The Perfect RF

[thawkins]

If you could build the perfect RF camera; what would it look like? I have given this some thought and came up with some ideas.
The perfect RF:
1. An M3 with a quick loading mechanism similiar to a QL17, 35mm frame lines and matrix metering.
2. A QL17 with matrix metering and a depth of field scale.
3. Modern production of the Leica/Minolta CL camera.

What do all of you think?

Tom

 

[back alley]

a digital cle...

 

[Spyro]

+1 digital cle, doesnt get much better.

For the purists make it black paint brass, get zeiss to design the VF and Leica for all moving parts. Add mechanical no battery mode and a couple of versions with different framelines.

 

[gavinlg]

Zeiss 'digital' Ikon
- 24.6mp Sony a900 sensor with new processing technology for better noise control, and offset micro-lenses on edges.
- no AA filter or very very thin one
- auto film advance a'la hexar RF
- 3 inch 900k LCD screen
- ISO button on top plate
- body only or with 'kit lens' - zeiss 50mm f2 planar
- made in Japan
- $3200us body, $3800us kit

The older a900 sensor would be cheap to use as it's already a few years old, and we know it both has extremely high resolution, extremely high color fidelity and good noise performance (probably better than the m9). Label the camera as a sony-zeiss if need be and get sony to pay for a good lump of the r&d and marketing etc...
I would sell my soul to have one!

 

[thawkins]

Zeiss 'digital' Ikon
- 24.6mp Sony a900 sensor with new processing technology for better noise control, and offset micro-lenses on edges.
- no AA filter or very very thin one
- auto film advance a'la hexar RF
- 3 inch 900k LCD screen
- ISO button on top plate
- body only or with 'kit lens' - zeiss 50mm f2 planar
- made in Japan
- $3200us body, $3800us kit

The older a900 sensor would be cheap to use as it's already a few years old, and we know it both has extremely high resolution, extremely high color fidelity and good noise performance (probably better than the m9). Label the camera as a sony-zeiss if need be and get sony to pay for a good lump of the r&d and marketing etc...
I would sell my soul to have one!

Actually I had in mind a film camera!!

 

[calebk]

A more affordable M9 with an advance lever. The feeling of advancing film is so gratifying that even if I move to digital I want that feeling. Haha.

Okay if it was a film camera, an M7 does it for me, spot metering with the zone on the RF patch, 40mm frame lines. I'll have mine in chrome thanks. Haha.

 

[Frankie]

Zeiss 'digital' Ikon
- 24.6mp Sony a900 sensor with new processing technology for better noise control, and offset micro-lenses on edges.
- no AA filter or very very thin one
- auto film advance a'la hexar RF
- 3 inch 900k LCD screen
- ISO button on top plate
- body only or with 'kit lens' - zeiss 50mm f2 planar
- made in Japan
- $3200us body, $3800us kit

Actually, all you need is to add "Auto" to the ZI ISO/shutter combined dial which already also functioned as a +/- 2 stop EV adjustment in AE mode.

Eliminating the film advance lever will provide space for a top deck "Exposure/Battery remaining" window.

I am sure Zeiss could easily build a Fuji X100 type O/EVF within the space available...and with adjustable OVF magnification and also diopter...

 

[Bill58]

An updated CLE with NEW, state of the art electronics!

 

[hteasley]

An MP. There's no time I don't feel good when I'm shooting it.

 

[gekopaca]

A more affordable M9 with an advance lever. The feeling of advancing film is so gratifying that even if I move to digital I want that feeling. Haha.

+1
In my mind it's the feeling to pass to another subject, and stocking the passed picture.
When I was a child in France we had a toy called "ardoise magique" (magic slate?) - we drew on it, and then shaking it to clear…

BTW, IMO there's absolutely NO DIFFERENCE between film and digital in term of photographic and artistic process.
All the controversies about it are futile and vain.

There's ONLY ONE digital RF with an advance lever : the Epson R-D1.
I would like a R-D2 with larger sensor and more precise RF alignment.
But I'm not sure the potential future R-D2 will have an advance lever…
We are kind of dinosaurs.

 

[LKeithR]

+1 digital cle, doesnt get much better.

For the purists make it black paint brass, get zeiss to design the VF and Leica for all moving parts. Add mechanical no battery mode and a couple of versions with different framelines.

Make it even more simple and go for a digital CL. Or...how about a Fuji X100 with an M mount?

 

[Krosya]

there is one already - Hexar RF. The only thing I would change is - add a feature for shutter to work with maybe a couple speeds manually, when battery dies - as a back up sort of thing. Otherwise - it's PERFECT.

 

[Spyro]

Make it even more simple and go for a digital CL. Or...how about a Fuji X100 with an M mount?

hmmm dont know about the M mount on a crop sensor. Kinda feels like a massive waste of money, technology, weight and size to make a near perfect full frame lens and then throw half of its output away. Maybe it makes sense for those of us who already own a bucketload of them but I'd never buy one specifically for a crop sensor. I'm all for dedicated lens ranges for each sensor/film size combination.

Actually I dont want a digital cle, I'm quite happy with the original film one and I dont even need technical support for it, at the current prices if it breaks I'll just buy another one.

In terms of simplicity I'd happily buy a digital camera without a screen, if it meant savings in size, cost, battery life, weight, longevity etc. Maybe a small LCD on the top, like in film SLRs.

 

[Jamie Pillers]

Something the size of an M body, but with modern light-weight materials;
Leica thread mount, or a fixed lens (a 35 or 40mm);
optical viewfinder with the eye-relief of the Zeiss Ikon ZM;
external dials for shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation;
full-frame sensor;
produces RAW files only;
no LCD screens.

This camera would get rid of all the annoying second-guessing that modern cameras tempt us with. Just take your SD card home at the end of the day and see what you got and whether you were paying attention... just like with film.

And it would be a whole lot cheaper to build... no LCD screen and a much smaller amount of programming mumbo-jumbo on the chip.

This camera will be available in 2 years for under $2000.

 

[Mablo]

Something like a M9 ( a Voigtlander version maybe) but would cost less than $1k.

 

[Voe]

Konica Hexar RF with a Leica badge.

 

[sevo]

And it would be a whole lot cheaper to build... no LCD screen and a much smaller amount of programming mumbo-jumbo on the chip.

The screen is a almost negligible cost factor. Cheap digital compacts with screen sell well below a fifty. Going by the price jump incurred whenever compacts add knobs, screen/menu systems must be dramatically cheaper than adding dedicated LCD displays or putting on mechanical setting knobs and dials.

 

[gavinlg]

Something the size of an M body, but with modern light-weight materials;
Leica thread mount, or a fixed lens (a 35 or 40mm);
optical viewfinder with the eye-relief of the Zeiss Ikon ZM;
external dials for shutter speed, ISO, exposure compensation;
full-frame sensor;
produces RAW files only;
no LCD screens.

This camera would get rid of all the annoying second-guessing that modern cameras tempt us with. Just take your SD card home at the end of the day and see what you got and whether you were paying attention... just like with film.

And it would be a whole lot cheaper to build... no LCD screen and a much smaller amount of programming mumbo-jumbo on the chip.

This camera will be available in 2 years for under $2000.

There is never going to be serious digital camera made without a screen. One of the major advantages of digital photography is that you get instant feedback. To add to that, the screen isn't a particularly expensive part of the camera to begin with, as can be witnessed by the raft of compacts under $100 with screens on them.

To illustrate my point - if that camera without the rear screen actually came out, I wouldn't buy it. BRB doing a shoot with a model, getting home and finding the camera was overexposing all the shots by 1 stop and they're unusable. No thanks.

 

[LKeithR]

hmmm dont know about the M mount on a crop sensor. Kinda feels like a massive waste of money, technology, weight and size to make a near perfect full frame lens and then throw half of its output away. Maybe it makes sense for those of us who already own a bucketload of them but I'd never buy one specifically for a crop sensor. I'm all for dedicated lens ranges for each sensor/film size combination.

I don't know, my full frame Pentax lenses on a 1.5 crop K20D work pretty well. Sure I'd like to have a FF camera to use them on but so far FF is too expensive to be practical for an enthusiast type user. Coming from a 35+ year association with film I bought my first crop sensor camera (K10D) with more than a little trepidation but I soon realized that it didn't really matter. All I worry about now is "what I see in the viewfinder". If I want a wider view I zoom out with my feet--or with a zoom lens if I happen to be using one. If I want tighter I "zoom" in. I use an array of lenses but I'm not hung up on their "traditional" fields of view. What matters is the final product.

In terms of simplicity I'd happily buy a digital camera without a screen, if it meant savings in size, cost, battery life, weight, longevity etc. Maybe a small LCD on the top, like in film SLRs.

As others have said. Ain't ever gonna happen. The convenience and immediacy of digital is a powerful force and no manufacturer is going to even think about producing such a camera. What you might see is a camera--something really simple and elegant--with an articulating screen which you can turn over and hide if that's your preference. Digital is here to stay and I, for one, have stopped fighting it...

 

[thegman]

I would like to see something like the ZI, with a sort of zooming finder, so it could support very wide lenses (12mm/15mm) and also telephoto. Get rid of the accessory finders and not require bodies with different finder magnifications. I'd also like to see a built in meter which can go out to minutes in AE.

I wonder if it would be possible to keep a similar size, and even have it be 6x4.5, not 135, but maybe that's pushing it a bit.