Hello,

I was talking to a rep today, who has got back from Photokina.

He said that he was told that Leica are going to make leaf shutter lenses for the Phase/Mamiya 645AFDIII
.
Interesting

Simon

I'm sceptical. Why wasn't it officially announced? The biggest selling point Leica has for the S2 is the lenses. Selling lenses for another platform would undermine that.

I saw the Mamiy Leaf 80mm. The rep told me it is at least a year from release.

Edmund

The ONLY part of the Leica/Phase relationship that appears to be mutually understood and agreed to by both players (at least so far) is that Phase will use Leica optical tech in some upcoming lenses.

I saw it, too and saw it even used on a body with beta firmware, so I don't think it will take a year.

I though their relationship is more software oriented than hardware oriented. But, if Leica somehow becomes a 3rd party lens supplier, it may make them a much bigger company, if they can all be made AF, not all that useful but that was what sells in the market.

It makes sense, the S2 sensor is only 5mm smaller than 645, so the lenses they are talking about are probably the same, --and leaf shutter--, so Leica gets to sell them for the AFD and Phase AF so that they give them "advice" on the S2. The 4 buttons in the back of the S2 looked suspiciously too similar to the ones I have in my digital back, and we all remember what happened to that ZD one piece ...

This could be an interesting system, Phase back, Mamiya body and Leica lenses, ... we only need Nikon prices !

If so, Phase/Mamiya have an interesting counter to the other players - the only MF maker with a "value" and a "luxury" line of lenses. The closest equivalent is the Sony/Zeiss relationship in 35mm digital (or the non body manufacturer endorsed Zeiss lenses for Canon and Nikon). If there is eventually a complete line of Leica lenses out there for the Phamiya mount, and they really do test better than the Mamiya lenses of the same focal length (as the Zeiss small-format lenses inevitably do than THEIR competitors), photographers can then pick a favorite focal length or two and buy Leica lenses, but have a cheaper option for the non-everyday lenses they still want to own (or get into the system with reasonably priced Mamiya lenses, then upgrade to Leica at any pace of their choosing). Right now, the choice of a body determines what lenses you have access to, and there's only one line for any given body (apart from the ubiquitous manual focus V-system adapters, which will go on anything (Hy6 too? or just Phamiya and H-system?).

-Dan

I saw something in Phase One's press release on 23 Sept (Phase One elivers unprecedented creative options...) under the third bullet point on page one which seems to infer Leica is making lenses for the Phase One 645 system - the press release is on Phase One's website

http://www.phaseone.com/Content/PressInfo/...ssReleases.aspx

Would be interested in other peoples interpretation


Regards
Mark

The image circle required for the Leica S2 is 54mm. The image circle required for 645 is 70mm.

Difference: 16mm.

Yes but the lenses themselves could have a bigger image circle and I imagine they would. What is required to fill the S2 sensor is one thing but the size made maybe another and not sure we know that yet since only the 70mm lens is made

I would expect they will be larger than the absolute minimum, but that is a big unkown..
I wonder if they would release that info so early.. I can see that holding some cards close to the chest at this point would be advantageous.