his one pale blue iris had the look of glass with crosswires.
"A Leaker. That's what I'd git."
I shifted the rifle on my shoulder and gulped the proffered water from a muddy paper cup. "You mean Leica."
Leica's Televid spotting scope.
The cowboy pawed his stubbled chin. It sounded like leather on a steel brush. "Guess you know more 'bout them Germans than me," he said. "O' course, I took a German mule deer huntin' once-- special favor to the boss. Unpaid. Anyway, we got on a dandy buck, and this feller couldn't see it. Big as a beef and plain as fresh paint on a barn. Buck finally ambled off."
I scuffed my toe in the road dust and started to say something vapid about hunters and deer in general, but the cowboy broke in.
"You German?"
I allowed that I wasn't.
"You got any Leakers?"
Well, no, I hadn't.
"Not many folks do. Pity. They're good. Goot!" He cackled. "Been that way since '25."
The blue heeler had gone to sleep by the time I'd learned all the wizened man cared to tell me about Leica optics. The legend began, he said, in 1911, when one Oskar Barnack joined the firm as Director of Research. An amateur photographer, Barnack balked at having to carry and manipulate the heavy plate cameras of the day.
"Smart cookie, that Barnack. Figured the movie film he was workin' with could double for still cameras. He even convinced ol' Ernie Leitz hisself to build a camera for 35 millimeter film. That was the Ur-Leica. Came out about the time Ferdinand stopped a bullet in Sarajevo. Anyway, the big war kinda put a hold on things, but Leica had a commercial camera ready for the Leipzig Spring Fair in '25."
In 1925, however, photographers thought the new 35mm too small a format. The pocket-size camera didn't look serious, but Leica pursued its vision, announcing in 1930 the Leica I with a threaded mount for interchangeable lenses. Two years later the Leica II appeared with a built-in rangefinder. The Leica III, introduced in 1933, had shutter speeds as low as one second. By 1940 a die-cast body and one-piece top cover had been added.
War halted development of a bayonet mount, something the firm had been working on since 1936, but in 1954 Leica unveiled the M3, with the bayonet feature that was to become an industry standard. The camera had a hinged back, a "brightline" viewfinder that showed image area, a more precise rangefinder, shutter speeds from one to 1/1000 second and a film counter with automatic reset. The M3 was not only a costly camera to build but represented a huge investment in research. Its stiff price did not deter serious photographers. The new camera proved as popular as beer at the branding corral.
Leica's Geovid binocular.
Leica hedged its bets with a new screw-in camera in 1957, but the M3 obviously had a future. During the 1950s the MP, M2 and M1 appeared as variants. In 1967 Leica brought out the M4 with a fast-loading takeup spool and foldout crank. The M4-P, which came 10 years later, accommodated a motor drive.
In 1971 Leica announced the M5, the first rangefinder camera in the world with selective through-the-lens light metering. Two years later Leica and the Japanese firm Minolta cooperated to build the Leica CL, similar to the M5. The M6, Leica's current flagship camera, boasts a number of refinements but retains the unmistakable profile of Oskar Barnack's Ur-Leica.
An M6 may seem frightfully expensive to young amateurs brought up with Kodak Instamatics and efficient Japanese SLRs, but Leicas are still costly to manufacture. The M6 rangefinder system has 104 components, including a beam-splitting prism and an achromat. The M6 offers the cachet many photographers covet, a precision that all can admire, the flexibility accomplished hands and eyes can use to good advantage. The M6 accepts lenses of 21 to 135mm.
Leica also manufactures single-lens-reflex cameras: the R6.2 and the R7, which accommodate lenses of 15 to 800mm focal length. A Leica mini II and mini zoom are available for people who want an automatic pocket-size camera that thinks for them. These cost more than similar cameras without the Leica name or quality.
Few hunters own Leica cameras, but they know the German firm for its Trinovid binoculars. These lovely roof-prism glasses had me in their spell as soon as I was old enough to figure out that the most expensive optics were usually the best. As a young man, I managed to steal a look through a Trinovid binocular. From then on my daydreams were as likely to feature Leica glass as they were curvy blondes.
Recently Leica went high-tech with the Geovid binocular, which has an electronic compass and built-in rangefinder. This is surely a marvelous instrument, but it is too heavy and bulky for my hunts. I'm much more taken with Leica's Televid spotting scopes. They are among the best instruments available for judging horns and antlers at long range. The "APO" model has top billing and costs more than the standard Televid.
"Brilliant. Sharp as snake teeth. Fact is, all them Leakers are that way. I ain't got much, but what I've got's good. What're you packin', friend?"
I didn't want to show him. In that rusty oven of a pickup was a connoiseur of fine glass. I bade him a hurried good day and took my leave across sun-bleached dust into the aspens. The blue heeler stayed still in the shadow of the rack, his parting look a sneer.
Leica and other European optics firms charge handsomely for their products. High price can drive off buyers on budgets. For the wealthy, though, it may clinch a deal. Expensive items carry prestige, and even unpretentious shooters are often wooed by costly merchandise because they equate price with quality. To most of us a scope or binocular or spotting scope is something to save for. We can easily afford the inexpensive models but must squirrel away some coin if we want better instruments. The top-end glass makes us blanche and quake. We'd like to own it but question whether paying that much will ensure a worthwhile edge in field performance.
For example, if I wanted a new 7x binocular to replace the tired Bausch & Lomb that has worn a groove in my neck over the past 20 autumns, I might try a Bushnell Powerview. A nickel shy of $80 at retail, it is certainly affordable. Swarovski's 7x42 SLC, in contrast, costs nearly $1,000, and the new Leica Geovid would bleed me of three time that amount. Why should I pay $3,000 for a binocular?
The rangefinding feature on the Geovid explains some of the additional cost. That's a relief. I didn't want a rangefinder anyway, because I like to shoot close. The choice narrows. A Bushnell at $80 looks attractive when I conclude that the Swarovski cannot be 12 times as good. Then I consider another angle: What if it's just enough sharper and brighter to show me an antler tine in a thicket at dusk on the last day of a hunt, and that tine belongs to the biggest bull elk I'll ever see? What if it's just enough more rugged to retain perfect collimation after a rockslide spill that would dislodge the elements or impair the alignment of a cheaper instrument? What if rain and fog conspire to test the seals of my binocular?
Yes, but those are the extremes, says my conscience. I waffle. How much should I pay to ensure that the extremes on a hunt don't compromise its success? I thumb through more catalogs and find intermediate prices. That means a middle-ground in quality too. A sensible solution, until the question comes: Do you want to hunt with a mediocre binocular for the next 20 years or with a good one? I may never need a "good" one, but to choose cheap is to bet the difference that I won't need better optics against a fine animal on an expensive hunt.
Optics are investments, and the cost of a $1,000 binocular amortized over 20 years is just $50 a year, assuming it has no value at the end. That's a bargain, considering that I'll pay nearly as much for a motel room, half that for a tankful of gasoline or a box of cartridges. Sure, it's upfront money now, and a grand will buy lots of nice things plus a serviceable binocular. Hunters who opt for inexpensive glass can be forgiven, but equipment that fails you is the most costly equipment you can take to the mountains.
Does some of the high cost of top-end optics pay for advertising? You bet. What about "name"? Isn't there a charge for snob appeal? Yes. In fact, one well-known optics firm allegedly discourages dealers from discounting at dealer expense, even when it will boost sales. The company does not want its products to come within reach of blue-collar budgets. This brand of pricing has some shooters ready to spit nails, but it is a legitimate business practice. You don't see Labor Day sales on Ferraris. The notion that every cent charged above the basic cost of low-quality optics must have been spent in upgrading optical performance is ludicrous. The engine in my car is also used in less expensive and more expensive automobiles.
Quality does generally follow price--not only because improvements require investment but because rejection rates also increase on top-end instruments. Sometimes you'll find a cheap scope or binocular that will give you as sharp and bright an image as one costing several times as much, but quality control won't be as strict on the low-priced stock, so quality will vary more. High-ticket items carry the maker's reputation, and buyers generally fuss more when they have problems with costly merchandise. When you buy the best, you pay for imperfect glass that went into the reject bin and for finished product routed back through assembly to correct the slightest cosmetic defects. In effect, you're buying the company's insurance.
If that rolls the burr under your saddle, be assured that some of the extra cost does pay for top-quality raw materials, superior lens coatings, more sophisticated testing equipment, extra time on the assembly line to ensure perfect fit and a well-equipped and well-staffed shop. Retailers exact their pound of flesh, of course. Some leading-edge optical technology does not reach the marketplace simply because manufacturers think consumers won't bear the extra cost--there's not enough discernible improvement in image quality to justify a higher price.
There's no longer any magic in country of origin, either for raw glass or finished product. American scopes wear German and Japanese lenses. German optics firms conced that relying on only one glass supplier is foolhardy and that most advanced countries now have the means to produce superior coated lenses.
The rifles in my gun rack wear scopes that cost, new, for $40 to more than $600. They have all helped me aim. My tattered L binocular I bought used for about $100--a princely sum at the time. These days I'm also using a model that retails for more than $1000. The idea isn't to see how much you can spend, or how little. It is to find the best glass at the highest price you can entertain. As one of my hunting partners said long ago, "The best buy is the best you can buy."
Copyright (c) 1997 Mark Harris Publishing Associates, Inc.
