Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/12
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Hi Marc,
The info you refer to is at my site. I believe Leica was definately
planning to introduce new M models in the near or past future. What
their CURRENT plans are, no idea. The Leica museum is full of things
they almost made, but changed their mind on the last moment.
About the time the Leica M6 rebates started, an Italian Leica dealer
announced these new M versions and started quite a ruckus:
1) A M6E with electronic shutter
2) a M6W with a viewfinder for the 21-50
3) a M6T with a viewfinder for the 50-135
In this scenario, the expectation was that the M6E would have an M6J
finder with higher magnification for the 35-135 range.
A friend of mine, an American Leica dealer, got an informal confirmation
of versions 1-3 above from a Leica bigwig. It was one of those yes, but
don't quote me things. I know this person well, and he knows Leica. If
he says he got the confirmation, he did--regardless of what Leica is
publicly saying.
In the same time frameline, another Japanese acquaintance told me about
the field testing of two different Japanese made M cameras by Ricoh and
Minolta. Ricoh and Konica, among others, have recently marketed M mount
lenses.
Things were looking up for M lovers, but world economies intervened.
Since that time, the M6 rebate has been extended three(or 4?) times,
Leica has sold a slew of M6's, the Japanese stock market has gone down
further, the Thailand and Indonesia stock markets did their version of
our 1929 crash, and the dollar remains strong against the yen and
mark. Add to that Leica's embarrassment and problems at still not
having a production R8 motor on the shelves.
Business is generally not good right now in the global camera market,
and Leica is currently not able to put a product on the shelves that
virtually every other camera manufacturer already has--a motor for
their flagship SLR.
Regardless of what plans Leica probably had about six months ago, these
are now uncertain times in the camera business. The Leica R&D
department currently has one hell of a headache with the R8 MIA Motor.
As camera companies go, Leica is rather small. Until the R8 motor is a
reality, they probably don't have the resources to launch new M's, even
if the M tooling is already done.
Regards,
Stephen Gandy
Marc Thomas wrote:
> I read this on the following page, under the M6 heading
> http://cameraquest.com/mguide.htm
>
> i havent mailed the page owner yet, but if no one else has heard of
> any new
> models I am happy to believe it is just a groundless rumour.
> thanks
> Marc