So. What about Leica?

Thanks to this translation of a Q&A session with Stefan Daniel during the Hessenpark member meeting, here's the inside gossip, er, spin, er, uh, scoop.

Strategy In General

Panasonic Cooperation

* The Panasonic cooperation will continue
* More compact cameras to come

Leica and Micro FourThirds

* Leica is not going to offer MFT cameras
* Leica may offer MFT lenses
* MFT is and interesting system
* Sensor size is a very limiting factor

Leica And The Forum

* Leica is not going to run an own forum on their website
* Collaboration is seen as running well and constructive
* Positive example is the first L-Camera TV show from the Leica production
* Many Leica employees are reading in this forum regularly, so that important contributions in the forum are reported immeditiately to the management
* The forum provides many contributions to the product development
* Stefan Daniel agrees to answer forum questions more often in the future

Leica As Lens Supplier for Other Camera Systems

* Patents needed are only swapped inside of the Japanes camera industry
* Zeiss lenses are manufactured by Cosina who are seen as Japanese company
* That way Zeiss receives the patents, Leica as German company does not
* Leica's attempts to come to an agreement failed until now
* Reverse engineering is legally too risky

Extending The Product Range

* No Leica scanners are planned
* The LCD projector range is continued but won't have interchangeable lenses
* Maybe the customer service will offer to implement different lenses


R-System

R10 and Alternatives

* There will be no digital SLR aka R10
* But there will be - and we are working on this - a suitable solution how to use R lenses digitally
* It's very important to us, that owners of R lenses can take pictures digitally in the near future
* This solution will have nothing to do to with the S2
* Leica has examined intensively which features and what price tag a R10 had to have
* Price would have been 6000 - 7000 Euro and it would have been far behind the competitors
* This would have been a solution for the existing customer base but not for new customers
* Therefore the R system is discontinued, the existing system runs out
* There is no due date for the new solution
* Indirect notes by Stefan Daniel to 35 mm full format
* Definitely it's not going to be a SLR

DMR
The reasons for stopping the DMR were

* Cooperation with Imacon now Hasselblad ended very abruptly
* Sales figures were low (approx. 10% of M8/M8.2)

The DMR firmware will have no updates.


M-System

M9

* A LEICA M9 will come
* Developing full format is technically very demanding because of the M lenses
* We are one step further but still not there where we can announce the camera

M8 Upgrades

* No more upgrades are planned
* Dealers don't like upgrades as no additional sales are generated
* The M8 upgrade constrained Leica M8.2 sales
* Used cameras are entry level cameras thus attracting new customers to Leica
* This would drop by future upgrade offers

Sensor Supplier

* Kodak is prepared to Leica's needs, for example the special size of the S2 sensor
* Other manufacturers like Sony only offer a fixed range of sensors

Summarits / Entry Level Lenses

* Summarits are true Leica lenses
* The LEICA ELMAR-M f/3,8 24 mm was already an extension of this line
* More affordable Leica lenses are to come - perhaps not named Summarit (reserved for 2.5 lenses)
* Summilux 50mm sales are 100% above of Summarit sales

Super Wide Lenses
Asked for super wide lenses:

* Leica already has an 16mm - Leica can only offer shorter lenses
* This is a topic we could work on...

18mm Finder Availability

* 18mm finder to come in June
* The frame precision wasn't sufficient yet therefore a rework was necessary

NOCTILUX Availability

* NOCTILUX wa announced for February
* Production turned out to be more complex than assumed
* NOCTILUX consists of 8 elements in 5 groups
* These groups are first cemented (?), then coated
* This process had problems which are solved now
* End of June, beginning of July larger quantities will reach the market


S-System

* Pilot lot is in production by now
* Everything is on schedule
* Price will be on the same level as the top cameras in the digital professional segment - like high end solutions by Hasselblad and Phase One
* Body will be below 20,000 Euros
* Because of the Leica lens quality and the lacking low-pass filter LEICA S2 can compete with 50MP cameras of the competitors
* Target group of the S2 are professional photographers (studio, fashion, automobile)
* Total market are about 10,000 cameras per year
* Leica is going for a at least two digit market share

Here's the German original.

Thanks to Andreas Jürgensen, from the Leica User Forum.