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Is Leica S2 dead of alive ?

After the news of the bankruptcy of the company that makes and owns the design of the Hy6-Efi it is only logic to look at the other MF new system from Leica, the S2 and ask the question. Is it really coming?

So I will have this thread open in case Leica decides to cancel the S line...

... or not...
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
The failure of H&F certainly prompts this question.

Of course I don't know and, despite having 2 M8's, an M8.2, and an M7, I don't much care. I've no interest in the camera myself.

But the bigger, more salient question is whether or not Leica will survive the current global economic collapse. Leica and H&F have many parallels. Most significantly, both were/are principally supported by deep-pocketed individuals whose coffers have certainly been dramatically diminished during the past months. H&F's benefactor decided to implement a stop-loss, probably a very wise move. Can Leica's benefactor, who has committed perhaps an order of magnitude more wealth towards Leica than the H&F benefactor, weather the storm? Rumor has it that Leica's sales have ground to a crawl.

By most knowledgeable estimates we're at least a year away from meaningful economic recovery. That's a very long, very costly draught for such a small, private company to endure. Bringing a whole new uber-pricey camera system to market will be extremely expensive.

Personally, here are my bets.

1. I give a 40% chances that Leica will exist as a stand-alone company, or even as a brand, in 2015. The issue of the S2 is moot, if anything it's a millstone to them.

2. If Leica survives I give a 50% chance that Leica will be due to its ingestion by Panasonic, although Japan will be facing some extinction-class economic calamities in the coming year or two.

So I am clearly pessimistic about Leica's future as a company, let alone the introduction of a new model of camera.
 
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Quick reply since it is almost one o'clock.

Very well put, I think that if we ever get to see the S2 it would be a surprise. I think that it is more a vanity system than a necessary one, but on the other hand, so is the Porsche 911 !

The more we talk about this economic colapse the more I realize that I don't understand it fully...
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
I'm sure that nobody truly comprehends the full intricacies of a global economy. It is actually fascinating to watch this meltdown in a rather morbid sort of way. (It distracts me from my personal pain.) It's rather like watching film of a controlled demolition in which a series of relatively small, but precisely placed and timed, explosive charges initiate unstoppable Newtonian physics events in which the structure pulls itself down into a nice neat dustpan pile. Except, in this case, the pile is not neat and the demolition is far from controlled or predictable.

Anyway, I digress.

I see that as of today, Leica has a new chairman. Shrug.
 

Jack_Flesher

New member
FWIW, Leica did not partner with H&F for the development of the S2. Nor did they partner with Leaf or Hasselblad for that matter. They DID however partner with a company that has maintained a solid presence in the digital back field, is still solvent (at least currently) and has remained active.

Also noteworthy is the S2 does not directly compete with any other products from said partner, so I suspect we will see the S2 in very real form sooner rather than later. How many will be able afford the S2 system is another issue entirely.

:D,
 

Ken Tanaka

pro member
Indeed, Jack, by my remark, "The failure of H&F certainly prompts this question." I did not mean to infer that there was any partnership between H&F and Leica. Only that such a failure of a marginal brand leads one to wonder about its nearest neighbor.
 
There are some things not clear, but at least one is. Leica is going AF ! They finally decided that dentists are older duds and are finding harder to focus on their expensive Leicas...

...ups, got to go again... to be continued
 

Michael Fontana

pro member
just naivly spoken, not being a Leica-addict:

the S2 has a unique position in that game.
Aparth of the format, everbody expects its lens to be very fine, and as we know, lenses beat sensor.
 
just naivly spoken, not being a Leica-addict:

the S2 has a unique position in that game.
Aparth of the format, everbody expects its lens to be very fine, and as we know, lenses beat sensor.

"Lenses beat sensor" when did we come to know that? Lets see... Leica is going to make all R lenses obsolete, stop production of them all together. If R lenses are arguably the best possible optics money can buy why is it that from now on no amount of money will be able to buy them since they are being discontinued.

Same as Contax lenses. They where the best second only to Leica and they where discontinued. It seams that Mamiya and Fujifilm/Hasselblad are available. This seams to be going against the theory of "Lenses beat sensor".
 

Michael Fontana

pro member
Same as Contax lenses. They where the best second only to Leica and they where discontinued. It seams that Mamiya and Fujifilm/Hasselblad are available. This seams to be going against the theory of "Lenses beat sensor".

Leonardo,
you' ve forgotten the ZF, ZE and ZK, some of them are just slightly modernised versions of the Contax-lenses. Meanwhile, the capture changed from analog to digital, but the lenses remained.

The digital cameras were updated through several generations of sensors; 20 years old Contax-lenses are still some of the finest you can adapt on the latest DSLR's. Sensor's are vapourware - lenses are hard ware.

Doesn't the R10 should come out in 2009?
 

Bernhard Rees

New member
According to what can be heard here in Germany Leica is eagerly working on getting their new S2 products to market. Some backlogs in whatever result in a delay of shipping the S2 in 2010 and not as annonced earlier this year in late 2009. Unfortunately any outlook on the economical situation at Leica Camera has to be kept vage at the moment. Business reports from the past 2 quarters of Leica's current financial year did not sound too good.

One professional photographer here in Germany, who is highly interested in getting his S2, forwarded a information yesterday that a substantial amount of S2 cameras should be available until midth of 2010. His source he is relying on is based at Leica in Solms.

My personal opinion is that the S line is a make or break issue for Leica since they deperately need to re-position their brand in the market to find new customers willing to join them with current state-of-the-art technology. A good legacy is a real asset for any company but still requires continuity in developing for any future challenges and expectations of customers and markets.

Bernhard
 
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