advertisement


Cough - A Fuji rebranded as a Leica!!!

Remember a few decades ago when there was a Minolta rebranded as a Leica.
 
Yank said:
Remember a few decades ago when there was a Minolta rebranded as a Leica.
Click to expand...

Not a rebranding as such. The CL was developed jointly by Leica and Minolta and manufactured by Minolta in Japan. It was sold under the Leica CL, Leitz-Minolta CL, and Minolta CL badges.

s-l500.jpg
 
Oddly the Leica version looks like a Fuji, but the Fuji version looks like a Leica!

There is a lot of in-breeding in the industry, the Hassleblad X-Pan was a Fuji, but the Hassleblad compacts are actually Sony now I believe. Cosina made lenses under the Dixons brand in the 80s, and also Zeiss Contax lenses too.

Both my Fuji's have the logos blacked out, mainly to avoid boring conversations with camera nerds, though also useful when travelling in poorer countries. However, for many cameras are male (usually) jewellery, so the red dot is vital.
 
Leica's first digital cameras (the S excepted) were rebadged Fuji cameras.

Leica has a long history of using rebadged cameras, and third party manufacturers, outside of the M range - the early R's were based on a Minolta design, and I believe the excellent Minilux was actually built by Panasonic.
 
Stunsworth said:
Leica's first digital cameras (the S excepted) were rebadged Fuji cameras.

Leica has a long history of using rebadged cameras, and third party manufacturers, outside of the M range - the early R's were based on a Minolta design, and I believe the excellent Minilux was actually built by Panasonic.
Click to expand...

That is the best of both worlds to me. There are no consumer lenses that are as good, small and practical as M-fit. (We use them on Leica, Voightlander, Sony and Fuji.) The mechanical aspects of M rangefinders are also unsurpassed.

That said, I am delighted that Panasonic did the electronics of the Leica Q, and SL owners are no doubt equally delighted with Panasonic's heavy involvement (apparent) in the SL lenses, as well as using the same software as the Q.

The R body may be ancient history, but I use an APO-Telyt R 180mm that is absolutely superb, razor sharp from f/3.4 up.

It will be interesting to see how well the SL series develops as a pro-sumer joint project, which has led Leica to gear up their business unit to include S, SL and Sinar ranges.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top