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Yesterday Stefan Daniel held another Q& A session during ghe Leica Experience Day. Our German forum member Jens wrote don hat die wichtigsten Aussagen mitgeschrieben - da sind wieder ein paar neue Infos dabei...

M-System
- A M8 firmware update to come
- Leica thinks about to include M9 features into M8 cameras after charging a fee,

- Leica thinks about a M9 with saphire glass, which would be more expensive than the normal version
- If this camera would hit the market, M9 owner will be offered to upgrade their cameras after paying the price difference

- The Visoflex III fits the M9, Leica does not think about a new Visoflex

R-System
- Leica has three different product scenarios regarding adapting R lenses to a Leica digital camera. As soon as a decision for one of these projects is made, Leica will publish a time schedule for this R solution

- 2,200 DMR were made, which was not profitable
- After Hasselblad took over Imacon, Leica and Imacon had "communication problems"
- Right now Leica has again contact to Hasselblad, the goal is to offer DMR service again by Leica

- Right now now rechargeable batteries are available for DMRs
- Leica has been talking to different manufacturers, without success because of too small production lots. Goal is to offer rechargeable batteries again.

X1
- X1 is to be established as new product line, either with other fixed focus or zoom lenses
- No announcements here until photokina 2010


PS.: Translations by me, if anything isn't clear, it's my fault ;-)

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Andreas Jürgensen
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stunsworth

Andreas, many thanks. This intrigues me - "Right now Leica has again contact to Hasselblad, the goal is to offer DMR service again by Leica" I don't suppose there was any indication if they were referring to the existing DMR, or a new version - and if a new one was one of the 3 solutions for R users mentioned earlier in the post?

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Doc Henry

Thanks Andreas,
Good news !
For an old Leicaiste like me, this is obviously always a great pleasure !
Kind regards
Henry

mby

If I captured that correctly in Wetzlar, it means that there definitely won't be a new DMR; the focus of re-establishing contact with Hasselblad is to be able to service/support existing DMRs through Leica directly, going forward.

Best regards,
Michael

sdai

Thanks a lot, Andreas.

I think the Ricoh GXR has offered a very cool idea Leica could adopt especially regarding the interchangeable lens/sensor modules.

Leica could focus on building a X2 base chassis to allow an optional R module to use the R lenses, and/or a M module to allow the use of M lenses, of course they can do a fixed lens module too.

veraikon

thanks for the summary - ( unless I couldn´t find the corresponding german thread )
Is it true that Mr Spiller mentioned about 20 000 orders for the M9 in his speech ?

roguewave

Andreas, thanks for informing us of these developments. Very promising.

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overgaardcom

Like the sapphire glass idea. It will be needed. And if they can charge for downloading software-update of the M8 that would be a nice thing for everybody.

I wonder is the Hasselblad deal is just the service of the DMR. Doing an upgraded DMR is very easy if you're close to updated technology. And there's plenty of R8 and R9 cameras around which could even be refurbished if needed. But how many could be sold, that's the big question. The DMR was big news when it was new and I wonder how many they could have sold. So far I know there was sold the same amount of M9 cameras as DMR here in my local area.

But I still hope one of the three digital R scenarios is a Leica SL digital: A no nonsense SLR with built-in lightmeter and manual controls. In many ways a mix of the M9 and the Leicaflex SL as far as I can tell. Now, that would be a real camera

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Doc Henry

Thorsten,
Like this ?
http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...-i-am-sad.html
but in digital ...
SlR10 good idea !
... i will be a purchaser

admin

Here's the German original version:
http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-...enfassung.html

I didn't listen to Mr Spiller's speech but I've heard similar numbers. When I talked to Stefan Daniel he said that in his time in Solms Leica had never so full order books like now.

Regards
Andreas

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Hel-Stampes

This is reflected here, judging by the influx of new members/visitors on the Forum since a few months, especially since M9 was introduced.

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Doc Henry

Andreas,
More good news !
There is my M9 in the lot of these orders and i wait for delivery for Christmas
meanwhile i have my 2 M8 !
Henry

rjans

Thank you Andreas for this information. Very good news. I'm already looking forward to the M8 firmware update and do not mind we have to pay for it.

Best

UliWer

As far as I understand the information about the M8, there are two things not to be mixed up:
1. There will be an update of firmware soon. This should be for free as it has been in the past. This update will - hopefully- improve the M8 as it is in certain ways. One improvement maybe a solution for the current red-shift-issue with wide-angle-lenses, which is not limited to the M9.

2. They are thinking about a different firmware "upgrade" which could bring some of the new features of the M9 to the M8. This could mean manual lens selection or some of the new menue-functions. It is not yet sure if this will be offered, in any case you will have to pay for it.

jaapv

The remark about DMR repairs is bit strange,as Mr.Daniel said they were servicing DMRs in house again at the Q&A in June

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wildlightphoto

Thank you Andreas.

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ho_co

Uli--
I take it you were at the Erlebnistag?

Andreas' message doesn't say specifically that the addition of M9 features would come solely through firmware, but leaves open the possibility of hardware upgrade as well.

Just curious, do they think these M9 capabilities could be added solely by firmware?

Thanks!

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Howard Cornelsen

UliWer

Sorry for giving the wrong impression, that I have been there - I wasn't! I was just trying to say that the summary dealt with two different things.

So I can't say, whether it was mentionned that they are thinking about adding M9-feature by firmware or hardware, or both. I think me implying only firmware was a premature interpretation.

jaapv

It is hard to see exactly which M9 hardware could be fitted to the M8.

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Angora

One may think about future S systems as well (yes, they want to sell lenses; but they may as well think about making more people buy S bodies... since the S2's price tag is quite intimidating).