The S2 ,M9 and R10 will be there redemption products.
Guy, I understand your emotional involvement with Leica. Most of us who have been using, buying, supporting Leica products for years, sympathize with the company.
But in the current economic crisis pride and efforts are not enough to survive; you need competitive products and fast time to market. Both have been missing lately; prices have become out of reach and apart from the S2 adventure, both the M and the R lines look antiquated.
Leitz has started its camera success story with a bold innovation, the introduction of the Barnack 35mm camera at a high but still affordable price. Today this spirit of innovation seems missing. The S2 is perhaps a technically interesting toy, but it reminds me of the great luxury cars of the 30es, the Dusenberg, Cord, Maybach, Horch, Isotta Fraschini, Hispano Suiza, that did not survive the depression and only live on as collectors items or in pictures like Sunrise Boulvevard.
By the time the R10 makes it to market, most R photographers (including you and me) will have switched to Nikon or Canon.
We had great expectations for a new M at the Photokina The main problems, the use of IR filters and the mechanical RF technology, its lack of precision with longer and superfast lenses have not been corrected. It would have needed a new, revolutionary design, such as the solutions included in the G1. Instead, we got a less noisy shutter, a scratch-proof screen and a few other niceties.
I hope I shall be wrong, but to me the S2 ,M9 and R10 will not be their redemption but their gravestone.
