Interview with Andreas Kaufmann (ACM) about Leicas present and future

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I want to draw your attention to an interview with Andreas Kaufmann CEO of ACM (the Leica owner) in ECHO an austrian Journal.
http://www.echoonline.at/echo/salzburg/index.php?we_objectID=3330

Most interessting points in my opinion:
ECHO: Es soll angeblich demnächst eine Leica M9 kommen?
Kaufmann: Da greifen Sie einer Mitteilung vor, die wir noch gar nicht gemacht haben. Wenn man weiterzählt, wäre das natürlich die logische Folge. Als offizielles Statement kann ich dazu nichts sagen. Stellen Sie es sich aber so vor: Wenn Sie Leica-Entwickler wären und Sie fänden einen Weg – ich verwende Konjunktiv – einen Vollformatsensor unterzubringen, dass der Cropfaktor wegfällt, dann würden Sie es doch tun, oder?

ECHO: Wie wird es eigentlich mit der R-Reihe weitergehen?
Kaufmann: Die R9 ist eigentlich zur Zeit eingestellt. Aus folgendem Grund: der Elektronikboard war nicht mehr EU-kompatibel. Wir hätten das gesamte Board der R9 umkonstruieren müssen und das bei einer analogen Kamera, die hybrid-digital arbeitet.

ECHO: Also wird da vielleicht auch bald etwas Neues kommen?
Kaufmann: Die logische Folge nach der R9 wäre eine R10. Natürlich haben wir ein klares Bekenntnis auch zu Spiegelre-
flex-Kameras. Ich persönlich bin zwar der Meinung, dass man mit der M besser fotografiert, aber der Markt hat anders entschieden. Außerdem gehören die R-Objektive de facto zu den Besten der Welt.
.........
ECHO: Wohin geht die Entwicklung?
Kaufmann: Wir werden solange analog produzieren, solange das die Leute haben wollen. Ich glaube, es wird diese Nische geben. Momentan hat es keinen Sinn dazu einen Nachfolger zu produzieren, diese Geräte sind so ausgereift. Auf der digitalen Seite können wir ja nur einen Zeitraum von drei Jahren überschauen. Der Pixelkrieg geht sicher weiter, da kann ich mir momentan noch kein Limit vorstellen.
..........
Click to expand...
 
In English (thanks to Babelfish for the crummy translation):

ECHO: A Leica M9 is to come allegedly shortly?
Buyer: There you anticipate a report, which we did not make yet at all. If one continues counting, that would be natural the logical consequence. As official statement I can say to it nothing. Imagine however in such a way it: If you were Leica developers and you found a way - I use Konjunktiv - a full format sensor to accommodate that the crop factor is omitted, then you would do it nevertheless, or?
 
Nice, a full format sensor to be exspected in the M9... sounds promising to me.
Also he states that they will continue to produce the film cameras, as long as there will be customers for this niche. But no new film cameras are to be exspected, since the current products already represent the state of the art and are hard to improve any further.
 
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It could be interesting to have a full frame sensor M camera to take full profit of Leica glass. IMHO
 
The way he phrased it is quite funny.

And what did you think of the journalists incisive investigative questioning?

"There's supposed to be an M9 coming some time?" :D

"We haven't made that statement yet! I can't tell you anything about it! But it's got a FF sensor. (oops)"



colin
 
Bill58 said:
.......and let's see, the M9 will cost 10,000 because it has a FF sensor?
Click to expand...


Well, let's see. The Canon 1 DS Mk II costs EUR 7,000 (USD 9,600) and it has a FF sensor, so .... maybe :)

It's a pitty he didn't say "if you were a Leica engineer and if you were to find a way of fitting a 20 Mpix FF sensor that gave better image quality than current top of the range DSLRs into an M, you'd do it, wouldn't you?"

:D

Of course, if he had said that, how much do you think it would be worth, and would your opinion be different if you were Leica?

colin
 
colinh said:
Well, let's see. The Canon 1 DS Mk II costs EUR 7,000 (USD 9,600) and it has a FF sensor, so .... maybe :)

colin
Click to expand...



But FF Canon EOS 5d costs a lot less. So, maybe new M9 will cost less too?
Just a thought.
 
Even if it has a full frame sensor...

probably couldn't be expected for at least another 2 or 3 years? Just judging on the cycles of their other digital cameras

Though this is a good way of getting the interest peaked in the future of Leica
 
He's saying nothing at all. We know now that if they find a way to produce a sellable M camera with a full frame sensor, they will do it - not big news, especially since we know they haven't found it yet. We also know that the company has some amount of interest in selling SLRs, but nothing more specific.

The only actual piece of information he's giving is that there is no future to developing further analog cameras, as he considers the existing cameras to be at the end of their development cycle.

Philipp
 
rxmd said:
The only actual piece of information he's giving is that there is no future to developing further analog cameras, as he considers the existing cameras to be at the end of their development cycle.
Click to expand...

Weren't they already with the M3? :)
 
rxmd said:
He's saying nothing at all. We know now that if they find a way to produce a sellable M camera with a full frame sensor, they will do it - not big news, especially since we know they haven't found it yet.
Click to expand...

There is a way: all you need is more bit depth per pixel at acceptable price.
Moore's law will take care of it.

Roland.
 
Hmmmm ... don't know why, but EPSON is still better fer-play solution for me.
You want real digital RF camera ... well, you have to pay for it, but you don't
have to sale your skin for it :D
 
I believe that Leica, almost like nobody else, could make a smashingg hit if they'd come out with a B&W true 16 bit version of the M8 - no infrared filters, no cyan drift, cheaper sensor, no bayer pattern, no AA filter, no "dirty snow" like highlights - THIS would knock the socks off the japanese competition, at least in the world of passionate amateurs, who, BTW have always been the predominant Leica customer base. Even with the current sensor crop, you could get smashing quality, and generate that irresistable GAS wave among the RF afficionados. If, to boon, it could be a FF camera, then Leica could really turn up a leader of the sophisticated amateur niche again.
 
Wouldn't a full-frame sensor be even more problematic with the RF-style wide-angle lenses in terms of light fall-off in the corners due to angle of incidence? Is a full-frame sensor on an M body feasible for less than a NASA-sized price tag?
 
J J Kapsberger said:
Wouldn't a full-frame sensor be even more problematic with the RF-style wide-angle lenses in terms of light fall-off in the corners due to angle of incidence? Is a full-frame sensor on an M body feasible for less than a NASA-sized price tag?
Click to expand...

Think about it this way: vignetting in the M8 is already corrected in software
today. For every additional stop of vignetting light loss you need one more
bit per pixel to correct it.

Deeper pixels will come for sure with DSLRs. All that Leitz needs to do is
wait for the right price tag for a deep FF sensor.
 
Foveon ( like ) IR subtraction layer and non-planar sensors

Foveon ( like ) IR subtraction layer and non-planar sensors

\BEGIN {HYPOTHESIS MODE}

Imagine what could be done with layers of semi-transparent photodiodes ( like Foveon)

But add an additional bottom layer that is long-wavelength IR sensitive only ( and be used as an offset charge for the diode above )

This could be applied as an additional layer to 4 site 'Kodak' white-RGB ; 3 site Bayer or 3-layered Foveon sensors - without affecting the sensitivity.

If these were deposited on a non-planar surfaced sensor with a fine fresnel ring structure ( or with millions of photo etched/deposited convex lenses ) , the light incidence issues would also be resolved.

\END {HYPOTHESIS MODE}

http://www.idtechex.com/products/en/articles/00000114.asp

"New transparent semiconductor material
In the month's edition of Nature, Hideo Hosono at the Tokyo Institute of Technology and his colleagues has developed a transparent semiconductor material which they say has better performance due to a greater mobility of electons when a voltage is applied. The semiconductor material is based on indium gallium zinc oxide. Honso claims prototype transistors made from his team's new material have ten times the performance than silicon transistors used in liquid-crystal displays today.

Edzer Huitema of Philips Research Laboratories in Eindhoven, the Netherlands, stated, "This is the first time I've seen a transparent transistor on a plastic substrate with such high performance. This opens up a range of new applications."

Indium gallium zinc oxide can be deposited at room temperature rather than high temperatures which means it can be deposited onto cheap, flexible substrates."
 
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