dct
perpetual amateur
Agreed. Something like that with FF sensor and short mount distance would be the 1st real concurrent to the M9. And I might be interested...
hteasley
Pupil
Why? I get the impression that they'll be trying hard to keep up with D800 demand.
The camera market for rangefinders is a mature market, and it's owned today by Leica. It's not that amenable to disruption. The mature SLR market is split between Nikon and Canon. It's also not that amenable to disruption. At this stage, it's going to take a combination of serious missteps by one company, coupled with a significant achievement by another, to shift things dramatically.
With market leaders already in-place in these arenas, folks are left with inventing new categories, like m4/3 or EVIL, to attempt to own those markets. It looks to me like Sony will end up with the EVIL market, pumping out NEX cameras for a good while.
What incentive would Nikon have to go against Leica, in a tiny segment filled with price-insensitive Leica loyalists, when they already have a much bigger pool to swim in?
Adanac
Well-known
Can that statement be made without some back up? The compact side of the Interchangeable Lens Camera market seems to be growing very rapidly. Those sales surely aren't all coming from former point and shoot buyers.
The Japanese Camera & Imaging Products Association (CIPA) just initiated a change in how they report statistics for shipments of interchangeable lens cameras, for the first time breaking them into Single Lens Reflex and Non-Reflex categories. So far there is only data for July through December 2011 but it is interesting to note that non-reflex Interchangeable Lens Cameras in the second half of 2011 currently make up 22.7% (2.03 million units) of total ILC shipments (6.91 million SLRs).
From their press release (PDF):
This suggests growth. I'd guess significant growth.
Total ILC Shipments (CIPA members) over the last few years:
Code:
[FONT="Courier New"]2011 15,693,781
2010 12,886,936
2009 9,910,695
2008 9,686,640
[/FONT]We've no idea from these numbers if compact ILCs (including RFs) are cutting into DSLR sales or not, but it would seem likely. Certainly camera sales are up after the depths of the recession passed - I wonder how many folks decided to buy a compact ILC rather than a DSLR?
f6andBthere
Well-known
I think people need to remember a few things about the M8/M9. It was a Leica M rangefinder long before it was a digital anything and consequently had a waiting audience/fan base who were bound to snap it up if it was half reasonable when it actually went digital. And let's face it, it was only half reasonable!
If that camera had come into a cold market with the problems it had at the price they were asking, it would have been rejected.
Any company that offers a digital RF will be taking a big risk IMO.
If that camera had come into a cold market with the problems it had at the price they were asking, it would have been rejected.
Any company that offers a digital RF will be taking a big risk IMO.
hteasley
Pupil
The rest of my comment would have, I hope, given some context to that description of the DSLR market. My meaning was that Nikon and Canon own the DSLR market, and barring something astonishingly catastrophic, nothing is going to shake them loose: to come to market with a new DSLR system is a daunting task.
Which is why camera manufacturers like Olympus and Sony and Fuji are trying to invent new categories and fight over those, as I said. I didn't say the new categories can't chip away at the existing ones; I said these new categories are the ones that companies see opportunity to compete in. Because it's not going to happen in the DSLR space.
And it's not likely to happen in the rangefinder space: at least, not in a way that would, I think, tempt a company like Nikon.
Lss
Well-known
What is a visually demanding photographer?
BobYIL
Well-known
Look at the Zeiss Ikon, $1.618 body with an excellent rangefinder and a shutter of the same class as on the M9. Metal body, quality construction. Add to this a FF sensor with an unashamed cost of $2.000 (A900 costs $2.700 complete!) to end up with $3.618.00. This is the maximum retail price of a quality FF digital rangefinder. I am sure that if Sony or Canon (or even Nikon) had considered to introduce a FF optical or EVIL rangefinder, they would be aiming for a price not more than $2.700 while the X-Pro1 was going for $1.700.
Such a rangefinder will come, either this year or in 2013; and I believe it is on the drawing board of not only one manufacturer, for the lenses are readily available either for direct mounting on the M-mount or via adaptor to the specific mounts to come. Put the Leica lenses aside, there are a lot of amateurs and professionals who would love to use Zeiss, Voigtlander or similar lenses with reasonable costs.
(BTW, I am expecting any new FF or APS-C rangefinder to come out with a register distance of less than 28mm, otherwise they know that the project would be a gamble...)
Such a rangefinder will come, either this year or in 2013; and I believe it is on the drawing board of not only one manufacturer, for the lenses are readily available either for direct mounting on the M-mount or via adaptor to the specific mounts to come. Put the Leica lenses aside, there are a lot of amateurs and professionals who would love to use Zeiss, Voigtlander or similar lenses with reasonable costs.
(BTW, I am expecting any new FF or APS-C rangefinder to come out with a register distance of less than 28mm, otherwise they know that the project would be a gamble...)
j j
Well-known
Ugly?
For sure someone could make a rangefinder and could make one cheaper than an M9, but would they? Viewfinders with prisms and deflected beams of light are 20th century tech. Great engineering and design, great fun, but expensive to make.
Far more likely is an innovative look at manual focus using electronic displays. Like a development of focus peaking or even a new take that looks to learn from the idea of the rangefinder but uses sensor and electronic display tech to enhance manual focus.
More likely than that is more AF cameras that tip their hat to tradition, like the new Fuji.
PS M mount = no chance.
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Paul Jenkin
Well-known
As someone who uses film and digital (and who uses Leica M film bodies) an cheap(er) FF M mount body would be wonderful - but I accept it's unlikely. My digital kit is a Nikon D700 and I would not want to buy anything that couldn't produce images of similar quality. There is, of course, the Ricoh GXR but that has a crop sensor. The biggest frustration in the early days of digital was the proliferation of crop sensors and having to buy special lenses to suit. I won't do that anymore, nor will I spend the money demanded by Leica for an M9. It's just as well that I'm perfectly happy with my M6TTL and M4-P....
I don't think it is quite this simple. If anyone was to release the camera in question in this thread, I think it would be a labor of love and not a monitary endeavor.
BobYIL
Well-known
Any camera manufacturing is a monetary endeavour... Leica AG is not a foundation established by philanthropists to 'serve' camera users any more than what Zeiss, Canon, Nikon or Fujifilm were doing since years... Nobody risks their own millions of euros/dollars merely for the love of being able to produce some cameras at all costs...
anerjee
Well-known
A FF sensor is too expensive to manufacture and then put into something as limiting as a rangefinder body. Leica can get away with it, for now, no one else can.
janosh
Member
I'm not sure that is what I said exactly, but perhaps I should have said not "solely" a monitary endeavor. CV makes film rangefinders ( a whole new line in the 21st century) and I would imagine it wasn't because they wanted to make as much money as possible. My point was that it'll be a company that cares about making a rangefinder camera and not a company whose sole purpose is to make as much money as possible. Its a niche product.
semordnilap
Well-known
I think a big promotional point, and a reason to develop such a camera, would be no image blackout during capture. You get used to blackout, but it's not ideal, and one of the great RF advantages. As I said before, if someone can create this in an evf type technology we will be a lot closer to a reincarnation of the rangefinder. Probably not an actual rf, but maybe something pretty close.
Companies obviously know that there is a market for manual focusing, hence the introduction of peaking in the newer evil cameras. I think the vf is the tough nut to crack-I don't expect anyone other than leica will release a true rf anytime soon, but the evf tech will make for some interestingly close cameras.
A FF EVIL is not far off, for sure.
Companies obviously know that there is a market for manual focusing, hence the introduction of peaking in the newer evil cameras. I think the vf is the tough nut to crack-I don't expect anyone other than leica will release a true rf anytime soon, but the evf tech will make for some interestingly close cameras.
A FF EVIL is not far off, for sure.
I use the EVF in my X100 on occasion and can't remember seeing it blackout.
semordnilap
Well-known
Really? The EVF on the NEX 5N blacks out. It's very quick, but definitely there. I have image review off.
That would be neat if it doesn't... can you double check and let me know?
Adanac
Well-known
I understood the context of your remarks and agree. A new competitor faces a daunting, probably impossible, challenge to usurp the current market leaders in their core businesses, perhaps even more so for Leica than CANIKON.
My point speaks to the invention of new categories forming the potential to do what competition in existing categories may not be able to accomplish. You touched on that.
Taken to logical extension I'm feeling it may be safe to predict the death of the DSLR, or more accurately, at least a flipping of statistics over time. Where mirrorless ILCs now make up the smaller fraction of units shipped annually, one day DSLRs will occupy that space with simpler, smaller, mirrorless ILCs taking over.
How that applies to the current discussion is less clear but in the back of my mind I wonder if we could see the same flipping of positions where true RF cameras become less important by way of units shipped than electronic finder cameras that allow for the use of rangefinder lenses while maintaining high IQ. Is there a larger constituency of rangefinder camera or rangefinder lens users where the lens is more important than having a "range finder" focus mechanism and optical viewport? I'd guess there is and if that guess is right then the RF market could be disrupted by new entrants.
Is Leica's current and potential user base even worth going after? Is the larger ecosystem revolving around Leica and related products (Zeiss, CV et al) worth going after? It may be, for a smaller maker.
Who knows, maybe Leica themselves will bless the trend and come out with an ILC with an all-digital finder. Competing with oneself often is better than allowing someone else to put your back against the wall.
Hmmm, maybe it does and I've never cared. I'll check it out tonight. Perhaps someone else can answer before then.
kanzlr
Hexaneur
It blacks out, yes. But shorter than the GXR.