Digital?

It's very simple.

The camera market is a world-wide market. Not everyone, world-wide - and I'm one of them, sees the need to "go digital" and are happy with film and our film cameras. I posted this earlier - for the forseeable future I think the film market has already "bottomed out".

To Cosina, it's 6 of one, 1/2-dozen of "the other". To Cosina, it seems, competing in a market with 50 million other film camera manufacturers, as they've done in the past is the same as being "the last man standing" as a film camera manufacturer albeit to a smaller niche market. He's saying - outright, he has no interest in digital. His company manufactures film cameras. And really, for "Cosina" to compete with the likes of Canon and Sony in that market? C'mon. He might say, "I don't want to compete in that mess..." But truth probably is, he "can't" compete in that mess even if he wanted to.

As far as "digital backs". Too small a market. Why would I want to make a digital back that costs 2-3-4X, whatever, of a new DSLR just for the privilege of shooting digital in a film camera? Just shoot film. Have a digital and a film camera.

Notice Cosina promotes and produces mainly rangefinders. What's a digital rangefinder cost? Very cost-prohibitive to most of us. I also think they're banking on what will survive in film long-term is the "Leica-style" RF shooter, who like the aesthetic and experience of loading their "uncluttered" manual film RF camera with Tri-X, shooting stealth in natural light "from the hip" with a RF with a fast fixed lens, developing their own negs (mostly), and scanning them in...

... without having to pay Leica prices for the privlige. He's marketing to we "contrarians" and "traditionalists" when it comes to imaging, of which there will always be. And which - in and of itself, precludes manufacturing digital "backs" and digital cameras.

His market now is:

A world-wide direct-marketing company who fills the need for new high-quality and afordable RF cameras and lenses to the world-wide market of film RF camera shooters.

This is a radical departure from, "we make cheap cameras for companies like "Vivitar" to slap their label on, to be sold as the bargain brand at big box retailers."
 
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I think Cosina's main bread and butter does not come from their rangefinders. I think it is a sideline business that was considered an indulgence for their CEO that didn't cost them anything, a rare occurrence. So the guy is a camera nut and wanted to build some tribute cameras - they've got the production capacity, it probably won't cost anything, let him give it a whirl.

The fact that it turned out to serve a nice little niche market was a bit of a shock, I suspect.

But look at the companies that serve - more or less - this 'niche' that we so often find ourselves in. Cosina, Sigma, Ricoh. Zeiss & Rollei & Epson, et al, cannot be taken all that seriously - they're coat-tailing on what Cosina is building to their specs, not doing their own innovations. Zeiss is at least designing new lenses, I guess. But the Cosinas of the world - they have another business, they have some excess capacity, they're willing to take small risks to serve a tiny portion of the market. Look - Sigma is in the same spot. Same for Ricoh. If none of their niche products sold at all, they'd still be fine, that's not their major market. Leica is a bit of a different story - they're chained to the rangefinder market in a way, and they need a way forward or they're kind of done if and when film goes bye-bye.

I think for a digital rangefinder to be done, start to finish, in a manner that would bring the efficiencies of scale to production, higher quality, and ultimately end price, it would have to be done by a Canon or Nikon. And they have not signalled any willingness to do so, they're making money hand over fist doing just exactly what they're doing now. They have neither the willingness nor the production capacity to spare.

So I think we get what we get - it's not that Sigma and Ricoh and Cosina don't see a need, it is that they are filling those perceived needs as and when they can, to the extend that they are able or willing to risk their capital. They're doing good stuff and hooray for that.

But I don't see a Canon digital rangefinder - or something more than a G9 and less than a Digital Rebel suddenly appearing on the horizon. Could be wrong, I guess. And a digital back I just don't see at all - I think that's been tried and it did not work as well as many thought it might, and that is pretty much that.
 
Nick,
I think you're assessment of Cosina's place in the marketplace, now and in the future, is right on the mark. They've found a stable niche and they are fillng it very well. I'd even guess that there's lots of potential for growth in that niche. I suspect that there are a lot of people like me that, after messing around in the messy and ever-changing digital world and getting serious disappointment, look up and find the elegant simplicity of the rangefinders & film.

However, I also think that there's going to be a point, not too distant in the future, where digital will stabilize... the dust will settle... and I expect that there then will be a new digital rangefinder family of cameras. Sort of like when Barnack's world settled into 35mm film and the Leica body (not much has changed since then). These new cameras will essentially do what our beloved rangefinders do for us now, in all respects, but without the film. And I'm betting on Ricoh... or maybe Sigma. 🙂

An aside: Nick did you get one of those Fedka soft release buttons for your Yashica? If so, does it fit properly?
Jamie
 
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That whole efilm this was the solution to digital cameras being so expensive at the time. Just buy the sensor, and keep your film camera. But digital got way cheap way fast. And it didn't make sense anymore.
 
Digital backs were the obvious thing right from the start. So how come they never got off the ground? My guess is that it's very hard to make a good digital camera by adding a back. There's a lot more to a digital camera than a sensor. I guess it's technically much easier to build a good product as an integrated camera. I don't see how a back could compete.

For digital cameras, I have a Canon 40D and a Sony P150. The Sony goes in any pocket and can be pulled out, used and put away with one hand only. I use it while cycling, for example. The 40D is pure diabolical evil. It takes splendid photos of anything under any circumstances without me having to really do anything. It just has to be daemon possessed.

So, given that I have these digicams, why do I use RFs? And what would I want from a digital RF?

These are good questions deserving serious thought.
 
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