mirekti Posted February 15, 2013 Share #21 Posted February 15, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) Expectations, Photokina, the need for a 'new' I personally think they are behind where they thought they would be. ...not expected from Germans thogh. I remember when I worked in Munich, German colleagues were so made (but no yelling and screaming which is typical in the US) when the Austrians showed up on a telco at 10.05 instead of 10AM. Be on time and make what you promised and you'll gain German respect. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted February 15, 2013 Posted February 15, 2013 Hi mirekti, Take a look here End of March/ Early April. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
mjh Posted February 15, 2013 Share #22 Posted February 15, 2013 I don't understand Leica's marketing philosophy. Why introduce a new M camera in mid September only to have potential buyers wait for SEVEN MONTHS!! Because the photokina is a bi-annual event in September? There was already some disappointment when Leica didn’t announce the M (aka M10) in May, even when that had never been the plan. If the M hadn’t shown up at photokina, would everyone have been happy about that? Of course not. And why would spending another six month not knowing what Leica’s plans where with the M system be preferable to knowing what would come? In September we all knew it would take another couple of months before the new M would actually be available, but least we knew what to look forward to. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
marknorton Posted February 15, 2013 Share #23 Posted February 15, 2013 August? Photokina is a big deal. If you've never been there, the scale of it is scarcely believable. It's the natural venue for new Leica announcements - the M8 in 2006, the M8.2 and S2 in 2008, the M9-P in 2010, the M240 in 2012. All of which is fine except the products are in their own stage of development. The CS lenses much trumpeted by Leica for the S2 in 2008 are only just appearing... The M240 was a functioning camera at Photokina in September 2012. I took pictures with it but the SD card was glued in place. Hopefully, Leica have been working to turn it from a working camera into a great camera during the intervening months. August this year for release would not be good news... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bybrett Posted February 15, 2013 Share #24 Posted February 15, 2013 There are now other interests which will dictate that this will happen before the summer. I expect that the camera will be released as "samples" first and thereafter in limited quantities. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeterP Posted February 15, 2013 Share #25 Posted February 15, 2013 I don't understand Leica's marketing philosophy. Why introduce a new M camera in mid September only to have potential buyers wait for SEVEN MONTHS!! Introduce the camera only AFTER the firmware is satisfctory for use by photographers. They would have been better off with an April introduction followed by a May release. I know, I know, they wanted to show during Photokina! As a small business owner I would never advertize a new product at a major trade fair without being able to assure the potential buyer that the item will be ready to ship in less than one month. Can someone please explain this approach to marketing a camera or the lack thereof? Not so unusual Canon introduced the 1DX, and it was release quite a number of months later than was originally expected! I had mine on order for 6 months, and I preordered day 1. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bybrett Posted February 15, 2013 Share #26 Posted February 15, 2013 August? Photokina is a big deal. If you've never been there, the scale of it is scarcely believable. It's the natural venue for new Leica announcements - the M8 in 2006, the M8.2 and S2 in 2008, the M9-P in 2010, the M240 in 2012. M9-P was Paris. Monochrom was to be London but changed to Berlin. M could easily have been launched outside of Photokina but it was already committed to that event. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
krooj Posted February 15, 2013 Share #27 Posted February 15, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) The latter is what they used to do with the M8 and M9 – electronics and firmware development was done by Jenoptik. Since then they have switched to the former mode, i.e. in-house development. Interesting. I wonder whether a large part of that development team was sourced form Jenoptik. It would have thought it was well known that the Maestro CPU was developed with and manufactured by Fujitsu. Of course the Maestro is based on standard Fujitsu designs rather than being designed from scratch. This raises questions about IP sharing between Fujitsu and Leica. I can't help but wonder whether similar designs are present in the X-series cameras from Fujitsu. It doesn't seem unreasonable. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted February 15, 2013 Share #28 Posted February 15, 2013 This raises questions about IP sharing between Fujitsu and Leica. I can't help but wonder whether similar designs are present in the X-series cameras from Fujitsu. It doesn't seem unreasonable. The X-series cameras are from Fujifilm, not Fujitsu – two entirely unrelated companies. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
JCharlton Posted February 15, 2013 Share #29 Posted February 15, 2013 I'm completely fine with the wait. As long as Leica is using this valuable time to thoroughly field test and improve the camera. They know what they're doing, and they will do it well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
krooj Posted February 15, 2013 Share #30 Posted February 15, 2013 The X-series cameras are from Fujifilm, not Fujitsu – two entirely unrelated companies. My bad. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted February 15, 2013 Share #31 Posted February 15, 2013 mjh and Brett- I like both of you, so enough. Anywhere between March to August 2013 is better than early 2014. Frankly, I got my hands on it at Photokina and that's why I ordered it, so if it takes a while for finalizing the "package" so be it. The longer I wait, the less it costs me although August would present some problems from a travel standpoint. Oh, I forgot I have an M9P. OK, all is well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bybrett Posted February 15, 2013 Share #32 Posted February 15, 2013 There are now other interests which will dictate that this will happen before the summer. I expect that the camera will be released as "samples" first and thereafter in limited quantities. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
algrove Posted February 15, 2013 Share #33 Posted February 15, 2013 Actually today a European dealer my family uses indicated that it looks to be at best for "a few" in late, late March. He said that their importer this week would have given them (premiere dealers) "samples" if it were imminent. No samples were given out. . Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
firstlight Posted February 15, 2013 Share #34 Posted February 15, 2013 The latter. You are just spreading more speculation. @MJH - Man you are really patient with all these cutty people in here . They are like: "WTF, LEICA IS BAD BECAUSE <any reason here>" ...and you just calm them down. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnbuckley Posted February 15, 2013 Share #35 Posted February 15, 2013 Okay, so we are a little disappointed, it is true. And yes, if it is anytime after March 18, it is better than 6 months after the announcement, which for any company -- camera, car, tech -- is a substantial lag. But the M is the biggest thing for Leica in many, many years. It is their chance to create a product that will appeal to more than just us crazy people whose lives are punctuated by Leica releases. The Monochrom was on the cover of Popular Photography -- surely the first time that has happened in the digital age. The M promises to be much bigger than that -- a camera that really should peel people away from the Nikons and Canons. So they are working to get it just right. And that's a good thing. And we should give them space, swallow our disappointment, and not squabble. Maybe we should all take a break from the forum for the weekend, and go take pictures. With our wonderful M9s and Monochroms. They are serving us well. And the M9 will just have to do so for a few more months. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
viramati Posted February 15, 2013 Share #36 Posted February 15, 2013 I can only imagine that the dealers will be pulling their hair out pretty soon with no real product to sell. Yes they have a few MM's and the ME but I doubt that the limited sale of these will be good for their turnover and profit margin Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted February 15, 2013 Share #37 Posted February 15, 2013 Dealers have just received new shipments of lenses. That should keep them happy for a month or two. I finally got my 50mm Summarit which I've had ordered in November or so. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
viramati Posted February 15, 2013 Share #38 Posted February 15, 2013 Dealers have just received new shipments of lenses. That should keep them happy for a month or two. I finally got my 50mm Summarit which I've had ordered in November or so. Yes I know that but my dealer said it is the cameras that they really need. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted February 15, 2013 Share #39 Posted February 15, 2013 Okay, so we are a little disappointed, it is true. And yes, if it is anytime after March 18, it is better than 6 months after the announcement, which for any company -- camera, car, tech -- is a substantial lag. You may know that ‘enttäuscht’ is German for ‘disappointed’, but literally it means ‘disillusioned’ – that is you are forced to give up an illusion. Some people did hope or believe that the M would ship in January or February, perhaps even December. But that was an illusion. We have known that for quite some time now. So what has happened is that the unrealistically optimistic people have, unfortunately, been proven wrong. But that’s the risk you take if you let your optimism carry you too far. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jager Posted February 16, 2013 Share #40 Posted February 16, 2013 I was doing a walkabout in DC with my Monochrom and Noctilux 0.95, this morning on a remarkably spring-like day, when I saw the tweet announcing that the new date for the M had moved to the end of April. The initial, mild disappointment - like many here I had come to believe that 2/28 was the ship date - quickly passed. How could I not smile? Here I was walking around with the most amazing camera and incredible glass. Sometimes we're wise to simply remember the blessings we've already been given. If I had to guess - and speculation is all it is - I'd bet that Leica had hopes of shipping the new M in January or February when they announced it at Photokina. Whether they did or didn't, they clearly were early-on in the final development phase. The glued-in SD cards and subsequent period of months before any new images emerged would suggest that. That would also suggest that any such "first sixty days in 2013" target, if it existed, would necessarily have been a soft one. Like most here, I'm happy to wait a bit longer for a better final product. And since I'm speculating... I'll bet something else: there may very well be a sharp distinction between the firmware extant in the M9/MM and what is coming in the new M. As Michael noted, Jenoptik wrote the original firmware for the M9. My empirical assessment of the code behind that firmware is that it is a furball. Examples like the yet-to-be-addressed soft-release bug suggest to me that the code Jenoptik wrote is very difficult to maintain. That probably weighed heavily in Leica's decision to in-source it for their next generation camera. It's certainly no guarantee that the new M firmware won't likewise be challenging to work with. But at least now if something in it sucks they can walk down the hall and have a chat with the person who wrote it. I'm betting it will be better. Probably much better. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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