What If Jony Ive Designed Leica Cameras?

Apple’s designer extraordinaire, Sir Jony Ive, has been roped in to design a custom charity Leica rangefinder, which will also be one of the flagship products that will be introduced in next month’s Product (RED) charity auction. This custom Leica rangefinder camera also had a hand in its design by another industrial design celebrity, Marc Newson, and the final design has already been shown off by the manufacturer from Germany.

This custom camera was derived from the Leica M digital 35 millimeter full-frame camera, where it will feature a full-format CMOS sensor, in addition to a high-performance processor, as well as Leica’s APO-Summicron –M 50-millimeter f/2 ASPH lens. As for the camera’s body itself, it was developed using Ive’s signature anodized aluminum where it boasts of a pattern of small, laser machined holes, which is not too different from the speaker grilles which were showcased in Apple’s MacBook Pro range of laptop computers. We look forward to see just how much money can this particular custom designed Leica camera raise in an auction some time from now.

Leica claims that this particular camera took 85 days to create, and it was the result of both Ive and Newson going through a whopping 561 models as well as the prototyping process of nearly 1,000 parts. Truly, this is a labor of love.

Edwin Kee
Categories: Gadgets
Tags: leica