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New Leica M in September 2016? The speculations.


Paulus

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While recycling is better than nothing, its no panacea.  Far better to reuse a body than recycle it.  Sadly, the business model for the consumer electronics industry is completely predicated on obsolescence per Moore's law.  Unless and until that model changes, even if modular camera designs were actually possbile... Ricoh's efforts while interesting are pretty weak IMO... I seriously doubt a small concern like Leica, one whose technology largely rests on the effort others, has a hope in hades of pulling it off no matter how sincerely they might try. There are simply far to many technologies from multiple suppliers to guarantee any measure of future proofing. As we've seen time after time, Its difficult enough just to integrate existing ones reliably in the initial product, let alone anticipate interactions with hardware that has yet to be produced. 

 

Eco issues aside, the underlying gripe here fundamentally has nothing to do with an upgradable platform per se, it has to do with cost of ownership.  If a 3 year old Leica with 50K clicks was worth 78% of its original value, this discussion would never come up.  Certainly it hasn't in any other FF camera forum I've ever visited.  Suggesting that a modular design is the path to lowering TCO, strikes me as naive not only from a technological standpoint, but from a business and customer service model as well.  As it is, it takes 4 months or more just to get a lens 6 bit coded. Forget about the technical difficulties, Leica is the last camera manufacturer one would imagine was actually capable of  providing reasonable turnaround even if modularity was a reality. 

 

Unless and until, there is a global shift in attitude by consumers, electronics manufacturers and software industry, the best hope to lower TCO as well as incentivize producing products with longer life spans is to alter the business model from a never ending series of sales conquests to a service or lease model where the product is returned to the manufacturer after a few years. Maybe then the incentives would be such that some aspects of modular upgrading could be financially attractive to manufacturers. 

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During my short blue-sky days with some name inventors, visionaries and inventors we discussed the possibility of real computers, that is truly universal machines. An early buzzword was Ceramic Compilers which would create hardware based upon requisites. Later it became Modifiable hardware based upon the same principle, but built-in. Someday firmware will be laughable. Don't underestimate. Moore's principle will be superseded.

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During my short blue-sky days with some name inventors, visionaries and inventors we discussed the possibility of real computers, that is truly universal machines. An early buzzword was Ceramic Compilers which would create hardware based upon requisites. Later it became Modifiable hardware based upon the same principle, but built-in. Someday firmware will be laughable. Don't underestimate. Moore's principle will be superseded.

 

 

That is now called FPGA. Broadly used for low volume hardware devices.

Software will never be laughable.

Hardware is the body, and software is the soul.

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............

Hardware is the body, and software is the soul.

Surely the soul is the thing that chooses what it wants the body to do, and the body consists of soft- and hardware, interdependent upon each other.

 

You can have a blood transfusion if the body's up to it, but there's no point if the soul (the human brain in both elements of the analogy) isn't up to it and more.

 

In other words, to someone in the industry, soul and body may be a good analogy but in fact it's a symptom of why the industry serves its customers so poorly in lots of ways.

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  • 1 month later...

Until now no news of a new Leica M. But because christmas is coming. I have some requests for Leica AG

 

Please make the new Leica the same as the M-P  240 with some enhancements.

 

Better sensor

 

Higher ISO

 

3 pictures per second and holding until SD card is full.

 

 

That's all, thank you!

The new Leica M-D... I thought I had asked for something else, but maybe it's a start. Another nice camera which can finance the one I like to see in September.

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I know what I would like to see, but most likely I will skip it anyway and continue enjoying my M-E and M Monochrom (CCD).  Just like in the old days, I'd rather invest in glass and only look at bodies when something major changes or when I can no longer get the results I want from what I have.

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Basically putting a new sensor and new Maestro every three years or so is the only major update we can expect I think... so I bet in any case there will not be much of surprise.

 

They have Q, SL S and also T thus no need for any adventurous move in terms of M at all. They should know it already.

 

 

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

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According to my vendor, there is not much likelihood of a new camera this fall....

 

 

That is fine by me - I can spend the money on something else, travel or a pre-ASPH 35, or perhaps even just not spend it (novel concept).

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Disappointing that they won't update it come this fall. But the more I think about it I don't need more megapixels... I do need better ISO performance, a nice EVF would be nice, and a slightly smaller form factor of that similar to the film bodies.

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I would like to know the source of the information that they will not do something at Photokina 16.   IMHO this would be out of character for Leica. 

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According to my vendor, there is not much likelihood of a new camera this fall....

That is a ridiculous claim by your dealer. Does he really believe Leica will celebrate 10 years of digital Leica M by presenting nothing new at Photokina? That would be rather embarrassing. I am pretty sure the M240 came to an end of its lifecycle with the M-D edition which I like by the way.

 

Regards

Steve

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