Leica has indicated that its long-awaited S2 camera is still on course for launch this summer despite a dealer’s claim that it will not arrive until ‘September’.

The September delivery date appears in a full-page advert published in Norwegian photography magazine Fotografi.

Asked whether there has been a delay to the launch a Leica UK spokeswoman said: ‘At the moment we don’t have any confirmed delivery times and haven’t issued any dates or prices in the UK as yet.’

She added that Leica has nothing to add to information it released at last year’s unveiling of the camera at Photokina in Germany.

Leica then stated that it would go on sale in summer 2009.

Leica ranks the historic significance of the ‘larger than full-frame’ digital camera system on a par with the legendary Leica 1 launched 84 years ago.

The 37.5-million-pixel product, the first camera in the new ‘S-system’, is being promoted as a professional digital SLR that Leica predicts will fill a gap in the market.

The firm claims that the S2 will combine the benefits of a medium-format camera, with the handling of a digital SLR, while retaining the ‘look and feel’ of a Leica.

The ‘flagship’ model will feature a Kodak-made CCD imaging sensor measuring 30x45mm – 56% bigger than a frame of 35mm film.

Last year the firm said that the AF system and image processing technology, though primarily aimed at the fashion and advertising market, may eventually trickle down to enthusiast-level DSLRs.

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