Does this mean Phase can use Leaf's arrangement with Jenoptik to sells backs for the Hy6?
No.
What this means is all medium format cameras will be designed by Mamiya, out of lightweight polycarbonate (which might anger a few traditionalists) but will be built under contract by F+H which means they will never come to market. That way the traditionalists won't be upset.
The software will be a combination of both systems, which will give updates daily instead of weekly and the lcd's will be touch screen but smaller for both brands.
There will be one upside .... Leaf will adopt Phase pricing so the price of a Leaf back will be a dollar a pixel, . . . $51,000,000 and $33,000,000.
There will be a third camera system call the mamleafa 33 and mamleafa 51, only available in Germany. It will be the lower costs version of the new Leaf, at .90 euros a pixel.
New marketing and website support will be announced soon and outsourced to Sinar who will be acquired by Mamiya, that was acquired by Phase, that sells a special camera in America bundled with a Leaf which is now a Phase.
OK, enough of the funny (or not so funny) stuff.
It would be nice if medium format land ever made an announcement that gave real information and we can all guess, but I assume there is a great deal of redundancy in these two brands so in the end, it's just one brand, one camera and one distributor/dealer network. But that's just a guess, because that's all anyone can take from this.
Someday, some company (other than Hasselblad) will understand the customer viewpoint when it comes to marketing.
If you had a burning desire to buy a new medium format camera, would this move you to any single Phase, Mamiya or Leaf Brand, or would it just confuse you?
BC