[LRflex] The M8's impact on the R10

Bill Abbott offered"

>http://www.financial.de/newsroom/news_d/86103.html
>
>Let us all hope the current contretemps about M8 IR filtering gets =20
>put to bed quickly with little or no technical. sales, or financial =20
>impact.



Hi Bill!

Most interesting!  Leica's loss is 1 million Euros lower, despite a 2 
million Euro increase in expenses.  That part looks good!

The M8's current IR debacle is important to "R" users in that if the 
M8 is a financial success (it looked as if it would be a runaway 
success prior to the IR problem raising its ugly head), the next 
generation R10 is virtually assured.  But if the M8 fails to sell well...

Leica have talked about making a B&W only version of the M8.  Here, 
IR sensitivity would not be a problem and could be seen as an 
asset.  It makes me wonder if Leica  could fix the problem in new 
sensors with a different coating on the sensor's protective glass, 
and then recall the existing stock for a switch of sensors.  The 
original sensors could then be used to create the b&w 
version!   True, the Bayer-pattern filters would still be in place, 
but it may be possible to work around that, in firmware.

If this is possible, it would be an expensive solution for Leica, but 
nowhere near as expensive as simply throwing the sensors away!  (This 
brings to mind the "bad math" Pentium scandal, a few years ago!)

If they can solve this problem, both from a technical and public 
relations standpoint, I still think they can recover enough to make 
the M8 a successful player in the game.  But, I do not think people 
will accept Leica's first solution... using an IR cutting filter one 
each lens to compensate for a problem which simply should not be in a 
$5000 camera.  They will accept it, even less, if Leica expect them 
to pay for the filters!

So, Bill, thanks for posting this little tidbit!

Cheers!
---

David Young,
Logan Lake, CANADA

Wildlife Photographs: http://www.telyt.com/
Personal Web-pages: http://www3.telus.net/~telyt




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