Let the speculation begin! (pre-PMA week)

[h_kan_th_rngren]

PMA will most likely be quite uninteresting. The 75/2 and some vapourware digital products from Leica.

 

Cosina will perhaps show a pre-production of the 18/4 and little else as they are most likely quite busy with the ZeissIkon.

 

Konica - nothing as usual. But I hope (dream) that they are finally working on a digital Hexar, now that the DSLR is on the market. Perhaps at Photokina? Why not a 1.6 crop factor body, 21-28-35-50-90 frame lines and anti-shake built in. When I am dreaming, why not a 50/1.2 or 50/1.4 and an M mount variant of the 35/2 UC-Hexanon?

[chip l.]

Peter - As of now it is only the Bronica MF SLRs. One can hope that they are holding on to

the RF645 line for conversion to digital.

 

Hakan - Sounds like a great idea. A digital K-M CL-D!

[brunom]

Andrew

 

Didn't Leica say that it was the then VERY new technology regarding micro lenses on the outer edges of sensors that had enabled them to start proceeding with a digital M ? co-incidence with the RD1? it may be, or not - who really knows?

 

Bruno

[brambor]

Hakan, Konica is no more. It is Konica Minolta now and they decided not to use the Konica name for cameras. Anything that will come out now in cameras will be a Minolta from 'konica-minolta'

[watts]

<i>and in turn the epson rd-1 will be updated with a larger chip

(and of course become cheaper).</i><br><br>That would be

great (I am slightly tempted to buy a second RD-1 anyway) but I

am not sure that it will happen for a while. As Epson do not

manufacture their own chips they have to rely on what's available

in the market (the RD-1 uses the same Sony manufactured chip

that appears in the Nikon D100). Things don't seem to have

moved on much in terms of the APS-sized chips available to

third-party manufacturers. Pentax, KonicaMinolta and Nikon (for

their non-pro models) are still using 6MP chips in their current

model line-up. Canon are not going to make available their 8MP

CMOS chips to third parties and the 12MP CMOS chip Nikon is

using for its forthcoming D2X (is it a Sony chip?) is unlikely to be

available to the likes of Epson for some time. Ironically, it may be

that Leica's own digital M with it's proposed 10MP Kodak chip

may end up being the first M compatible digital to market with a

10+MP class sensor. That is if they don't go bust in the

meantime.

[icuneko]

Bring back the Minolta (now Konica-Minolta) Autocord 6 X 6 either as a

RF or TLR! 'Twas a fairly rugged box camera with a very good

lens.

[andrew robertson]

Bruno, the timing on their complete about face was just a bit too peculiar for me to believe

that it was mere chance.

 

I wish Leica the best, but they are really a very small company that may be in way over

their head. Contax, which is much larger, was not able to produce more than a handful of

their DSLR and they were rife with problems.

[brunom]

Andrew

 

What you say about Leica's timing is correct but your assumptions may not be?

Leica has always been a small company,but the problems that befell Zeiss/Kyocera/Contax are not necessarily a template for others that follow. The digital arena has matured over the last few years and there is no reason to believe that Leica will fail just because they take their time with introducing new products. They are not in competition with the likes of Nikon and Canon.

 

Regards

 

Bruno

[andy_piper2]

RE: "Leica dissuading people from buying the R-D1" I've already had a Leica rep tell me that a Leica repair tech ("Gunther") told HER the R-D1 lensmount may damage Leica lenses ("Mount made from the wrong metal - may cause excessive wear - we'd hate to have to replace all your Leica lens mounts - PLEASE be careful!"). Just quoting - I take no side on the issue and my R-D1 and Leica lenses are playing nice together. PLEASE don't shoot the messenger!

 

RE: "Fast lenses for medium format" Yes, there are a few f/2 or f/1.9 lenses out there - about .0001 percent of the total number of MF lenses made. Hassy's lenses for the "newer" focal-plane cameras also tend to be faster than the leaf-shutter equivalents, so the diameter of available leaf shutters may be a limiting factor, as well as overall size. The Ermanox of about 1925 had an f/2 (later f/1.8?) lens covering approximately the 645 format - but it also had a focal-plane shutter.

 

RE: Leica and Photokina. Today's Leica 'does' one lens at a time - the 75 f/2 is the only one for this cycle. Digilux "3" will be 2006. Leica may well show "more, better" oprating versions of the digital R-back.

[andrew robertson]

They showed the same old one that they had last year, but with a new menu item.

 

They still won't let anyone handle or shoot it, though. Probably because it's just a

mockup.