Move over "The 300", because Leica is looking for the new "The 100 to 200" brave photographers looking to buy the Leica S2 in December. That is what the product manager of the S-system told BJoP. In there also, BJoP was told that X1 pre-orders exceeded expectations significantly. (It is not clear from the interview whether 100-200 refers to the whole world or the UK market, but considering that the interviewee is the manager of the S-system of Leica HQ, the price of such a system, and the handmade-ness of it, it probably means the whole world).

Meanwhile, at dpreview, a pre-production unit was used to produce 26 full-size JPEG samples, a mixture of a fashion-portrait-modeling and cityscapes. For the extra conservative crowd, there is one picture that some may find suggestive (rated: high-heels, short skirt, pose).

Not to be Debbie Downer, but some photographers are saying dirty sensor on the S2 in the dpreview forums.

Then the Digital Photographer (dphotographer.co.uk) visited the Leica store in London and they are posting their impressions which includes a long segment on the S2 (see the section "Finally...". (their post talks all things Leica, not just the S2)

And a very long skyscraper look at the camera by David Farkas, who is the designated Leica expert at one of the largest Leica dealers in the US. (this looks longer than it is due to the Blogspot template chosen which is just 740-pixels wide).

And now something of great interest to medium format photographers, one photographer in the L-forums compares the S2 with the Phase One P45+.

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As promised, we have created review-lists for the Canon S90 and the Pentax K-x. If we missed any, please let us know!

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We have just removed the big vertical traditional-ad banner on the right sidebar of the blog, since some of the ads shown there through some of the advertising networks were of the annoying type, and we have replaced it with a simple "Support this blog" box.

So, if you find this chaotic blog useful and would like to see it continue, you can support us financially by starting your online shopping adventures at the "Support this blog" box in the right sidebar. Purchases big and small, be it books, lenses, cameras, coffee beans, iPods, and everything in-between are great and they do help us continue with this crazy format year-round.

We listed some of the most popular retailers there, and you can see all the available ones at the Noisy Mall, which is also linked there, along with the Camera Deals blog. We are using the affiliate programs of these online retailers which make this possible.

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X marks the spot right now as Luminous Landscaping has posted their Leica X1 review. This is their usual type of report, but they also have some pixel-peeping in there, with an ISO comparison between it and the Panasonic GF1. Conclusions towards the bottom and as always, we won't spoil them here.

Luminous also informs us that subscription-$based$ review site Reid Reviews has also posted the first part of their review, but only paying-subscribers to Reid Reviews can read it.

The X1 is available for pre-order at the Leicaholic price of $2000.

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Via Gizmodo and Eolake we learn of the Big Shot Camera which is designed to be assembled and disassembled for edutainment purposes. This is intended for kids, kids of all ages :) The camera is not available for sale yet, although it would probably be a good idea for them to get it out before December if possible.

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We already covered the official announcement and first previews of the GXR system, along with Ricoh's ofifical samples+brochure. Now it is time to fill-in the blanks!

The Future (maybe)
Akihabara News was at the Japanese launch and took plenty of pictures of various concept items that Ricoh was showing. These are not officially announced products, but they could become products. Or not. And by doing this, Ricoh officially opened the door for copy-machine jokes, since they showed "Ricopy" units :) Other "plug-ins" shown were GPS, projectors, and storage. Akihabara has them all in a gallery.

Another thing of practical interest is the "extension unit", where you can have the lens+sensor block a few feet away from the actual camera-body. Why rotate the LCD when you can move the lens to the right spot? :)

Hands On Reports
Carl at Alpha Mount World was one of the first to see this system in person and he is posting his early impressions on the system. Carl also has a pretty good name for the "lens units" (we called "lens blocks" before they had an official name) - he calls them "modules" which I think is the best name I've heard so far.

Long and detailed hands-on preview of the camera at Quesabesde including body comparisons to the GX200 and GR-fixed.

A detailed first look at this new system can be found at Photo Review.

Dpnow has pictures of the hardware, including a couple of side-by-side camera-body pictures between the GXR Macro and the Olympus E-P1 + zoom.

Bits and pieces of the system left and right at Trusted Reviews.

Hands-on Video Previews
Quesabesde has posted their standard hands-on video previews of both the macro module and the zoom module.

Kamera & Bild has a 9-minute video of the camera being handled and shown.

The Imaging Insider spotlights another hands-on video preview of the camera.

Sample Pictures
Foto Actualidad has spotted plenty of sample pictures from the APS-C macro lens-block at Chinese website DC Fever. Click on each picture twice (from the thumbnail) to see the full-size JPEG.

Opinions
The Ricoh GR Diary discusses the new announcement and talks about how this system fits (so far) in the grand scheme of things.

Based on what we know so far, Radiant Life has posted their thoughts on the pros and cons of the system.

Marco takes a break from his blogging break to opine on the new system, and he closes by revealing what he plans to do.

Photo Club Alpha opines on this new release as well and reminds us all of the old Minolta EX1500, which of course now has been Borg'ed into the Sony legacy :)

Also, Enticing the Light takes a look at what we have seen so far.

Ricoh GXR microsite
Ricoh has created a nice new microsite (re-sizes web-browser window) for the GXR system, featuring place-holders for galleries from photographers Taichi Kozawa, Terauchi Masato and Herbie Yamaguchi. They do have web-size pictures from Robert Adachi (website) along with two short pages of essay+impressions (click on the "Impressions" link on the bottom-right corner of the pictures, after you enter his gallery).

This is a Flash-based website so be sure you have available bandwidth and computer-resources!

More Announcement Coverage
We only covered the first wave of announcement-coverage, so if you want to skim through the remaining websites we haven't mentioned yet to see if anyone has any gems no one else has noticed yet, here we go...

+ Let's Go Digital
+ Imaging Resource
+ AP UK
+ CNet UK
+ ALC
+ PDN Gear Guide
+ DC Resource
+ Photoxels
+ Fotopolis
+ Buy n Shoot

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It is not often that we have the luxury of time+planning, but today we do! So here is what is coming up in the next few hours (not necessarily in this particular order):

+ Ricoh GXR round-up [completed]
+ Olympus E-P2 round-up (we still owe you that one!)
+ Update of the lens review diary [completed!]
+ Review-clusters for Canon S90, Pentax K-x, and maybe more [S90 reviews and Pentax K-x reviews completed]
+ "remodeling" the right sidebar
+ A return of the "Discover New Sites" series - if you have any sites/blogs to nominate, please let us know. In the meantime, you can check all the websites featured so far in this giant wall.

If you have any suggestions for this blog, this is also a good time to let us know.

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The time of reckoning has arrived for the new hybrid IS macro lens from Canon, the 100mm f2.8 lens that came out at the same time as the 7D. Dpreview.com has just published their review created by their resident lensoreviewologist Andy Westlake. What did he find? Does the hype match the findings? No spoilers here, so be sure to check the review to find out...

The lens is shipping near its opening price as you can see at the 7D stock-status matrix. Its link to the 7D is merely temporal, they are not otherwise co-dependent :)

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Japanese website DC Watch, with the help of the ISO-Bunny, has posted their hands-on gloves-on preview of the Nikon D3s. This is camera-body and menus, including a body size-by-side with the D3. There are no pictures taken with the camera.

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