Why no Zeiss Digital Rangefinder in 2010?

Well the R-D1 was essentially a Digital Bessa. And look they even released the R-D1x last year (not that anyone cared) so they are playing the field you could say.
 
The question, though, is whether the R-D1 was successful financially as a lower price point DRF. It become for a while a cult camera on the second hand market, but that didn't benefit Epson.
 
wasnt R-D1x available only in Japan ? anyway, Epsons and Leicas "trials" should have been closely followed in Cosina, to avoid doing same mistakes.

digital Bessa would also keep Cosina lens sales going. I doubt they can count for long only film Bessa sales, no matter how low price of those will drop.
 
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watchyourbackgrounds said:
... I bought a Z1 and THEN an M4-P...
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Buying a used Leica doesn't put any money in Leica's pocket. While it certainly looks like Leica has figured out how to stay in business while selling into a tiny niche of a market, there's little or no evidence that anyone else could profit by entering that market. Leica's cult status, the emotional nature of many Leica purchases, is itself a strong disincentive for anyone thinking of releasing a DRF. I.e., people won't buy their DRF specifically because it is not a Leica. We see that attitude frequently expressed here in comparisons of two lenses or two bodies: Many will simply assert that the Leica must be better, because Leicas are better.

Demand for Leica's seems to be rather price inelastic, as well. Could any other company gotten away with rolling out a new DRF for $7000? Wouldn't the reviews of a $7000 Cosina or Zeiss-branded DRF have targeted the price?
 
For me Bill and Roger (in another thread) have hit the mark - but also there are more reasons that mean zeiss will possibly never ever make a DRF. I like rangefinders because they are the last non D camera I can really get there will always be those of us that like film whether it is reversal or own developed bw so a market remains for quality film cameras and voigt, zeiss and leica all fill that at different price breaks.

I have never wanted a leica because what i really want is a new rollei ( and by that i really means a zeiss) SL 3003+ or an updated 35s - but hey the chances are slim so a zeiss zm actually sort of almost within a limit does that - ok it is not an sl 2000 even as far as tech advancements go but hey I can dream and still blow a set of 2500 mAh rechargeables every roll of film in an SL2000

zeiss since it sold its camera operations to rollei have never needed to make cameras - contax slrs were not zeiss products they were only licenses - zeiss made very little oney from each body but it made loads from each lens. Yashica now own the rights to a dead product line but zeiss has gone back to what it originally did which was make lenses for other bodies. Yes it is hard to count a 127 or a 4x4 as a body but essentially thats what they did originally - contessa nettal merger with ernemann and goerz which gave zeiss a camera production base in 1926 and lead to the name ikon in the first place -

zeiss is an optical company first and for most so currently it is creating some lovely glass for all sorts of bodies and at least breaking even something zeiss kamera has not always done

Now will zeiss eventually produce glass for a drf-like camera, - yes if sony go down that road - whther m43 or aps doesnt really matter.

Does zeiss need to be in competition with leica for a very small audience - no

Have zeiss ever really been concerned about m39 based lenses - not really, so the foray into leicalville was possibly a gap filler to keep the name in prominence in photo magazines until it started making lenses for the high quality mass sales brands - 12 zm lenses all of which needed very little re-calculating and now including the alpha range 13 slr lenses all of which needed more work than rf primes

I may be totally wrong but after years of buying and using and watch what zeiss/rollei have done in 35mm - a drf makes absolutely no sense for CZ

If zeiss were really interested in building cameras of any sort they would have bought rollei in the autumn - but hey wasnt that were the problems for anything spelt kamera started.
 
jarski said:
Cosina makes several film cameras and lenses for this niche market, perhaps they're more interested of fitting a sensor to their Bessa, than Zeiss would ?

they also have manufacturing ability and everything needed to get things going, after new technologies such camera sensors become affordable enough.

full frame Bessa R5D, 2010, USD2500 ? 🙄
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Sign me up!! Epson, Bessa, Nikon, Zeiss, Leica, whatever... if someone will put out a full frame that works for under $3K I'm in line. But not at $6K.
 
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