The Invisiblephotographer published an interview with Andreas Kaufmann taken after the M9-P announcement. This is the recap:
- The new 25,000 square meter facility Leitz Park 2 will be able to double the products turnover over the next 4 years.
- Dr. Kaufmann on the Leica M10: “Usually, this industry has cycles in the 2-years range, which is usually Photokina. So if people were to come to Photokina in 2012, maybe they may see something“.
- Leica is considering some of the new technologies used by other camera manufacturers: “But there will be some technologies that could make sense. HD, wireless, Geo-tagging all could make sense. We are studying these, and usually at the end, we’ll come up with a German engineer solution”.
- Leica will continue to produce the film M7 and MP rangefinders.
This is what Stefan Daniel had to say about the future of Leica in an interview with the French site lense.fr (Google translation):
“You have pointed the thing: When I spoke to a full, well … it is not complete in fact. Because between the M9 and the X1 there is a hole. So one can imagine an X1 with M bayonet, one can imagine a lot of things… There’s a hole, we are aware and we’ll fill in the medium term with something below the M and above the X1.And I think the concept of hybrids. We have also one, with M. All it lacks is the LiveView and possibly autofocus.”
Stefan Daniel is obviously talking about the new compact mirrorless system camera expected to launch at Photokina 2012.
Image credit: Leica Camera/Flickr
