Any news about new DMR or R10?

[platoali]

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Well, Your arguments seem more reasonble than me. I must admit that I'm newbie in digital photography. My experiance is limited to a few shots with a 2 MP mobile phone and a few more shots with a EOS 400D both belong to my sister. So please forgive me for such comments.

 

I always thought that Leica had stoped DMR for lack demand. But it seems that there was another reason. I wonder why Leica let Imacon had such a control over product like DMR. This trouble is the resault of unreasonble trust to somebody that should not be trusted.

[wattsy]

Leica never built any DMR units. Imacon built them for Leica. Imacon will not build any more because it's now a part of Hasselblad and Hasselblad considers Leica a competitor.

 

According to the same LFI article I referred to earlier in this thread, the decision was economic in nature. Hasselblad/Imacon and Kodak apparently made it clear that "reissuing the sensor and other key components would only be worthwhile in large quantities" - far more than Leica felt confident of being able to sell.

[stunsworth]

I imaging Leica had an initial contract with Imacon to produce 3000 units. Once those had been produced there would have been a need for a new contract. This could have been the point where Hassie/Imacon started to play silly buggers.

[Guest Motivfindender]

If anyone wants to sell his DMR and/or R-Body:

Please let me know!

 

Greetings

 

Dirk

[leicapages]

I wouldn't hold my breath over this. The DMR is over and another digital back replacing it is very unlikely to see the light of day. Another digital solution for R looks like it is going to be a brand new body (R10?), but it seems out of the question that such solution is going to be announced before the next Photokina, which is in the fall of 2008.

If you urgently need/want a digital reflex solution now, either you'd have to find a second-hand DMR (which is hard to come by now) or go for an interim solution such as buying a Digilux 3 with an R-lens adaptor if you want to use your R lenses on this 4/3 body. Not ideal, but it could be an interim solution until early 2009 when, hopefully, a new digital reflex solution should be available on the market.

[Angora]

Leica never built any DMR units. Imacon built them for Leica. Imacon will not build any more because it's now a part of Hasselblad and Hasselblad considers Leica a competitor. If you wish to compare cameras on price, the DMR is a bargain compared with its Hasselblad digital competition.

 

I think it's not as simple as this, because by producing for Leica, Imacon is both earning money and sustaining its reputation ; that's a good deal.

[stuny]

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I thouhgt I read (maybe in LFI) that Imacon was willing to do a production run, but the quantity was higher than Leica wanted to have produced.

[andybarton]

Someone must have access to all the tools and production equipment. I'm sure it's just a question of volume.

 

When we moved into this house, it had a blue plastic bath. A year or so after moving in, tragically, the bath was damaged. The insurance company insisted on replacing "like-for-like" and would only replace the blue bath with another blue one. When told that these were no longer available, they were not interested, but insisted on blue as the replacement. (I suggested at this point that they replace the whole suite with a white one). So, I went to the manufacturer and asked how I could buy a blue bath. They said I would need to speak to ICI, the plastic manufacturer. To cut a long story short, 1,000 units was the shortest production run ICI and the bath people would consider. I went back to the insurance company and said it would cost £100,000 to replace the bath - and what did they want me to do with the other 999 baths. 24 hours later, the white suite was on order.

 

I suspect that Leica did their research very well and established that demand for the DMR would be around 3,002 units...

[platoali]

I don't know how relation between Leica and Imacon is now. But i I think if SLR users demand enough amount DMR, leica can start to think to build another series.

 

Maybe we can talk to our dealers or leica directly and told them that we want to buy DMR. They may decide to start the production again.

 

I don't know how many R are willing to buy. If leica is not sure about the demand of DMR, they can consider to take a preorder from their dealers or directly from costumers, and when the amount of preorders reached the desire limits, the building of them will be no problem.

[zapp]

I'm very confused now. Should I wait one year for the new body|DMR or put 5000$ in a discontinued product.

 

My sister have a Canon EOS 400D. Maybe I can use it for my digital needs till the new body production. Can anybody tell me how much DMR is better than this camera?

I don't want to sound mean, but comparing the EOS 400D to a $5000 digital back that only works with a $3000 camera sounds a little bit strange. If you can life with the EOS 400D quality for some time why did you ever consider a 20x more expensive setup? The difference is too obvious not only money wise.

[hankg]

The megapixel amoung is not the key. How the picture render is, which is why the 1 MP camera NASA used on Mars had very sharp and detailed photos and your 10 MP mobile phone has not.

 

It has to do with the lens on the camera, the microlenses in the camera ... and the technology applied.

 

As for the DMR this piece was developed with Kodak and Imacon/Hasselblad and I think that the Imacon/Hasselblad is the key in the DMR being that good. At least Imacon is known to make the best scanners in the world, which is why Leica choose them (I guess) and why Hasselblad bought them (accidently while they were doing the DMR with Leica).

 

My idea of why it's discontinued is that the Imacon/Hasselblad and Leica coorporation does not work anymore. But that is just the reason I use for myself.

Imacon made neither the best scanners (there are several flat bed and drum scanners that produce far better results at a similar price point) nor the best digital backs. However Leica seems to be able to make the most of it's digital partners know how, judging from the quality of the M8 and DMR files. Perhaps little Leica is a lot more adept at managing digital development then they are given credit for. That would be a cause for optimism about future R and M digital development.

 

 

I don't want to sound mean, but comparing the EOS 400D to a $5000 digital back that only works with a $3000 camera sounds a little bit strange. If you can life with the EOS 400D quality for some time why did you ever consider a 20x more expensive setup? The difference is too obvious not only money wise.

You could make the same comparison between the EOS 400D with a consumer zoom and a EOS 1Ds II with L glass -a huge leap in price but not 10x the image quality. The DMR and M8 cost about the same as high end DSLR's of similar quality.

[rosuna]

... an all-digital new R10 body and three new autofocus lenses for the R system at Photokina 2008. That's my bet.

[platoali]

I don't want to sound mean, but comparing the EOS 400D to a $5000 digital back that only works with a $3000 camera sounds a little bit strange. If you can life with the EOS 400D quality for some time why did you ever consider a 20x more expensive setup? The difference is too obvious not only money wise.

 

From my personal point view, 400D is an option available for me freely. But DMR is a 5000$ option. So you can see why I'm comparing the two options. Acctually I don't like Canon body design at all. I don't enjoy working with them too. till now, I was a pure Black&white hobby photographer. A film SLR completely statisfy my photographic needs. But as I think digital is a must, I should begin to wet my feets in digitall world sooner or later. so I'm not in a big harry to jump in to the digital world by buying a discontinued camera if I know that I can have more better options in near future.

 

I did not ever intend to compare a cheap consumer SLR with this back. But I will intend to compare them in near future to see how much difference exist between them.