Echenique.com published a letter sent by Leica to a customer regarding the future of the Leica R lenses:
"We are fully aware that you like to use your valuable R lenses on a digital Leica body in a adequate way. This need has been integrated into the development of new camera systems. We kindly ask for your understanding that we cannot make a more precise statement or detailed information concerning new developments or possible market introduction dates."
In that letter, Leica clearly states that another DSLR type R solution is out of the question. As previously reported, this new camera system is expected to be a full frame mirrorless solution that will take R lenses in addition to a set of new lenses. Announcement is expected at Photokina.
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Wanting, hoping, waiting………two weeks and counting.
I guess the kids are going to community college and not an Ivy League school. Oh well, too bad for them, good for me!!!!
You should make them take summer jobs to pay off that new camera for you.
Interesting!
A Full Frame Mirrorless System that will take R lenses……………………a RS2 perhaps?
Sounds very interesting and hopefully will be out in the market soon.
Where exactly do you see a statement about any camera???
Why is a DSLR out of question?
They took this into consideration at the development of new systems – not ‘a new system’. This could be a new camera but also the M9 or even the X1.
They just integrated the need… nothing else.
Sorry, just read the complete letter. Yes, the DSLR is out of discussion (obviously).
But I cannot find a single word about a new camera…
Just my guess… this will be an adapter.
Maiko, read it again:
“This need has been integrated into the development of new camera systems.”
they said “new camera system” not an adapter.
One year ago all current Leica digitals were new systems. They took the R lenses into consideration. that is all he was saying.
LR, read it again:
SystemS… do you think there will be several EVIL cameras?
They don’t say that they developed a new system for R lenses.
The dSLr market is moving towards video, and Leica have (sort of) started developing film primes as well.
At the same time, everything they do, they strive to develop the optimum solution. So I don’t believe in a half solution, like old R-lenses on a new X1 APF-framed pocket camera. Those days are over. Look at the Leica S2, the Noctilux 0.95, the 21, 24, 35 and 50mm Summilux and tell me these are not the optimum solutions.
So an optimum solution for full frame video and dSLR needs. Or nothing at all. That is the direction I would look in.
And as for price, that is always the least concern for Leica. There might be a new market in the video segment for that type of quality.
Assuming what we can read into the various statements from Leica brass since the demise of the R system, and patch them into a camera concept.
I would read that it would be a new camera type that is FF, may be autofocus, use R lenses, and have some new type of ‘finder system’. I think that a new camera incorporating video is not likely – mainly because there has been nothing hinted towards that end.
I think it will be a ‘bridge camera’ that will allow R and maybe even M lenses with a new type of finder system that eventually will have it’s own lens line…….and maybe autofocus. But I could be WAY off – just like the rest of us – the people who know are Leica employees and field testers. Two weeks and counting…..
yowsers!
OK, OK, so maybe this is still an ambiguous statement by Leica. BUT, their latest comments really fuel some exciting dreams as we lock onto the final glide path into Photokina.
I hope that by “system,” Leica means a new digital camera body!
Admittedly, Leica’s letter states pretty clearly “no new DSLR / R10.”
But, IF by “new camera systems,” Leica is implying a new camera of some type (not merely an adaptor), THEN I concur with the Admin that this could imply a mirrorless system. I hope they include some sort of integrated VF (a sharp new EVF?).
This is certainly an interesting new twist in the meandering path of the venerable R system.
Well, OK.
I have been up and down around the R rumors for years. I did the adapters and the 4/3 thing, and it just doesn’t cut it. And I am not going to dissemble a Leica lens and drop little teeny screws and ball bearings into an R lens!
Just when I think I have learned to live without my Leica glass, yet another Photokina is rumored to have Leica announce an R solution that this time, maybe is not a fraction. I’d sworn off my addiction, and now have fallen off the wagon yet again, lusting, jonesing for a digital body that doesn’t weigh as much as a bicycle.
Could it really happen this time? Am I really going to fall for Leica again?
I’ve had the addiction for years – 45 years to be precise – and I’ve tried numerous times to break away by trying N and C systems but overall, they didn’t satisfy my optically educated eyeballs.
At times like these, with Photokina rumors that, lets face it, Leica has been subtly fueling it is pretty hard to ignore the ol’ addiction. Especially after they have come out swinging the past two years with new products.
How did this get linked to Photkina 2010?
Reads like a new interchangeable mirror-less system with an adapter for previous Leica (R) lenses. The ‘R’ lenses would need an adapter, or we need to duplicate the huge body of previous ‘R’ cameras. Introduction date unknown. Given an unknown introduction to market, the luke warm reception of the fixed lens/expensive X1.. sounds like something they should be thinking about/developing.