Leica announced at PMA 2008 that it will be offering a new "perpetual upgrade program" to owners of its M8 digital camera. The program, as it stands now, will offer two handling upgrades to M8 owners — a new scratch resistant sapphire glass LCD screen cover; and a retuned, quieter shutter.
"The shutter will be softer and feel more like an M6 with less lens vibration and better picture quality," said Christian Erhardt, Leica’s director of Marketing.
Like all things Leica, however, the upgrade program will not be cheap. According to Erhardt, it will cost participants 1200 Euros (or about $200,000 USD. Just kidding!) to join. Along with the two upgrades, participants in the program will also get a new two-year warranty on their M8.
The upgrade program will not involve any tweaks to the camera’s digital components and will not further address issues some M8 owners have had regarding color casts and banding. A little over a year ago at PMA 2007, Leica began shipping UR/IV filters to M8 owners to correct those problems.
For more info on the new program, visit www.leica-camera.com.
Dan Havlik is Technology Editor at PDN Magazine and Editor of DemystifyingDigital.com. For more professional photography news, visit PDNonline.com.