carstenw, you're right, I'm impatient.
The danger with this kind of marketing is that potential customers become impatient. Sadly my patience has run out.
Well, I would love to know the details too, and I feel impatient, but Leica will not release anything earlier than that because of people like us. They will release when they are ready, and there almost certainly won't be any unplanned leaks in advance. They are very secretive.
If you need to make purchase decisions in the time-frame of this summer, then I doubt the Leica S2 would be a good bet anyway. I expect things to run well, but counting on it is another matter. If the service doesn't function and something goes wrong, it could affect someone's livelihood. I wouldn't bet like that.
The more I hear about the camera, the more I am tempted to somehow find the money for it. I already have a relatively complete Contax 645 system, and wanted to buy a Sinar back for it, but I will move very cautiously in that direction now, given the sad Franke & Heidecke news.
I expect that Jenoptik have taken many precautions, knowing that F&H was unstable financially, which was no secret. One way they took precautions was to ensure that they held all the rights, even though F&H almost certainly designed the system. The rooms and machines used for manufacturing were rented, so that end shouldn't pose problems either. I expect that one of the remaining precautions is that they already had someone else in mind to take over manufacturing in case F&H should fail, but they have only a limited window to make this happen before people start losing faith in the system, and with it being so new, this could prove fatal. I hope that they come through. It would be a shame for the only modern 6x6 on the market to fail so soon.
Anyhow, if something goes wrong with Jenoptik and Sinar, I can either get a Phase back, or think about a Leica S2. I am not terribly keen on Phase, to be honest. I respect their backs and their software, but find their business methods only slightly more savory than Hasselblad's. Leica is in my mind pretty much beyond reproach. They have had short-comings but it is clear to see that they always try to find ethical solutions. The whole DMR/Imacon disaster they handled by taking over firmware writing, and way beyond the point where it made economic sense to do so, they released an update. With the M8 problems, they gave out free filters, and updated firmware to handle the IQ problems, even if the workflow suffered somewhat. Each time there has been problems, and aren't there always, for every company, but they have come through and found acceptable solutions for the vast majority of their customers. I believe that they will make the S2 a success.
