討論版 >> 吹水區 Chit Chat Area >> Stefan Daniel: Leica Strategies in General
討論版 >> 吹水區 Chit Chat Area >> Stefan Daniel: Leica Strategies in General
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| Stefan Daniel: Leica Strategies in General |
| tugend |
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| In a recent event organized by Leica Forum (L-Camera-Forum) held on June 12th thru 14th in Hessenpark, Germany, Stefan Daniel (Leica Product Manager) answered various questions raised by forum members with regard to Leica strategies and product planning. The Administrator and Editor of Leica Forum, Andreas Juergensen, summarized Stefan’s input (unfortunately in German only) and posted on 16/6 at the Forum. The summary reveals many issues that you would certainly feel much interested to know about, and I would like to share it with you by offering my translation into English.
My friend, Mr. Pollmar in Germany, who is a great photographer and an expert of Leica camera, has proof-read my English translation to ensure its accuracy to the original text. I want to thank him here for his help. Please note I did not include Stefan’s comments on Leica Forum as it appears to be not related to the topic here. Please bear in mind, things might change as often seen with Leica, and Stefan can not say in specifics owing to his position. Home Page of L-Camera-Forum: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/ Video of Leica Forum Member Meeting: http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-foru...ember.html 1) Cooperation with Panasonic ▪ Leica's cooperation with Panasonic goes on. ▪ Compact DC’s will be further developed and marketed. 2) Leica and Micro Four Thirds ▪ Leica will not market M4/3 camera, might however supply M4/3 lens. ▪ M4/3 is an interesting system, but the small size of the sensor is a very restrictive factor. 3) Film scanner and LCD projector ▪ Film scanner is not planned in the production. ▪ LCD projector (such as Pradovit D-1200) will be further developed, but remain non-lens-changeable. These LCD projectors may be reconstructed by Leica Custumer Sercive in Solms if a longer focal length lens is required. 4) R system and alternatives ▪ Leica will not release a new digital SLR, specifically R10. Leica is however working on a project so that R lenses can still be utilized for digital shooting. It is important to us that R lens owners are able to shoot digital with their lenses in the near future. This new project has nothing to do with S2. ▪ Leica has intensively studied what R10 should perform and how much it would cost. The market price would be somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 Euro if we produce it, which would be uncompetitive at all. This might still be acceptable for Leica long-time users, but it won’t attract new customers. ▪ Therefore R-system will not be continued further and the system is now put to an end. ▪ The time table for the new project has not been fixed yet. ▪ Foot note by Andreas Juergensen: Stefan Daniel hinted that the new project is for 135 format, and it won’t be an SLR type. 5) DMR ▪ The reason why Leica stopped production of DMR was caused by the unexpected termination of the cooperation with Imacon (now Hasselblad). ▪ The sales of DMR were low – only 10% of the sales of M8 and M8.2. ▪ The firmware for DMR will not be updated anymore. 6) M9 ▪ M9 will come! ▪ Full-frame for current M lenses is technically very complicated. We have moved a step forward, but still not up to the point that we can say the FF camera will be available tomorrow. 7) M8 upgrade ▪ There won’t be further upgrade offered. ▪ Upgrade program is not lucrative for Leica dealers as it won’t generate additional incomes for them. ▪ The upgrade program causes negative impact to the sales of M8.2. ▪ Used M8's serve as an entry to Leica digital shooting for new consumers. Newer upgrade program might affect this. 8) Sensor supplier ▪ Kodak is much customer-oriented in supplying sensors, e.g. the special size of S2, while other manufacturers, such as Sony, offers only fixed products that may not accommodate us. 9) Summarit or lenses for beginners ▪ Summarit lenses are genuine Leica products. ▪ Summarits is expanding its range, such as the new Elmar-M 1:3.8/24mm. ▪ There will be further easy-to-afford lenses that may not be named after Summarit as this is reserved for f/2.5 only. ▪ Summilux-M 50mm ASPH is sold more as double the sales of Summarit-M 50mm. 10) Wider wide-angle lens ▪ Leica has already a 16mm, and we might be able to go wider - This is a subject that we can contribute. 11) Availability of 18mm viewfinder ▪ 18mm viewfinder is only released in June. ▪ At the beginning the frame line was not accurate enough, thus a re-adjustment was required and caused a delay. 12) Availability of Noctilux 0.95 ▪ The initial delivery was planned for February. Unfortunately the production was more complicated than expected. ▪ The lens consists of large cemented groups, which have to be first cemented and then coated. During this process problems popped up. ▪ Now the problems have been fixed, and around end June and beginning July production units will pick up. 13) S-System ▪ Pioneer run for testing purpose of S2 camera body is in production now. The timetable stands as planned so far. ▪ Price tends to be close to those top pro models, such as Hasselblad and Phase One. The camera body will be priced below 20,000 Euro. ▪ Owing to the lens quality and omission of low pass filter the image quality matches 50MP sensor of other manufacturers. ▪ End-users are targeted at professional photographers of studio, model and auto. ▪ Total sales per annum will be about 10,000 units. We strive for reaching two-digit percentile market share world-wide. |
| Letsrock |
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| Very interesting. |
| yualbert |
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| Thank you very much.
Very informative.  |
| bankcheck |
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| Thanks for sharing with us.
M9 seems still very far away (but how far is very far??). |
| Letsrock |
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| bankcheck @ 2009-07-06 15:00:15 Thanks for sharing with us.
M9 seems still very far away (but how far is very far??). That is actually good news for me, so i will get the LX5 first....hehehe. |
| pctasman |
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| Viele Danken, Felix.
 Tasman |
| cym18 |
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| Thanks Felix for your contribution. I think if this forum has more 'high quality' member like Felix, we will definitely benefit more. |
| wesley |
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| something more from RFF, believe it or not ?!
RFF about M9 |
| yauyau |
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| THat's mean, if you want to use Leica M, no price drop, still made in Germany.
If you want to use Japanese made Leica , Please use Panasonic |
| yauyau |
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| very expect to see the quality of Noctilux 0.95. Of course, the price is just like buying diamond. |
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