Leica CEO Does Not Like “compact bodies and huge lenses” Mirrorless Design

In an interview with asiaone, Alfred Schopf, the global chief executive of Leica Camera, reveals his reticence to follow the design route taken by Sony with its compact mirrorless NEX cameras: “They have compact bodies and huge lenses in front. I feel a little bit stressed by that design, to be honest.”

On Leica’s expected mirrorless, he reveals that Leica is carefully considering the image sensor and features to offer. His comments can be interpreted two ways: that the Leica mirrorless will offer 1) a sensor size between the X1’s APS-C and the M9’s full frame, or 2) a sensor size between what cellphones offer and the X1’s APS-C.

“We are at the borderline of compact-system cameras already, with the Leica X1 and Leica M-System, and it’s pretty obvious that, at one point, we are going to offer something in between.”

#1 does not make much sense, so we are leaning toward a sensor size smaller than APS-C, which would be a shame seeing how Leica has mastered the use of both the APS-C and full frame sensors in its cameras. On the other hand, if Leica rebrands Panasonic, or joins the (Micro) Four Thirds consortium, it would put its seal of approval on that format and make it a de facto standard. Come on already, give consumers the freedom of choice of mixing and matching cameras and lenses!

Read the article at: asiaone.

Note that the Micro Four Thirds from Olympus and Panasonic are such a hit in Japan that the whole compact mirrorless DSLR category is referred as such in the article.

via leica rumors