Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2004/04/01
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I saw the same article - you left out that part that due to new efficiencies of scale, the Leica model will cost HALF of the RD-1's $3800 price. On Apr 1, 2004, at 7:42 AM, Richard F. Man wrote: > According to a Lecia web forum, Leica is buying the Epson R-D1 > technology! They claim that this will allow them to ship the digital M > by the year's end, instead of in 2006. They have a crash team adapting > their 10 Megapixel full frame sensor to the R-D1 body and release it > as Leica R-D1 by Photokina. The team that was working on the original > Leica Digital M will continue to work on R-D2, that uses the Leica M7 > body instead o the modified Voigtlander R2. Due to this buyout, Epson > will not be releasing the R-D1 as announced :-( Of course we will have > a full frame camera instead of the 1.5x crop factor so this is good > news indeed. > > Apparently the deal only works because Epson couldn't see how they can > sell the R-D1 into this niche market. So instead of just dropping the > whole project, they cut their losses and struck a deal with Leica. > There are some rumors that Epson bought out the Hermes shares of Leica > (30%) at 200% premium to make the transaction appealing to Hermes, but > there's no independent confirmation for now. > > // richard (This email is for mailing lists. To reach me directly, > please use richard@imagecraft.com) > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > > ____________ Dante Stella http://www.dantestella.com