The one-of-a-kind Leica M created by world-famous designers Jony Ive and Mark Newson finally went up on the auction block yesterday, and it wound up fetching more than twice as much as auction house Sotheby's highest estimate.
We've heard a lot about the Leica M (RED) edition created by design gurus Mark Newson and Jony Ive, but up until now it's all been press release information. Now, we have a video in which both Newson and Ive talk a little bit about the creations they've put together for the upcoming Sotheby's (RED) auction on November 23rd, including a section about the aforementioned camera.
The Leica Lisse store in the Netherlands has acquired an extremely rare lens: the huge, 26-pound Leica / Hughes Leitz 17mm f/2. This is the only example of this wide-angle lens produced and is currently available for purchase for just $47,200.
The idea of a Leica camera with image stabilization, a built-in EVF, Wi-Fi, 2 card slots, and endless more features may seem like a very foreign concept for legacy Leica shooters. However, this is exactly what Leica has made in the SL2-S.
A rare, collapsible version of the Meyer Primoplan 5cm f/1.9 LTM Leica M39 mm RF -- valued at $50,000 -- was listed for less than a day before the seller received a private offer to purchase it. Just a few months before, it was scooped up at a flea market for just $10.
The Leitz Photographica Auction will present a 2013 prototype model of a Leica camera designed by Jony Ive and Marc Newson at auction in June. The camera is a one-off prototype produced during the creation of the Leica M for (RED) camera, which sold at a charity auction for $1.8 million in 2013.
Leica isn't known for modern styling and innovative design. For the most part, the company sticks with what works, branching out here and there to release a special edition that is sold for an even more outrageous price than the standard version.
But today Leica steps outside of the box with the new Leica T: a APS-C sensor, aluminum unibody camera with surprisingly few physical controls, a large touchscreen and a whole new lens mount.
Forget gold plating and celebrity altruism -- the rarest Leica camera of them all may be made entirely out of plastic.
We've heard a lot about the one-of-a-kind Jonathan Ive-designed Leica M as rumors turned to official word that the camera would be auctioned off at a (RED) auction in November, but until now, we had no clue what the thing actually looked like.
Back in September of last year, we told you about an incredibly rare Leica M Rangefinder that was being created by Apple design guru Jony Ive. The emphasis there was on incredibly rare, because only one of these puppies is ever going to get made.
At the time we knew the camera would be auctioned off for charity, but it wasn't until today that we found out the specific event. So if you were banking on trying to buy this uber-special Leica, have your black AMEX at the ready: the date is set for September 23rd.
We all love interesting and perhaps somewhat obscure facts and anyone reading this site has at least a moderate interest in cameras -- and hopefully, their history. Part of that history includes the unique, weird, one-of-a-kind, and (you guessed it) extremely expensive cameras which have, in one way or another, played a role in paving the way to where we are today.
On June 12, the 38th Leitz Photographica Auction is set to offer a large assortment of rare and highly collectible camera products, the most notable of which is a rare Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7 lens designed in 1966 for NASA Apollo missions.