To test that statement one can do as many others have done, which is getting a Novoflex Leica R lenses to Canon EOS body adapter and start using manual focusing Leica R lenses on canon bodies, with focus confirmation. Leica R lenses are - if not the best lenses in the world - then amongst them. The new 24Mp Leica M 240 has Live View and an EVF-2 electronic viewfinder which allows one to focus the Leica R lenses on the Leica M240 using a Leica R-to-M adapter. The future solution Leica Camera AG mentioned then was the Leica M 240 that was introduced at Photokina in September 2012 and started delivery in March 2013. The market for a Leica R10 would simply be too small, in Leica Camera AG's estimate only 10% of the Leica M market (and an Leica R10 would cost the same to develop as the Leica M9 did). An entire digital Leica R10 was expected in 2010, but then in July of 2009 Leica called that one off and instead said they would - in the future - show a solution for Leica R lens users. Leica R8 and R9 can be made digital by using the digital back Leica DMR that Leica, Imacon and Kodak developed together till Imacon was sold to Hasselblad (the digital back was sold from 2005 to 2006). See the Leica Camera Compendium for details on R models. The first Leica R was the Leitz Leicaflex that came in several editions (Leicaflex SL, Leicaflex SL2) and then Leica came with R3, R4 and onwards to the Leica R9 which was the last Leica R camera under the "R" system (as Leica announced in April 2009 that the R system would no longer be). The R system consist of wide angle lenses from 15mm to 1600mm tele lenses (an 800mm with a 2X extender). Leica R is the SLR cameras from Leica, the WYSIWYG (WhatYourSeeIsWhatYoyGet) camera where you look through the lens of the camera via a mirror, thus seeing the exact picture you will get. See the Leica Lens Comendium for an overview. There exist many intersting older lenses with a special look. Only you can't get the lenses 6-bit coded at the factory (as the 6-bit coding system doesn't support older lenses). Everything will work, the focus, the aperture and all. In any case, these still exist as second-hand and will fit any screw-thread Leica camera, and also (via an adapter) any Leica M camera, including the digital rangefinders Leica M8, M8.2, Leica M9 and Leica M 240. Thoses are some times referred to as V lenses. The older Leica M was with screw-thread and not the M bayonet lens mount. Leica M 240 with Leica 50mm Summicron-M f/2.0 II Next to me the proud owner who acutally uses the kit every day.
Me with an elated expression holding the Leica Hermes speical edition bag (announced in Berlin, May 2012) with the Leica M9 Hermes inside and the three lenses (50/0.95, 50/1.4 and 28/2.0). This 18MP black and white only camera was originally released in 2012 in black, and in May 2014 in silver chrome finish as well.
The Leica M Monochrom in silver chrome (as of May 2014).
Nevertheless, it gave a lot of free PR in the fashion blogs where Leica is a regular guest as the probably most stylish camera in he world). The special edition Leica M8 white that came out in spring of 2009 (and which divided the waters in terms of who amongst the Leica fan crowd thought it was a cool camera and others who felt it was the absolute degrading of classic Leica style. All of the M cameras are rangefinder cameras, meaning one looks not through the lens but through a separate window.
Leica M is the classic Leica from 1925 up to today's M6, M7, MP film cameras (with an addition of the Leica M-A in May 2014 as the brand new remake of a Leica film camera) and the digital Leica M8, Leica M8.2, Leica M9, Leica M9-P, Leica M-E, Leica MM ( M Monochrom) and simply Leica M (as of 2013 though it is called " Leica M Typ 240"). If new to Leica, one might get confused about the M and the R and the D and the C and the S letters: