Leica is planning a new film camera for release in 2021, it is reported.
The new camera is expected to be sold for a cheaper price than the current Leica film models, says Leica-focused photography site Leica Rumors.
A post on Leica Rumors says the camera will be “similar to the Leica M6 TTL that you can buy today for around $2,000-$3,000”.
Leica currently offers two film rangefinders, the metered MP and the M-A, which is a completely manual camera harking back to the company’s classic M3 of the 1950s. The MP currently costs around $5,300 (£3,925) body-only, and the M-A around $5,100 (£3,775) body only.
There has been no official confirmation of the new camera yet from Leica.
Earlier this year, Leica’s global product director Stefan Daniel told the Leica Historical Society of America (LHSA) the camera maker was still committed to producing film rangefinders alongside digital models. He said Leica was seeing a large increase in interest in its film cameras, at levels they “hadn’t seen since the arrival of the digital Ms over 10 years ago”.
The Leica M6 TTL was produced between 1998 and 2002, an upgrade to Leica’s hugely successful M6. It featured a TTL metering system that calculated flash readings off the film plane. Apart from the metering system, the camera is entirely mechanical.
I'm a New Zealander who has been living in London since the mid-1990s, shooting film seriously since the year 2000. Kosmo Foto was launched in 2012 and has since become a film brand, with the release of my first films Kosmo Foto Mono 35mm (2017) and Kosmo Foto Mono 120 (2019).
I’m doing everything I can to promote film photography in the 21st Century, and help it survive and thrive. If you want to write something for Kosmo Foto, please drop me a line at foto.dowling@gmail.com.
It would be a great start if Germany would make a cheaper leica glass lenses for everyone who bought a Leica camera.