Finally another good news for Leica fans has arrived and the company has announced that it would introduce its much anticipated Leica M10 at Photokina next month. Although the camera would be displayed during the event, the real purchasing for the device could not be done before February or early March 2013. Although there is no detailed official information about the technical specs of the device, tech analysts do have speculations and estimates at their disposal and seem to be quite hopeful about M10.
According to the speculation, Leica M10 would come with a CMOS sensor, live view, 24 megapixel sensor, EVF and HD video. Besides, the ISO performance of the camera would also be considerably improved. Mega pixels were already quite reasonable on M9 and increasing the mega pixels too much would only make the files huge and would rarely be of any use for real photographers. However, improvement in ISO is certainly something that would be appreciated by the photographers. If the speculated technical specs actually turn out to be true, this would be a costly camera, with the price range of about $9000-$10,000. But once it is out, the price of M9 might fall which would give an opportunity for the aspiring photographers since there won’t be a huge difference between the two.
Some people might be concerned due to the presence of an external EVF and the absence of a hybrid styled viewfinder. Indeed it would have been great if the camera could come with RF and EVF combined but from the information that is available so far, that seems to be quite unlikely. As for the mega pixel count, while it does not matter too much for professional photographers, the trick of increasing the mega pixels always works when it comes to amateur and aspiring photographers. Rumors about ISO suggest that it might be as high as 10,000 and very usable at 3200 and 6400. HD video recording would certainly be a huge addition and while it seems to be highly unlikely on a Leica M camera, rumors increasingly point in that direction. Finally, we can expect a slight design change in the body of the updated camera.
Minor focus issues that existed with the earlier versions would be pretty much eliminated with the introduction of EVF and live view. Much wider range of lenses could be used with the camera and there would be less calibration issues. Previous version, Leica M9 did very well in the market and was highly appreciated by tech analysts and professional photographers, so high anticipation for M10 is certainly understandable. High price might be one of the negative aspects for photographers with constrained budget limit, but we are yet to know the official price. However, if you have experienced Leica M9, you would certainly like to invest some more money and get the updated version. Let’s just keep our fingers crossed for Photokina which is less than one month away.
