See what a little corporate secrecy can do? It drives the public, and the reporters, nuts, kicking up a whole lot of sparkly publicity-dust along the way. And doesn’t hurt that the brand in question is the cult camera-maker, Leica.
Today’s exciting news is that the details of tomorrow’s “secret” announcement have been leaked in the form of a pdf brochure and an online mini-site. The products are the M9, an update to the M8 rangefinder line, and the X1, a compact camera with a big CMOS sensor.
The M9’s big feature is its full-frame sensor, which will allow proper use of the company’s legendary lenses; the M8, like other crop-framed cameras, would make these lenses longer than they were meant to be. The larger sensor hasn’t added any sensitivity – ISO still tops out at 2500 – but it has let Leica squeeze some extra pixels on there: 18 of them, proving once again that a once innovative company has fallen behind the curve: Even Canon, as megapixel-mad a company as ever existed, has learned the error of its ways.
Not much else is new. From the outside, not many people would spot the difference between the M8 and the M9, but then, the camera design is pretty much already perfect for what it does (apart from having to remove the bottom plate just to change out memory cards). In the box is a nice surprise. Instead of writing its own processing software, Leica has just thrown in Adobe’s Lightroom, a very nice touch.
The X1 is likely to be in more people’s price range, although actual prices are not in the brochure. Details are scarce, but the blurb includes this:
It is equipped with a CMOS sensor equal in size to that of many DSLR cameras, and it’s fitted with one of the very best Leica lenses […] As an optional alternative to its impressive array of manual functions, it provides automatic features, such as autofocus
We take that to mean an APS-C sized sensor, as found in all but full-frame DSLRs. If the pixel-count is kept low, this could actually be a Leica compact worth buying (usually it’s best to buy the identical but differently branded Panasonic versions).
We’ll find out the rest tomorrow, no doubt. If anyone is paying attention during the Apple/iPod furore.
Leica M9 microsite, brochure and more Leica X1 info [Leica Rumors]
LEICA M9 microsite screenshots [Leicaphile/Flickr]
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