Every now and then I have to write a certain post, because so many people are sending me links to the same news item. Everybody seems to agree that it's something I ought to be excited about.
Unfortunately, I'm not excited about the Leica "designed" by Apple's renowned Jon Ive along with Marc Newson, whose Pentax K-01 was a nice little camera that flopped as a product.
As far as I can tell, huge amounts of resources, time, and attention were wasted creating a silly meaningless bauble.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
The result will be auctioned at Sotheby's for charity.
One thing I do raise my paltry little who-cares objection against: all the news outlets that are saying Jony Ive "designed" a camera. No, he didn't. He just dressed a camera. To design a camera, you have to have a vision of how it might be used, and be free to determine how it should be configured and how it ought to work and what it ought to do. This is no more "designing a camera" than, say, hiring an artist to paint a Rolls and then saying the artist "designed" the Rolls. Yes, you can design a camera without being an engineer. (The engineers are the ones who take the ideas and make them work.) But this isn't that.
Now I've done my diligent duty and written about this*. Always aiming to please.
Curmudgeon-in-Training Mike
*At least this post is the Yin to the previous post's Yang where Leicas are concerned.
Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.
(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
Ed. Note: The following two comments came in one right after the other:
Ian Castle: "'The engineers are the ones who take the ideas and make them work.' No; all the best products come from the ideas and knowledge of engineers. The world is now plagued with heavily designed and styled products which do not always work very well. As a retired engineering designer I recognise that products have to look good but good design means 'form follows function.'"
Marc Gibeault: "As an industrial designer I completely agree with your analysis."
HT: "Mike, if it makes you feel better, I saw this Leica/Apple news on another website and immediately though, 'Man, I bet anything that Mike will hate this camera.'"
Dave Jenkins: "C'mon, Mike! Don't be modest. You're way past the training stage in curmudgeonry."
Grant Tomlinson: "Mike, I don't think you're in training anymore. This post itself is a brief master class in the art."
Mike replies to Dave and Grant: Harrrumph! [g]
I love how they designed the moiré onto the body. Hopefully will mitigate the moiré inside.
Posted by: Mike Hunter | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:37 AM
Calling this silly meaningless bauble is an insult to the silly meaningless bauble community. You've been too kind.
Posted by: Rob | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:42 AM
I don't know how many times I've seen things (articles of clothing, watches, etc.) that were supposedly "special" because they were "designed" by someone who had a reputation as a designer and, aside from the logo/signature, the item was only marginally different in appearance from any other off the shelf similar item. I remember once my boss came to work after Christmas wearing a Dior cardigan that his wife gave him. Aside from the embroidered DIOR on the left breast it was identical to one I had purchased from a discount dept store.
Posted by: Jim Bullard | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:52 AM
Mike,
Amen
Regards
Experienced curmudgeon
Posted by: rnewman | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:55 AM
I'm in complete agreement but I'd take it even one step further. This "noteworthy" camera has virtually nothing to do with photography. Owning this one (as opposed to a plain Jane version) will have virtually no impact on the actual image. It has everything to do with collectibles/collectors. And that's a universe that has rules I simply do not understand.... shrug.
Posted by: Steve D | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:55 AM
It's just another lifestyle "prop," like "limited edition" or "signature" sneakers that only differ from the ordinary stuff through use of different colored/exotic materials,low production runs and some form of celebrity endorsement.
Posted by: cgw | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:56 AM
This falls squarely in my "I don't care" category, but one thing that jumped at me was how awful those recessed controls in the top appear to be for real-world usage. Not that I think anybody is going to actually use this camera to take photographs, of course.
Posted by: Alberto Bengoa | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:58 AM
I'd rather bother you with things like this:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2013/09/23/225431832/women-who-broke-all-the-rules-in-nepal
Which I think is rather more to TOP's point than yet another bauble.
Posted by: William Barnett-Lewis | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:58 AM
Sure is beautiful. Wish all camera manufacturers take note of this "silly meaningless bauble."
Anyway, made me pull out yea olde Leica M6, Fomapan 800 which is now over 20 years old, and the M Winder. Why not? Gorgeous gear needs fondling and use, once in a while...
Posted by: Michal Daniel | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:59 AM
I get what you're saying about dressing vs. designing, but is that really true in this case? It looks like an M with an integrated 50 mm lens, so there might be at least some actual design involved.
Posted by: RP | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:04 PM
Kind of reminds me of a 1950's Carl Zeiss Werra, but with rounded edges. But I think the Werra is better looking.
Posted by: Michael Eckstein | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:05 PM
Scratch that. I guess it's just a new version of the lens that he designed. So you're probably right.
Posted by: RP | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:06 PM
Fanbois, the lot of them. I regret the covering of this blingfest in otherwise useful, serious photography sites.
Posted by: Donald | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:17 PM
Things like this one make me wonder, what is industrial design? It's certainly not what Ive did here. It doesnt look like a serious attempt at improving over the Leica M's design. I know it's a camera designed for a charity auction, and thank god for that. Would someone want to use that instead of a straight Leica M? The thing looks as if my M8 dressed up as a 2004 iPod for Halloween.
I'll keep using Ive's designs in the form of iPhones and MacBooks. But I hope he never gets a job at Leica.
Posted by: Juan Buhler | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:29 PM
I call it the "silver ghost" but you have to admit it is waste of a good camera. I thought it would be impossible to beat the Leica design and I was right. UGLY.
Posted by: Glenn Brown | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:30 PM
Quite right: the Pentax MX is still a better designed camera.
Posted by: Ben | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:35 PM
UN-designed would be a more apt word, given the anti-ergonomics job done to the shutter speed dial. They might as well have made it a Philips head screw. Still, it will do it's job well... that is, to sit perfectly still, look ever so pretty, and accumulate value.
Posted by: Martin Francis | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:36 PM
Hmmmmm
I'd point the finger at the press etc for the use of the word 'designed', though:
a) I don't think it matters
b) It's for charity (as you do mention) and so let's not be churlish. Charities need to leverage any celebrity link they can in order to make difference: Apple has a long history of supporting Project red
c) An alternative view is always welcome, yet I am a bit surprised just how curmudgeonly this one comes across
Posted by: Stephen McCullough | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:48 PM
I've always thought the most Ive-looking camera is the white Nikon 1.
Posted by: MM | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 12:57 PM
First thing that comes to my mind on seeing this: White as an Apple!
Posted by: Aashish Sharma | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 01:11 PM
Another way in which the look of this camera shares in the elevated attributes of a banknote - besides the disconnection of cost from worth - how obstinately hard it is going to be, to reproduce.
That (presumably grippy?) patterning on the main part... really nasty aliasing (grin).
Posted by: richardplondon | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 01:26 PM
Industrial design students would refer to this for what it is: a styling project. It's interesting to me how much of the photographic world has chimed in to critique this one off piece - many negatively. To me, it is a thought provoking, if not surprising, melding of two aesthetics know for simplicity. There is some tension between the elements that have made Apple and Leica successful products. Still, I want to hold one, if only to know how well that dial works.
Posted by: Nate Zellmer | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 01:53 PM
This is camera as "art object". It's meant to sit on a shelf not take photographs. It's a conceptual camera.
That would also explain the design of the dials on the top deck (that look less than usable to me) and the laser perforated body (an impossible to clean dirt magnet as anyone with a Macbook Pro knows).
Whilst sitting on the shelf it makes a great test object for moiré.
Posted by: Kevin Purcell | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 02:08 PM
yes and in fact it seems he's de-designed it if that makes any sense- he's taken out all the tactile feedback the controls give, the difference between the aperture and focus rings, the shutter speed knob, they all are as undifferentiated as the white etherial glow Ive seems to exist in in the Apple videos.
He made it worse.
Posted by: robert | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 02:20 PM
Can the Jonathan Ive Edition Tesla Model S be far behind?
Posted by: Paul De Zan | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 02:21 PM
Thank you for designing this post.
The camera doesn't look like a child's cheap plastic toy as much as Newson's Pentax does, but it's close.
Posted by: Luke | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 02:38 PM
The smooth lens rings and recessed knobs scream "unuseable". I haven't held one, so I could be wrong but since nobody has, my opinion is as valuable as anyone's...
Posted by: Renaud | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 02:45 PM
I use Leica's alongside my ZI. I have no interest in this product. Well reported:)
Posted by: Mike | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 02:46 PM
Ironic that Mike can write:
"Jony Ive "designed" a camera. No, he didn't. He just dressed a camera."
and
"As far as I can tell, huge amounts of resources, time, and attention were wasted creating a silly meaningless bauble."
when a couple of inches away you write:
" I've long been aware that I come to photographs with two hats on. One is my editor's/critic's hat. In that frame of mind you have to be open to all sorts of work, and take creators of art at their work and on their own terms."
Photographers, when it comes to our cameras, have incoherent - if not outright schizophrenic - tastes.
Cameras are dogmatically tools and form must follow function! Unless we are talking about cameras with a retro look, where rectilinear dimensions are preferred, despite the fact that they are more difficult to hold and don't come to hand like the black shapeless hunks of plastic known as DSLR's.
Huge amounts of time wasted on a meaningless bauble! A bauble using the same design aesthetics that engendered millions of words of encomium for the philosophical genius of Steve Jobs, and the sublime satisfaction of sleek simplicity.
Is this not the same website whose author waxed poetic on the delicious aesthetics of a new, substantially more expensive version of a compact camera which came with pre-weathered brass plates?
Could it be that the vituperation we see all over the photo webs for the "dressed up" Hasselblad NEX-7 and now this "dressed up" Leica is more a function of class envy than it is of a coherent philosophy of technology?
Posted by: Gingerbaker | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 02:57 PM
I just got the new Olympus OM-D E-M1 Micro 4/3 Mirrorless Camera from http://www.ritzcamera.com and its really awesome! It hasn't even been released in the stores yet but this site has a few of them in stock now!
Posted by: S Mendelsohn | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 03:21 PM
Amen! My fascination with Leica begins and ends with my trusty M2 that's an easy three decades older than myself: Just a hearty little box that does one thing and does it very well.
Posted by: Rob Grey | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 03:21 PM
I'd say Ive and Newson were the camera stylists.
Posted by: Auntipode | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 03:23 PM
There is an interesting loop closing here, one that I found out about thanks to a post on the Pentax Forums site this morning...
The above-view of the K-01 bears a more-than-passing resemblance to the above-view of the Leica Digilux I.
Here is the URL to the thread:
http://www.pentaxforums.com/forums/pentax-k-01/239121-marc-newson-good-enough-leica-2.html#post2535769
The post in question is the fifth down on the second page of the thread.
Posted by: Yonatan Katznelson | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 03:47 PM
The first camera that really needs an AA filter -- if you want to take a picture of it.
Posted by: Torsten Bronger | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 04:02 PM
You are right about the word "design" Mike. There is engineering design -- the true use of the word, and there is "industrial design" which is essentially styling the appearance and human interface of an object. Calling styling "design" has always bugged me too.
Posted by: Max Cottrell | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 04:03 PM
I agree wholeheartedly with your distinction, Mike.
Frankly, it seems impossible that it took both Ive and Newsom to get this result.
That said: wouldn't it be great to see a Jony Ive designed camera? One where he had free reign over the hardware and software?
Posted by: Will | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 04:35 PM
It's all a matter of taste, I know, but one could be forgiven to think that, after Marc Newson had penned the Pentax K-01, a restraining order would have been issued so that he kept away from camera design. But no - he's at it again.
The first thing I noticed about this camera was that it had no hotshoe. I instantly figured it was a camera for frivolous people who have more money than sense. Then I saw those recessed control dials, which must be a nightmare to operate, and my impression was confirmed. The people who will buy this camera won't probably use those dials. Actually, they're not even likely to use the camera at all.
The M series cameras are among the most beautiful cameras ever made. It took Leica several decades to fine tune their simple, yet sophisticated looks. And now those guys made it look like an iPhone skin. Blasphemous.
At least it is for a good cause... I suppose.
Posted by: Manuel | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 05:31 PM
Any comment at all on a Leica camera will draw ire from those who love the brand and those who loathe it. I bought a second hand Leica X2 earlier this year and, for me, it is the answer to my quest for the perfect simple camera. Small, well built, easy to use....you rarely have to dive into the menu...and the results are very pleasing.
Posted by: ann peterson | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 06:47 PM
It's good that Jony the Great has broadened his horizon beyond Apple. Maybe he's just what Leica needs as those ostrich gonad leather Ms are getting a little passe.
Maybe Apple could even start focussing on substance in his absence.
Posted by: Jeff Grant | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 06:59 PM
I agree with you on this. While I do find it to be very nice looking, it's not much different than Nikon's Coolpix S31 in that both look like idealized icons of what they represent.
It seems to me the lack of protuding knobs and rings would make this less freindly to use.
Posted by: Alex | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 06:59 PM
I not sure I can agree with 'dressed' versus 'designed'. He did make some functional decisions about stuff, like the missing hot-shoe.
On the other hand I don't give a flying one for L cameras so lets just hope someone pays a fortune for it.
Posted by: Steven House | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 07:04 PM
Hasselblad lost their mojo and started to dress up Sony cameras. I suppose Leica felt they would be left behind unless they move one step further from the already tried Hermes and lizard skin dress game.
Posted by: Ilkka | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 07:51 PM
Stylist are the new designers, just like mechanics are the new engineers.
We big up the stuff we almost understand and dismiss the clever back-room nerds, who modestly and quietly do stuff that is beyond our ken and make magic happen every day.
Posted by: Steve Jacob | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 09:10 PM
Only one thing is necessary,Mike: accept your fate and curmudge with pride.
Posted by: Jock Elliott | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 10:10 PM
Mike, I'm sorry, but you are not correct on this one. Like the 90% of the online community in this case. You are judging K-01 by what some "pundits" and gatekeepers of the "holy digital photography" assumed that makes a successful product.
K-01 was not a product flop. What happened is that demand actually exceeded production plans. It's as simple as that. And because extra was demanded, blue/white model was restarted for the Asian market.
From the beginning of their Pentax acquisition, and well into late 2011, Ricoh was expecting camera market to take a deep plunge. They didn't want same fate to happen to their products like Nikon and Canon allowed — involuntary inventory build-up.
That is partly responsible for the big DSLR sales flop in early 2013, as Nikon was selling more 3-years old models than new models, which were building an extra inventory.
K-01, then the GR, etc. are all just carefully measured up, and then the market is deliberately undersupplied to allow free space for new models. Expect same with K-3 you never mentioned (despite Pentax being an old advertiser here on TOP ;-).
Posted by: Zvonimir Tosic | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:16 PM
Jony Ive did design a camera—the most popular one in the world, I hear. It was one of the cameras used in your last print sale, n'est-ce pas?
Posted by: Ben | Wednesday, 09 October 2013 at 11:23 PM
I think the K -01 was actually nice design. It is just that the product itself was flawed. Too chunky for mirror less without any kind of viewfinder. If they had put a good EVF in the same form factor I think it would still be a great camera.
Posted by: Ilkka | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 01:07 AM
I've studied the photos carefully, and I can't figure out how you would remove the bottom plate to access the battery and memory card. I guess you'd have to send it back to Apple for that...
Thankfully it's only a one-off. I hope it raises a fortune for the charity.
Posted by: Dave in NM | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 01:48 AM
de Silva's special edition Leica housed an antiquated, miserable CCD sensor in a very nice camera body and was thus a compromised, unsatisfactory camera instrument.
Ives' and Newsom's special edition Leica houses a modern, very nice CMOS sensor in a miserable camera body and is thus a compromised, unsatisfactory camera instrument.
Had Leica re-used Walter de Silva's design but delivered it this time in clean black titanium, without that ugly red dot, and with an EVF connector, I might seriously have considered bidding for it.
By the way, I think it would be an interesting exercise to gauge the "wisdom of crowds" by setting up a poll to try to guess the price this latest Leica is going to fetch at the charity auction to be held in late 2013.
There have been many cases where the actual outcome of a future event was pretty accurately predicted by the median of the statistical distribution of a multitude of independent opinions.
Does anyone know of an Internet site where one could easily submit a price estimate for what that Leica will fetch, and at a later date, check the statistical distribution of these estimates and the median ?
Posted by: Bruno Masset | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 02:57 AM
I hate cameras without a grip. I hate cameras with the only design element of resembling to a brick (or a rounded brick). I don't like retro.
Posted by: Marcell Nikolausz | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 03:15 AM
Wow, they really phoned it in on this one
Step 1: Take Leica
Step 2: Sand off edges
Step 3: Make all buttons and dials harder to use
Step 4: Profit
Posted by: Bernard Scharp | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 03:21 AM
If I was an extremely talented product designer and a well respected firm known to have a large following of rich collectors came to me with the challenge of "dressing" a camera for the purpose of building a one-off to be auctioned off to raise money for charity and if I had the time to put into a totally different type of project from what I normally work on (even without pay because I was beyond well paid already) I think such a challenge would interest me too.
At Apple design is far more than skin deep as many but apparently not all understand and this project isn't that. But I find the whole exercise interesting and worthy given it's intended purpose. Maybe not much different than a concept car at an auto show that would be auctioned off for charity.
Posted by: Eric Perlberg | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 06:49 AM
"The people who will buy this camera won't probably use those dials. Actually, they're not even likely to use the camera at all."
I think it bears repeating that there is ONLY ONE of this camera. It's not in any way a production model, it's a one-off created solely to raise money. It's almost certainly never going to be used to take 'real' pictures.
It's a sculpture that only incidentally has the guts of a camera inside it.
Posted by: Andy Farrell | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 07:12 AM
This reminds me of the story that - many years ago - that Italian designer Luigi Colani was approached to 'redesign' the Leica M; he refused, saying that it was already perfect.
Posted by: Sam | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 08:59 AM
Yes, but does it have a clickwheel?
Posted by: Michel Hardy-Vallée | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 11:18 AM
" Wish all camera manufacturers take note of this "silly meaningless bauble."
I hope not. I don't want to see an Ostrich Brown Olympus EM-5 "designed" by Dior at the "interesting" price of 3000 €...
Special Editions are what a company puts out consistently when it stops to innovate.
Posted by: Andrea Costa | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 11:35 AM
That shutter speed wheel on the top that everybody (rightly) criticizes. It would be cool if it was a pop up. Press it down and it pops up on a spring and can be set, or left up for use, and press it down again and it stays down. If you set it to A you don't really need to adjust it all the time. That would be product design that could actually work better than the original.
Posted by: Ilkka | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 08:42 PM
The problem with this is that a silver or black MP is so beautiful that it is almost impossible to top its design.
Posted by: Bernd Reinhardt | Thursday, 10 October 2013 at 10:59 PM
What next, a Jony Ive designed Ferrari?
Back in the day, when Heinrich Janke was responsible for the looks of the Leica M3, he was referred to as the Leitz stylist. A more honest and accurate description of the job than designer. Jony Ive is a stylist and this Leica M has had a makeover in the style of Apple iThings.
A rare instance of putting a pig on lipstick or somesuch, methinks.
Posted by: Mani Sitaraman | Friday, 11 October 2013 at 05:15 AM
Although I agree that this thing is hideous and as you state "dressed" rather than designed...
I believe that Sir Jony Ive does know the difference...
By that I mean to say...
Who designed the iPhone?
Doesn't that have a camera...?
Is it possible to take reasonable pics with said device?
Posted by: Stephen | Saturday, 12 October 2013 at 05:17 AM
phew! after all the digital ink wasted on that daft sir jonny camera, your rant was a wonderful breath of fresh air. many thanks for that!
Posted by: bloodnok | Saturday, 12 October 2013 at 11:33 PM