Leica Camera AG will announce the M9 -- the world’s first digital rangefinder camera with a full-frame 24 x 36mm sensor and 18 megapixels -- tomorrow.

This continues the long heritage of the Leica rangefinder system. Leica introduced the first M series camera, the M3 in 1954, and the M9 continues the 50-year-old product designs. The M3 was the first Leica rangefinder body with a bayonet interchangeable lens mount.

If the M8 represented a pivotal move to digital, then the M9 shows the potential of what is possible in a digital M body. It will be expensive though: $A11,500.00 for the body + $A3-4000 or more for a lens such as the Summicron 35mm f/2.5 ASPH.

The M9 could very well be the most anticipated Leica M ever. Film users are holding out for a full-frame digital M before making the switch and the tens of thousands of existing M8 users are waiting to upgrade to a high quality image-making tool.

Associated with the launch of the M9 will be the X1--a small digital fixed lens pocket camera with a large sensor.

The lens is a 24mm f/2.8 Elmarit ASPH, the camera shoots raw (DNG) as well as JPG, and it comes with Adobe Lightroom 2.4.

The third camera announced was the extremely expensive S2, a digital medium format camera in a SLR style body. This is their first digital DSLR and it places Digital Medium Format Sensors and 'new' MF Lenses at the top end of DSLR development directly competing with established medium format DSLR systems such as those made by Hasselblad:

This weatherproof camera will cost more than a new car---the body-only price is around $A38,000 whilst the lenses range from £3,096 to £5,160. We won't see many of these studio/field cameras in Australia.

Update
I watched Leica's 3 big product launch in New York live on a video stream. Like Apple Leica wants to assert itself as a creative, high-end, relevant and innovative product maker, not an also-ran. In contrast we have Apple's very limited product release at its annual gig. A new version of Apple's best selling iPod, the Nano, which now includes a video camera, an FM radio, a pedometer and a microphone and speaker. No still pictures. Not much by way of innovation is it? Has Apple stalled?

But then Apple have made the transition from a computer to a services company. Leica are only starting their transition from film to digital. Will they succeed? They've "mortgaged" themselves to the hilt to produce the S2, and it may not even be an economic proposition. Rolleiflex, for instance, went into bankruptcy as a result of trying to make the transition from film to digital in medium format cameras.

Will these innovative products get the company back to what it once was - a producer of extremely high quality, practically designed imaging tools?

Update 2: 17th September
Tonight I went to the launch of the camera gear in Adelaide held at Photoco in the Central Market along with 40-50 other Leica fans. I could play with the cameras--the M9 and S2, as the X1 was a pre-production model, or a mockup. The M9 was a delight to handle--a unique photographic camera that provides a way of doing photography that reaches back to the beginnings of photojournalism in the early years of the 20th century. The M9 will be a home run for Leica.

The S2 evoked camera envy--it was simply a gorgeous piece of machinery. It is a high quality camera with equally high quality lens a studio camera with the ease of use of an slr, but with the resolution of medium format digital. It sits very comfortably in the hand whilst the viewfinder is among the best I've ever seen, huge and bright for precise framing and focusing. Easy to hold, transport, great sensor, great optics. They are breaking new ground in the top end of the market, as this camera is designed to be portable, to go outdoors.

The market is crying out for something that is better than the best 35mm platform. Will the S2 succeed in establishing a presence in the medium format digital market? We will have to wait at least a year or more to see. We will know soon enough if the S2 signals a new era for Lecia or the beginning of the end.