This is from Andreas which is the owner of LUF and his notes from Stefan Daniel in a Q&A . More discussion on the LUF if interested but thought I would get it all in right here as well. Here is the link to the the thread by Andreas for more discussion on Leica
http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica...source=Newsletter2009-11-EN&utm_medium=E-Mail
Hi,
here's finally the official translation of the summary of the Q&A session with Stefan Daniel during the Hessenpark member meeting.
I transcibed it from the video I made that evening and translated it with my limited English skills (What the heck is "verkitten" or "Kittglieder" in English?)
Strategy In General
Panasonic Cooperation
The Panasonic cooperation will continue
More compact cameras to come
Leica and Micro FourThirds
Leica is not going to offer MFT cameras
Leica may offer MFT lenses
MFT is and interesting system
Sensor size is a very limiting factor
Leica And The Forum
Leica is not going to run an own forum on their website
Collaboration is seen as running well and constructive
Positive example is the first L-Camera TV show from the Leica production
Many Leica employees are reading in this forum regularly, so that important contributions in the forum are reported immeditiately to the management
The forum provides many contributions to the product development
Stefan Daniel agrees to answer forum questions more often in the future
Leica As Lens Supplier for Other Camera Systems
Patents needed are only swapped inside of the Japanes camera industry
Zeiss lenses are manufactured by Cosina who are seen as Japanese company
That way Zeiss receives the patents, Leica as German company does not
Leica's attempts to come to an agreement failed until now
Reverse engineering is legally too risky
Extending The Product Range
No Leica scanners are planned
The LCD projector range is continued but won't have interchangeable lenses
Maybe the customer service will offer to implement different lenses
R-System
R10 and Alternatives
There will be no digital SLR aka R10
But there will be - and we are working on this - a suitable solution how to use R lenses digitally
It's very important to us, that owners of R lenses can take pictures digitally in the near future
This solution will have nothing to do to with the S2
Leica has examined intensively which features and what price tag a R10 had to have
Price would have been 6000 - 7000 Euro and it would have been far behind the competitors
This would have been a solution for the existing customer base but not for new customers
Therefore the R system is discontinued, the existing system runs out
There is no due date for the new solution
Indirect notes by Stefan Daniel to 35 mm full format
Definitely it's not going to be a SLR
DMR
The reasons for stopping the DMR were
Cooperation with Imacon now Hasselblad ended very abruptly
Sales figures were low (approx. 10% of M8/M8.2)
The DMR firmware will have no updates.
M-System
M9
A LEICA M9 will come
Developing full format is technically very demanding because of the M lenses
We are one step further but still not there where we can announce the camera
M8 Upgrades
No more upgrades are planned
Dealers don't like upgrades as no additional sales are generated
The M8 upgrade constrained Leica M8.2 sales
Used cameras are entry level cameras thus attracting new customers to Leica
This would drop by future upgrade offers
Sensor Supplier
Kodak is prepared to Leica's needs, for example the special size of the S2 sensor
Other manufacturers like Sony only offer a fixed range of sensors
Summarits / Entry Level Lenses
Summarits are true Leica lenses
The LEICA ELMAR-M f/3,8 24 mm was already an extension of this line
More affordable Leica lenses are to come - perhaps not named Summarit (reserved for 2.5 lenses)
Summilux 50mm sales are 100% above of Summarit sales
Super Wide Lenses
Asked for super wide lenses:
Leica already has an 16mm - Leica can only offer shorter lenses
This is a topic we could work on...
18mm Finder Availability
18mm finder to come in June
The frame precision wasn't sufficient yet therefore a rework was necessary
NOCTILUX Availability
NOCTILUX wa announced for February
Production turned out to be more complex than assumed
NOCTILUX consists of 8 elements in 5 groups
These groups are first cemented (?), then coated
This process had problems which are solved now
End of June, beginning of July larger quantities will reach the market
S-System
Pilot lot is in production by now
Everything is on schedule
Price will be on the same level as the top cameras in the digital professional segment - like high end solutions by Hasselblad and Phase One
Body will be below 20,000 Euros
Because of the Leica lens quality and the lacking low-pass filter LEICA S2 can compete with 50MP cameras of the competitors
Target group of the S2 are professional photographers (studio, fashion, automobile)
Total market are about 10,000 cameras per year
Leica is going for a at least two digit market share
German original is here:
http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...enfassung.html
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Andreas Jürgensen
Admin & Editor