>>3832441>Really the OM-series is why Leica's SLR bodies are comparatively such crapola.Forgot to say: Leica only really bothered with SLRs with the R8 and its facelift, the R9.
And it shows: completely novel take on the the very essence of an SLR body, with some pros and cons, clever ideas etc. . It's obvious a lot of time and effort was spent designing it, and it was a valiant effort. But it came far too late. The AF revolution had already happened and even established and popular brands with no AF offerings, like Olympus, were struggling. Digital revolution was on the brink of happening.
And to top it all, it suffered from the same issue that Zeiss cameras suffered (Contarex, RTS, etc.): great features, smoothness and tactile quality, but too big and too expensive. To the point that when considering the bulk and expense, while getting the same 35mm negatives as everybody else, you start wondering why not jump to medium format.
Cameras of that style, while I'm glad they exist, are a dubious proposition to begin with and usually don't fare well commercially. The Contarex alone was such a commercial failure - despite being the smoothest and most overbuilt camera ever - that made a behemoth like Zeiss get out of the camera business for a long time (or forever, if you count as Zeiss only the cameras that were made in Germany).
So take a commercially dubious camera, and *also* release it at the worst possible time, and it's destined to obscurity.
