O.K., time to get things back to some sort of normalcy......maybe, I hope.
First, my apologies to any members or readers that may have gotten into this fracas now scratching their heads and wondering WTF!! I sincerely hope and doubt that any of my comments or statements have been promoting anything but facts, but have carefully been stipulating conjecture or speculation. Yes, some of my comments have had a bit of a sting toward Leica, and personally, I am not ashamed of that. They have said and promised a lot of things and screwed up the delivery more than once on those issues. I doubt anybody here in unaware of that sort of thing.
Second, to Jono, I did take your comment as feeling directed toward me since you were responding to something I had put out there about Leica most likely not ever going to make lens adapters for somebody else's glass. I used the example of the M8 and how so many folks were so frustrated for so long when they 1) could not get their existing lenses coded in any reasonable timeframe, 2) could not get new Leica lenses delivered in any quantities or reasonable time (let's leave prices aside), or 3) really wanted to use some other lenses the had very nice drawing, but had some issues with vignetting, both before and after using IR/UV filters (more on that in a bit), and for which Leica had built in algorithms into the firmware to adjust for this with their coded lenses. So, folks were asking Leica for some relief, and at one point were even asking if Leica could make this an "upgrade option"....meaning they were even willing to pay for that sort of help. Leica looked for any way to shut that down, while still appearing to "appease" the masses who were really growing restless. One more straw to the request was all that was needed to let Leica walk away from something they were being "pressured" into, and for which I firmly believe they were not at all interested in ever doing.
(Sidebar: Leica even went so far as to make sure the UV/IR cut filters that were now required to correct the too weak IR cover glass on the sensor, which they tried to pass off as a design feature with too close tolerances to be done any other way, were of a slightly different strength and wavelength than the more available B+W filters, and pretty much the only other source for folks to be able to shoot color images with more or less correct IR filtering. The Leica filters were nearly impossible to get, even though they were passing out 2 free ones to everybody who bought an M8. They also cost more than the B+W filters, which were available and Leica would not recommend them, though they did not directly tell folks not to use them. Here we had a $5k camera that besides all the other issues, could not be used at the wider angles without the filters, and there were few filters available. So folks asked for at least the ability to get the vignetting corrected with non-Leica codes lenses, for which they had some filters from B+W, so that they could at least only have to correct for slight color shifts, rather than color and vignetting shifts. Leica did not help with that situation.)
Still reading.....thank you. Thirdly, Jono is correct, there have been a fair number of misstatements and flat out incorrect information passed along in this thread and others, that has not been called out every time, and gets perpetuated wrongly....on both sides of the debate. That is going to happen everywhere, but this forum has been pretty good about providing, or trying to provide accurate information. Sometimes emotions help twist and bend facts a bit, but sometimes stuff is just flat out incorrect, and it does nobody good to try to make decisions and choices or judgments from incorrect information. Jono, I just wish you had made your comment as a separate entry, and not tied it to my comments. I got washed with your brush, and I do not feel it was justified, hence my response.
Sorry for the long entry, but I felt like I got stung for no reason, responded, and set off a bit of a dust-up. I hope I have gotten a few of those issues straightened out correctly. I am sure somebody will add a correction if they need to.
I have been very honest and open about what I think Leica is doing with this S2. I love the concept. I want something like it. I think they have priced it at a premium that seems excessive, exchange rates aside. They have made some promises and proclamations over it that have yet to be seen or proven. It may deliver nicely, but we do not yet know that, and Leica does not have a very good record on that front with other releases and promises. They try to make good on things, and I think that is partly what keeps folks believing what they say, but frankly, there is a lot more marketing at this point than anything else. I am not suggesting anybody buy or not buy. Those are your personal convictions and intentions, governed by needs, budget, shooting style, etc. Just worth being aware of what you may be getting into, so you may not be too surprised later....either way.
Finally, the point that touched all this off was wondering if Leica would be making adapters to accommodate lenses made by somebody else. My opinion....not on your life. Somebody may try to get into that business, but I would bet Leica may aggressively pursue their patents and stuff. Further, I will go out on a limb right now by asking aloud, since there is nothing other than sales chatter, how much of the correction for the lenses is being done in Maestro? While Leica can make outstanding glass, there is no way any of us can know or test one of these new lenses against something else....Leica S2 glass will only work on the S2, nothing else, and nothing else will be able to work on the S2. So how are we to know just how much correction may be cranked into the file in-camera? For some folks that may not matter, but we still have the raging debates of DAC, Phocus, etc......at least there you get the option of turning it on or off. With the S2, since there is no proprietary software where one may have that option, you get whatever Leica pumps out to the DNG file....meaning we have no way to know what those really expensive lenses are or are not delivering without the in-camera processing. Can somebody answer that question without just sales speak?
LJ