Thread: 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

Wouldn't imagine it of Leica, but by mounting the hot-shoe on the top of the X2, they have pretty much ruined a beautiful design.

Leica unveils X2 16MP premium large-sensor compact: Digital Photography Review

Originally Posted by Armanius

Gotta say this looks really cool though - Hermes edition



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

It's the white gloves which make the price difference in this case.

Must have been HCB's gloves. By wearing them, it'll make me a better photographer. Definitely worth the $$$ then!

Excellent pictures of the X2 on this blog/review

Exclusive premiere: The full Leica X2 review

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

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.

Originally Posted by Amin Sabet

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.

It will be interesting to see how image quality of the X2 compares with the X100.