Leica Leica Announces the X2 Compact and M-Monochrom Rangefinder

While the new Leica lens may be the best 50 ever made, how much better does one need than what already exists, is being the sharpest that important. Or how about being the fastest with no place to go, for that one can also buy Bugatti Veyron Super Sport for $2,700,000.00(VW loses money on everyone sold) and have the fastest car in the world at 268mph, or just settle for a 200mph Porsche at $175,000, it all starts to get pointless unless you are a multimillionaire
 
Gotta say this looks really cool though - Hermes edition

Leica-M9-P-Edition-Hermes-Set-2.jpg


Kits ranging from $25,000 - 50,000.

It's the white gloves which make the price difference in this case.
 
USD 7000 for 50mm f2.0 is not really about pricing the new lens, but to make all other Leica lens offerings look dirt cheap. So once the new reference base is established, prices for the other lenses can be raised :laugh1:
 
B+W? Large sensor? For my kind of work?

Hmmm. Atget: one old camera, one old lens with vignetting and distortion. A master who produced masterpieces. John Blakemore, mostly a 4x5 camera, an old second hand one at that, one lens. A master who produced masterpieces.

I think: a wooden Berlebach tripod, a tripod head, say $400, a new wooden Chamonix $1,000, a good 150mm lens say another $300, all up $1,700. Yes, its heavy, there is the wet side but how much does one save?
 
Ouch - that is crazy pricing and leads me even more to concluding Leica is pricing itself more & more out of the market and solely toward the Red Badge only supporters.

I spent most of my PJ career using leica M's as film backups and they were superb in every way, I switched to the M8.2 that was well built but had bad performance and lousy IQ above 800, the astronomical price of the M9 made it a no go for me and I have since parted company with my M8.2 kit and replaced it with the Fuji X100 and GX1 kit + lenses and other bits - the X100 beats the M8.2 into total submission IQ wise.

I suspect that leica has released the M9 B&W version in an effort to use up the surplus stock of Kodak sensors rather than use a new sensor, once again though the high price (higher than M9P) will make it attractive to a limited audience and many I suspect will hold off and wait to see what the M10 offers in value for money.

I do not see Leica holding it's current user base if they continue to increase prices as they are as there is a culminating point even for the well healed supporters, and the likes of Fuji who are slowly knocking on the door may well impact potential buyers will limited budgets.
 
Brian, it looks like these guys will remove the lettuce from some cameras, but they also take off the microlenses. Is that a problem?

You give up at least one stop, and introduce a lot of vignetting at the corners. The latter is worse with RF lenses, tend to have a short distance between the rear element and detector. The Microlens array on the M9 and M8 is a work of art- offset microlenses to compensate for edges. Using a J-12 on the M9 without a huge vignettign problem- amazing.
 
this kind of price disparity exists in every category of consumable goods on the planet.

a typical point and shoot camera purchased at a big box store $ 199
the Leica Hermes collection $50,000

a new compact car (gets you to and from work just fine) $ 15,000
the Zenvo ST1 (base model......seriously) $1,800,000

a pretty good turntable for your records $ 299
The Goldmund Reference II (your records aren't good enough) $300,000

the average queen sized mattress $ 700
The Vividus (by Hastens......like sleeping on a cloud, I hear) $ 59,750


I could go on and on.....it never ends. Someone will always build a bigger, faster, more perfect one and they can charge what the market will bear. As the gap between the haves and have-nots widens these products will not disappear. It's the ones in the middle who get squeezed out. So there will always be these "pie-in-the-sky" products that we can all dream of. There is a trickle-down effect though. Look at the cameras we can buy now in the $500-$2000. The selection and quality is dizzying.
 
M9-Mono...quite simply.... I want one!!! Though I'm with Amin and would toil through with my Zeiss lens/es - Planar 50/2 (absolutely stunning) and Biogon-C (on the way) even if it makes for inferior outputs. But the files I have seen off that Monochrom sensor are jaw-droppingly delicious. :cloud-9-039:

Now to polish up my old Zenvo ST1 for sale to fund the purchase ;)
 
There is just no way the the files are $12,000 better than what I can get out of my XPro1, to say nothing of the slow AF on that camera:blush:
Don't know Bob...not being able to judge RAW files side by side but if Jono Slack's Henri images are anything to go by then the XPro1 must be better than I thought. These images have a certain character about them, while the Fuji's B+Ws that I've spied seem flatter somehow. OK not sure if that aesthetic is worth and extra $10k but just saying...

Then again I found the onion in the ointment with the M9-Mono....no Panda version. :blush:

Hmmm....
 
With all of the excitement over the new M9M (and disappointment with the price), I must say what has truly disappointed me is the direction (or lack thereof) with the X2. It is almost like Leica is totally unaware of the developments that have been going on around them over the past few years since the X1 was released. Come on, faster autofocus and a port for an EVF? All for only $2K! Wow wee, I am so under-inspired. Here are some improvements to the X2 that would have kept Leica ahead of the game:

  • Integrated optical (or EVF for that matter) viewfinder (not hard considering the 35mm EFL). Yes, this would have required a body redesign but who wants a huge camel hump sitting on top of the camera. It looks ridiculous and like an afterthought (no offense to Oly PEN folks out there but your EVF was designed FOR your camera, the Leica EVF doesn't look thought out at all).
  • Faster lens. F2.8, really!? Come-on, with the glass geniuses at Lecia, you would think they could have brought this down to at least f2.0.
  • Upgraded LCD. Given that this is how most people will use the X2, you would of thought they could have updated to a higher resolution LED display. Remember the display on the X1 was already old and crappy when the X1 came out in 2009 so to keep this display was a huge mistake.

Yes, the M9M is a very exciting camera and if I had $8K to spare (not to mention the need for at least one M-class lens), I would be in line already. I think what Lecia has done though is they have put forward a concept design that other camera makers will pick up on. For example, I'm hoping that Ricoh eventually releases an A16 35mm module for the GXR that uses a B&W sensor. Now wouldn't that be cool (not to mention the new forthcoming GXR body and Pentax K module which are in the pipe-line. . . so the rumor mill says).

Anyway, sorry to be so down on this X2 but I wanted something more from Leica for this new version of the camera. What we got are upgrades that should have been in the X1 (or at least been called the X1.1 ;-)

Paul
 
I'm with you Paul, in particular about using the same 50 year old LCD on highly priced cameras. Maybe Leica had too many old spare parts laying around unused.
 
Leica prices are what they are. A Monochrom with the 50mm APO for 15G is a used car in my world, but Leica will sell these to their customer base that will be glad to pay the price.

What does concern me, though, is that I wonder if Leitz has a business plan that's sustainable. Rebadging Panasonics for almost double the Pany price with very minor differences. Having to buy their sensors instead of developing them in-house. Will the S2 feel the heat the rest of the medium format market is feeling from the new Nikon, which will surely be followed by more ever larger pixel count cameras. Will they ever update their back-panel LCD. Those of you who are in the Leica community would have more examples of this kind of thing.

I'm a big fan of the best, and hope there's always a Leica. I just wonder if they can keep up.

Joey Wilson
 
Leica prices are what they are.

What does concern me, though, is that I wonder if Leitz has a business plan that's sustainable. Rebadging Panasonics for almost double the Pany price with very minor differences.


Joey Wilson

They do, they now sell Olympus EVFs for the X2 at double the Oly prices:D. On a more serious note. Leica cameras have become a status symbol just like Patek Philippe is in the wrist watch market space. A business strategy which works for other markets should also be usable for camera and lens markets.
 
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