Yesterday Leica Camera AG officially started the construction of their future headquarters at the Leitz Park in Wetzlar, Germany. The new facility will have 88,500 square feet and should be completed in November 2013. The construction cost is 55 million euros.
Some fresh rumors about the new Leica products that are expected to be announced on May 10th:
Stay tuned, I am hoping to get more details in the next few days.
Leica X1
In addition to the Monochrome M body, I also think that Leica will announce a new X2 compact camera and maybe even one new M lens (probably 50mm Summicron). The silver Leica X1 is already discontinued and not even in stock at B&H, Adorama and Dale. The X2 will not be an interchangeable lens camera – Leica will announce it’s mirrorless solution during the Photokina show in Septmeber.
The upcoming Leica Monochrome digital rangefinder (with a black and white only sensor) will have a M9-like body. We are not going to see a new M10 camera on May 10 – a completely new M10 will probably be announced in September during Photokina. I am still trying to get a confirmation on whether the new Leica Monochrome will have a LCD screen or not, but the new camera is expected to have very clean/noise free high-ISO capabilities (probably compared to the current M9).
Today I will be comparing apples and oranges. The Leica M9 and Fuji X-Pro 1 are two completely different beasts. The only similarity is the way both cameras look. Well, actually there is more then that – both have optical viewfinders, similar megapixel counts (18MP vs. 16.3MP) and no anti-aliasing (AA) filter and that’s about it. I am not going in details to discuss the features and functions, instead I will just compare few images taken with the Leica M9 and Fuji X-Pro 1 cameras. This is not an easy task because Lightroom 4 currently does not support RAF files form the X-Pro 1 and the Silkypix RAW file converter (included with the X-Pro1) doesn’t support M9 DNG files. My only option at that point is to use JPG files taken directly from the X-Pro1. I may redo this test later with direct conversions from the RAW files. Obviously this is not a scientific comparison and it’s prone to user’s error. Click on images for larger view.
