Digi Bessa
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RichardPhoto
Established
It would also be nice if Ford would make me a Ferrari replica for the price of a Ford Mondeo but I don't think I'll hold my breath.
struene
Established
They would be better, biulding high-quality, high automation filmscanners. There is a huge gap in that regard...
Aristophanes
Well-known
The are utterly tiny compared tot he scale of what a full-on digital effort would require.
Customized fab products like sensors require tens of millions of up-front $$ and new teams just to get the product to test phase. These efforts do not come in small quantities; it is all industrial scale output. Have you been to a fab?
Marrying optical craftsmanship and hands-on assembly to fab output demands with the accompanying circuitry and software is the issue. The latter dwarfs the investment of the former.
That is why there are really no boutique camera makers anymore and even some of the larger electronics companies/brands (Sanyo, Casio, GE, etc.) have left the market entirely or were absorbed. Even Leica has had to partner with Panasonic. The digital side requires enormous investment on a continuing basis far exceeding investments on the optical side.
MIkhail
Well-known
Out of sheer curiosity, why people get hanged up on the crop factor at all?
So my 16mm lens is really 24, let's say. If it's a good lens, the distortions are controlled anyway, or can be fixed in Lightroom. What do I care how it is called compared to different system? I know what field of view it takes, and that's all I need to know, IMHO..
Kwesi
Well-known
Cosina is quite happy selling great lenses to Leica users at irresistible prices. There is no real gain to get into a price war with Leica on digital bodies and also take on all the headaches that come with electronics.
squirrel$$$bandit
Veteran
So Stephen, given their strong manufacturing acumen, do you think Cosina will be drawn back into digital photography? I know that, at one time, the answer was no, never, but has anything changed?
Kwesi
Well-known
Mikhail,
For most people who became interested in photography after 2000 ( birth of the APC-C sensor) the 16mm lens remains a 16. For those of us who shot 35mm film for years before that, the camera body and mount didn't change but the film(sensor) size changed which forced the angle of view of our existing prime lenses to change accordingly. it didn't help that APS C angles are constantly being translated to 35mm numbers or that the first digital 35mm cameras were $11,000. Both of these factors have helped to foster the conventional wisdom that APS C is second tier.
From a qualitative standpoint the difference between aps-C and traditional 35mm is negligible.
From an emotional standpoint the difference is huge.
Hope this helps.
Kwesi
Leica is not a boutique camera maker to you?
Leica sensors are outsourced, likely without tens of millions of Leica investment.
Having already manufactured the first digital rangefinder, Cosina could do it again.
But that is very unlikely. Cosina's CEO really does not like digital cameras.
Stephen
uhoh7
Veteran
all the more reason to make a nice one, no?
🙂
Someone will make one before long, with all the new FF sensors floating around, and appearing in cameras like the Q and RX1
Kwesi
Well-known
My gut feeling is the current business model is working quite well so they don't really have an incentive to rock the boat.
Aristophanes
Well-known
Leica were literally forced during heir "darK" years financially to marry up with Panasonic (amongst others). To my knowledge the investment went the other way...not from Leica but to Leica. This allowed Leica to leverage their optical pedigree and provide capital to engineer and reinvest in digital. They traded their crown jewels to get the investment partners onside, and the real cost to do so was move the cameras from being a hard-working photojournalist/Magnum pedigree to being a luxury brand in terms of pricing and market strategies (a source of much angst here). Leica hopes people don't notice their sensors are less worthy than a $700 consumer Nikon! That power of branding and peacock marketing.
It's not about "like" or dislike of digital. It's about the money. Cosina simply doesn't have the capital to make such an effort. Digital photography now can only be accomplished by truly large investments due to the need for mass produced sensors and supporting circuitry. The market for ANY digital camera has moved into the stratosphere for capital. We've seen an exodus of small and medium-sized out as the scale of production means only the big fish remain. We haven't had this much consolidation in imagery since the first few Kodak years. Sony Semi is the new Kodak and they really don't do boutique.
Kwesi
Well-known
Two very interesting viewpoints
RichardPhoto
Established
Spot on, and sums it all up.
If it was simply about being bothered to make a digital rangefinder, a company like Canon or Nikon (with their huge power and desire to please shareholders) would have produced a digital rangefinder and utterly annihilated Leica years ago. The fact that they haven't tells you everything you need to know about the difficulties and economies of producing digital rangefinders.
Lss
Well-known
In practice it must be mostly about lens selection. This certainly has limited my options.
robert blu
quiet photographer
IMO Cosina made a great work in that time with the Epson RD-1 cameras, the only missing point of that operation was a poor almost non-existent marketing action. But the camera itself was ok.
Could they repeat in an appropriate way todays? Probably no, technology has increased but also clients expectation have. And technical difficulties to produce a digital RF are not to be under evaluated, the Leica stories demonstrate it.
What Cosina could easier do is that from many desired simple DSLR, small, lightweight, manual dials for aperture and speed, manual focus eventually, a simple menu for WB and Iso selection. No other modern requirements which can already be found in already existing cameras, possibly a not too plastic body.
Such a camera (if with a Nikon mount due to the lens I already have) I would buy soon !
robert
PS: of course this is just my opinion which could be wrong...🙂
Could they repeat in an appropriate way todays? Probably no, technology has increased but also clients expectation have. And technical difficulties to produce a digital RF are not to be under evaluated, the Leica stories demonstrate it.
What Cosina could easier do is that from many desired simple DSLR, small, lightweight, manual dials for aperture and speed, manual focus eventually, a simple menu for WB and Iso selection. No other modern requirements which can already be found in already existing cameras, possibly a not too plastic body.
Such a camera (if with a Nikon mount due to the lens I already have) I would buy soon !
robert
PS: of course this is just my opinion which could be wrong...🙂
Sparrow
Veteran
How can anyone know this without access to both companies Management accounts over a number of years?
Sam N
Well-known
I'm amazed more RFF users don't go with micro 4/3 for digital. Crop factor isn't an issue with first party lenses, and there is a huge selection of cheap, high quality, small, prime lenses. The main disadvantage is depth-of-field control, yet most of the best RF shots do not feature particularly shallow depth of field.
I look forward to Sony's "backside illuminated" sensor tech making it to the m43 cameras.
Kwesi
Well-known
The other factors to consider are economies of scale. Given the very small market for digital rangefinders, i think this is virtually non-existent. What this means for Cosina is that they can't compete effectively on price. the market just isn't big enough for them to make it up on volume.
Lss
Well-known
I'm actually surprised with the number of people who are adapting RF lenses to MFT and seem happy with this. The crop factor is in this case very limiting for general use, and I found the lens performance significantly lacking (mostly due to filter stack depth it seems). But many people certainly are happy, and that's what matters.
I tested the Olympus OM-D E-M5 very extensively with a limited set of native lenses and my various RF and SLR lenses after the camera came out. I was most happy with the Panasonic 14/2.5, and came to the conclusion that a workable setup could be built by buying the premium native lenses. This is not an expensive approach relative to many other systems, but more money than I was willing to spend on them. I also quite liked the performance with some longer lenses for macro and tripod work. It was really a no-go in general use with adapted lenses, though.
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