new Leica developments in the pipeline

[Pascal <cyberdog@ibm.net>]

Just attented a Leica roadshow tonight, organised by the Belgian
distributor in my home town. All lenses and camera bodies (M and R) were
present and could be tried and tested. Great! It is otherwise quite
impossible to see all these costly pieces together.

Here are some of the new developments the Leica people were willing to share=
:

- - Leica is now much more demand-driven than ever before; they will try to
bring out new equipment at a much quicker pace than before.
- - the forthcoming Leica M6 HP (high eyepoint) is confirmed. It will able to
display frames up to 24 mm lenses and will automatically adjust for wearers
of glasses (so it will be easier to see the whole frame). On the other
hand, the central focusing rectangle will be enlarged when used in
combination with longer focals (I am not sure how they are going to
accomplish this).
- - there will be no further development of the M6 (no "M7") for a long time
to come other than the HP due to lack of development funds and simply
because there seems to be no real demand for it. Contax G2 does not seem to
be much of competition to the M series. BTW, the rumored Leica takeover of
Contax could not be confirmed, but seemed unlikely.
- - the new multi-focal lens 28-35-50 mm f/4.0 is confirmed but at serious
price (around 2.500 USD).
- - the R8 body will be further enhanced with an autofocus system. This
system could not be incorporated in the current R8 because the solution =E0
la Contax AX does not meet Leica's approval: focussing would be too slow.
Only when such an acceptable solution will be found, a new Leica R8.2 will
appear. That will be the current model, with the addition of AF. All ROM
equipped lenses (and only them!) will be able to use the AF functions. The
current R8 is already pre-equipped, so it will be able to upgrade the body
to incorporate the AF functions.
- - this new AF camera will not be called R9. Because of silence imposed by
Leica Solms, they were not able to unwrap the details of the R9, except
that it would be something special.
- - the winder (2 frames per second) for the R8 will be available by Q4 this
year; the motordrive will only be available by Q2 1998.
- - production of the current (excellent) Elmarit-R 90 mm f/2.8 has stopped,
it will be replaced by an APO model.
- - the new pocket Z2X is made by Minolta in Japan (that explains its very
affordable price), except for the optics which are made by Leica in Germany.

Hope this news will be of interest to the group!
Greetings,

Pascal
Belgium

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