why has no one introduced this camera?

[eavis]

Hi All,

I am an avid film and digital rangefinder shooter, yet I often find myself yearning for something like the theoretical camera I describe below. Why hasn't Fuji or Voigtlander introduced it? Here are the theoretical specs:

Sensor size: 4/3s or smaller.
Body Size: Minolta CLE

Focus mechanism: Manual, classic rangefinder – no electronic focusing options whatsoever.
Shutter reset mechanism: Manual, like a film RF.
Lens: Small, pancake-style 35mm equivalent for the smaller sensor.

Controls:
On the back: Playback screen with all the usual adjustments.
On top: Shutter speed and ISO.
On lens: Aperture.
Pop up Flash - yes, if room.



Please note, this camera is meant to be way cheaper than a Leica M or the Epson RD-1. I know some of you might think I am re-proposing the RD-1 but the big differences would be that this proposed camera would be smaller (Minolta CLE size) and the image quality less ambitious because of the smaller sensor. Also, there'd be a fixed lens, to make things cheaper.

Why do I think it'd sell? Because you could market it as a cheap way for today's generation of photographers to discover the joys of rangerfinder photography. The Fuji RF lookalikes show there's a fascination with stripped down non-SLR photography, but this camera would be a more genuine harkback.

Some questions for the forum:

Could this camera be sold for under $500?
Would the real rangefinder focusing mechansim cause it to be too expensive?
Is there simply no market for this product?

I am interested in hearing anyone's thoughts. Thanks!

 

[umcelinho]

rangefinders are a niche kind of camera, so you already start with a small potential target market, mostly composed of film users. having a small sensor would make it even harder to appeal to those film users, even if you have a 35mm equivalent. not to mention that if you have a fixed lens camera it will appeal to even less people. also, if you consider what would be the cheapest rangefinder options, it'd be the bessas, which are above 500 USD and don't have a sensor to make it more expensive, nor a built in lens... I think it might just not be economically viable.

 

[eavis]

Good point on the Bessas. I guess it is the actual rangefinder that drives the cost of that camera up, as nothing else in those bodies can explain the $800 price tag. Unless, of course, Voigtlander is marking up heavily because of the niche/fanatic market. After all, don't forget that there were several lower-priced mass-market rangefinder cameras in the old days, so it must be possible to produce RF mechanisms at a cheap price.

 

[jsrockit]

I could get into a camera like this. If it is going to happen, it'll happen soon.

 

[keytarjunkie]

Voigtlander is really lucky, it produces pretty high-quality products in pretty small amounts and is still able to keep the cost low and appealing. How many other companies do you know that would release a camera based on 50-year-old lens mount that NO ONE had used since then (Nikon S/Contax C) (besides Nikon who really only did it for collectors)? They have their niche.

The problem with your suggested camera is that it would lack the kind of flair that appeals to the mass crowds of camera geeks lining up at best buy on black friday...so it would only be designed for the very small group of professional photographers using rangefinders...and...for rangefinder forum. BASICALLY. The biggest problems with your theoretical dream camera:

-No lens mount. Is it M-mount? Well, you'll be competing with the RD-1, M8, and M9, which all have larger sensors. We know rangefinders work best for wide-to-mid-range lenses, so if we're talking 50 on a regular camera, that's 25 on your camera. And if you want that 25mm to be a relatively fast f/1.4, prepare to shell out $6000 or whatever the leica version is ridiculously priced at. I'd rather buy a M8 and Summilux 35/1.4. If it's not M-mount, that means you're going to have to provide at least a few lenses upon introduction and keep growing your lineup from there. We are seeing this with the Fuji X-Pro1 right now. It's tough.

-No market.

-Rangefinder mechanisms are indeed expensive to manufacture, and can also be unreliable if not built properly and do require maintenance to stay in shape. People don't want to deal with that.

Meanwhile...you can pick up a Contax T for $200 or $300, it has a nice 38mm Zeiss lens, it fits in your pocket...the only catch is you need to put in a roll of film.

 

[Brian Legge]

Exclusively manual focus would make this a niche camera independent of everything else. That will cause a price increase simply because selling them cheaply won't greatly increase sales.

A simple rangefinder - more akin to the quality of a fixed lens rangefinder from the 70s - wouldn't be all that expensive to include but that would make it even more niche (and less appealing to those accustom to a Bessa or Leica M finder).

A low quality screen and focus on optical finder (and less focus on post-picture review) could reduce design, sourcing and production cost but I don't know if the demand would really be there to the point where prices would be in the range you want.

 

[Aristophanes]

No AF wold be a deal-killer for a wider market.

AF servos are tiny in small lens cameras. Manual focus actually requires a larger mount and body to take the added torque two human hands can exert.

Once you get to a contrast detect via sensor, AF is extremely accurate and faster than the human eye-hand.

Also, larger sensors like m43 require not only electronics, but physical stability, so the body can only go so small before alignment and QC tolerances kick in. The current m43 lines are small precisely because they let the AF do its thing and do away with the OVF. For manual focus, focus peaking is extremely accurate.

In any case, the more manual controls you add now the more expensive it gets. Small, outsourced, electronic, pre-assembled units are far cheaper to source than manual focus precision components. Why did Olympus start making only P&S cameras in the 1980's?

I'd say your dream camera would be closer to the Fuji X100 in price. I think the market for such a product would be tiny, and therefore the price astronomical for the value. Consumers would more likely purchase an m43 with an adapter. Or hedge their bets and get an NEX system (the image circle on the e-mount is FF).

 

[bensyverson]

The target price of $500 is unfortunately way off. Look at the pricing of a new Bessa ($720) for guidance. The Bessa is designed to be low-cost, and yet it's much higher than $500 despite being almost entirely mechanical.

The low-end "digital Bessa" you propose would be slightly simpler mechanically (no film advance / rewind mechanism), but much more complex electronically.

Without the rangefinder mechanism, the camera could reach $500 (think Sony NEX or Panasonic GF series). With the rangefinder, I don't see how it could be less than $1000-1200.

Without question it would be a tough camera to market to a broad audience.

 

[panerai]

Actually someone posted a CAD design of a Leica CL digital camera using M type lenses, but maybe thought someone would steal his idea and removed the images

Link to the post

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=84494

Doubt it would come in at $500. Even without a lens

M type lens attachment, rangefinder digital camera and I figure about $1000 or about $1400 with 35-40 mm sized lens

DON

 

[Spyro]

I guess the less "features" a camera has (AF,zoom,video) the smaller the customer base it will appeal to and the more you'd have to charge per unit to recover your R&D and fixed manufacturing costs. And the actual costs for these features are next to nothing as they are copied and pasted systems from existing cameras, so no savings from excluding them. In other words the simpler the camera, the more expensive it will be for the consumer. Unfortunately 🙁

 

[eavis]

Fascinating stuff. I had very little idea about how cameras are made, particularly the expense of manual. Maybe all I can hope for is some technological innovation that recreates the RF focus approach that improves substantially on the manual focus abilities of the recent smaller cameras. Thanks everyone.

 

[jsrockit]

The problem with your suggested camera is that it would lack the kind of flair that appeals to the mass crowds of camera geeks lining up at best buy on black friday...so it would only be designed for the very small group of professional photographers using rangefinders...and...for rangefinder forum. BASICALLY.

A smaller company can do really well without having the masses buy into it. Most of the people I know who use and like rangefinders are not professional.

The biggest problems with your theoretical dream camera:

-No lens mount. Is it M-mount? Well, you'll be competing with the RD-1, M8, and M9, which all have larger sensors. We know rangefinders work best for wide-to-mid-range lenses, so if we're talking 50 on a regular camera, that's 25 on your camera. And if you want that 25mm to be a relatively fast f/1.4, prepare to shell out $6000 or whatever the leica version is ridiculously priced at. I'd rather buy a M8 and Summilux 35/1.4. If it's not M-mount, that means you're going to have to provide at least a few lenses upon introduction and keep growing your lineup from there. We are seeing this with the Fuji X-Pro1 right now. It's tough.

Fixed lens.

-No market.

How do you know this? People did not think the X100 would be such a hit.

-Rangefinder mechanisms are indeed expensive to manufacture, and can also be unreliable if not built properly and do require maintenance to stay in shape. People don't want to deal with that.

Not so sure. CV has made some very cheap cameras with RF mechanisms in the last 10 years. Prior to that, there were plenty of cheap fixed lens RF cameras that are still going strong as we spea...err write.

Meanwhile...you can pick up a Contax T for $200 or $300, it has a nice 38mm Zeiss lens, it fits in your pocket...the only catch is you need to put in a roll of film.

Not everyone wants to deal with film anymore.

 

[Aristophanes]

Here ya go..

http://iovokitangra.blogspot.com/2012/02/online-portfolio.html

That's an EVF, so not an RF per se, which is the OP's original spec.

One variant would be an m43 or GXR camera with a sophisticated OVF clipped on to the hotshoe, acting like an RF mechanism with framelines and patch focusing if that's what you want. This is entirely possible, but the kicker would be calibrating the mechanical RF focus mechanism with what the sensor "sees". The patch would still need to be electronic to verify focus. Clunk and pricey, so a limited market.

The optical/mechanical alignments of film cameras were substantially more tolerant of variance than digital systems built around unforgiving sensors.

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Its interesting that there isn't the digital equivalent of the simple pocket camera with the excellent prime lens, isn't it? And it must have an optical view-finder, no menus for food and drink etc. A sort of digital Konica A4

Regards, David

 

[Snapper_uk]

I'd buy the Bessa film version of this for $500 if Cosina would make it. I won't hold my breath though.

 

[mdarnton]

It sounds almost like a Fuji x100 with an interchangable lens and a rangefinder, so just add the cost of putting those two things on the Fuji, and you have it. I imagine the rangefinder mechanism itself will cost about what you want the whole camera to cost.

I had really high hopes for the x10 as being my dream camera, and I could live with the lens it has, until I found out that the viewfinder is the usual crap, rather than being accurate. They took such a nice idea, and turned it into a crummy P&S with that finder (not a bit better than my antique Pentax Optio 4 had, about a decade ago), and I'm very disappointed. Is it that hard to simply make something approaching a 95% view? I could have even done without all the extra info, and I would have been willing to wing it on parallax, but a viewfinder that doesn't actually show the view doesn't appeal to me at all.

 

[Austerby]

The closest I found to a camera like this has been the Sony Nex-3, so I bought one with an M-mount adaptor and have set up the customisable menus to operate it reasonably akin to a manual camera. It's all the digital I need.