I am not in the prediction organization, and I’m not a technophile…I’m just a camera user, who just a few months ago, bought a Leica M9 as a street photography tool, and use a Panasonic GF1 for daily photography. I’m also a long time Canon cameras user, but those I use for my travel photography business.
Getting laid down my iron-clad qualifications for staying an “fallible predictor”, I read with interest several of what has been written in blogs by men and women with much more business insight and technological expertise than I, and who predict the advent of a Leica M10 (and possibly a new series of more advanced M lenses AF capability) and other folks who say that a smaller new mirror-less layout is in the offing.
I throw my hat with the latter. The electronic viewfinder interchangeable lenses cameras offer the image shooting high quality and flexibility of a digital SLR and the portability of a digital point and shoot….and have been a large hit with consumers, pro-consumers and professionals. Why wouldn’t Leica seek to enter that market place?
The current line-up for Leica digital cameras are the S2 DSLR ($ 23,000), the M9 rangefinder ($ 7000), the X-1 ($ 2000), the D-Lux five ($ 800) and the V-Lux 30 ($ 750). I can see a gap between the X1 and the M9 in terms of price point…a $ 3500 Micro 4 Thirds could match quite properly in that gap.
Naturally, it would require a couple of new AF lenses…could they’d be manufactured in Japan? I know. That’s the weakest link in my predictive chain.
That becoming stated, I actually really feel there is an enormous marketplace for this kind of a camera in Leica’s line up. It would not cannibalize sales from the assortment finder crowd, and would induce the purchasers of the point and shoot models to invest much more to obtain a much more versatile tool.
How much would I bet that Leica will announce such a item at Photokina? About $ 5.
