New DRF's via rumour mill

Just a thought! It is raining and I spent the morning reading the paper and thinking about Nikon Drf's (beats reading about the world's misery and politics).
Sixty years ago Nikon released the Nikon 1 - this camera had a 24x32 inch negative size. How about a 24x32 Anniversery Digital Nikon 1!!! Eliminates some of the problems with extreme edge pixel sensors too!
I know nothing about digital design and sensors, except that hey are dustmagnets and obviously complicated. However, if someone had told me 25-30 years ago that we would be able to shoot and store images on itsy, bitsy tiny cards and show them on a computer - I would have thought it highly unlikely!
Obviously a full frame sensor for a Drf with a M mount compatibility is not simple, but it is not insurmountable either. Most of the technology we are dealing with today was not even "dreams" 20 years ago. Think I-pods - the CD was "futuristic" in the early 80's and today you can stuff 2-3000 "songs" on a piece of equipment the size of a couple of stacked credit cards.
One thing i have learned is that predicting the future is even more difficult than designing camera sensors and surprises do happen.
 
Technology is advanced in the consumer arena these days in the direction of extracting the most interest from consumers. R&D budgets are directed towards creating products that the maximum number of consumers will buy. Other than for Leica, whose life literally depends on solving the problem of dRF's and the M mount, there is no significant consumer demand for a FF digital rangefinder.

Nikon doesn't have to prove it can out design Leica, Leica isn't a competitor to Nikon. Why would they spend money solving a problem for which there no significant market?
 
Ray Nalley said:
Technology is advanced in the consumer arena these days in the direction of extracting the most interest from consumers. R&D budgets are directed towards creating products that the maximum number of consumers will buy. Other than for Leica, whose life literally depends on solving the problem of dRF's and the M mount, there is no significant consumer demand for a FF digital rangefinder.

Nikon doesn't have to prove it can out design Leica, Leica isn't a competitor to Nikon. Why would they spend money solving a problem for which there no significant market?
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Dear Ray,

This somewhat puzzles me too.

'Bragging rights' are one thing.

Producing a camera, at a loss, that destroyed or badly damaged Leica, and then discontinuing it after a few years so there were no more digital RFs from anyone, would be another thing entirely. They might make more enemies than friends.

Cheers,

R.
 
Roger Hicks said:
Producing a camera, at a loss, that destroyed or badly damaged Leica, and then discontinuing it after a few years so there were no more digital RFs from anyone, would be another thing entirely. They might make more enemies than friends.
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Wild capitalism and free worldwide market rules have very little to do with that friends and enemies logic I'm afraid.

If Nikon's R&D men finally find out that there is a solid market for a DRF they will make it and sell it until their profit has got large enough and the ROI is there, then they will discontinue that model and sell something else, as they always did*.

I don't think that there is any kind of White Knight in Tokyo who had the Nikon Team care about Leica's health and future.

*If they had done differently they would still produce the F2AS (the best SLR ever) and would have never marketed the ugly plastic cheapo N-xxxx SLRs they made in the late 1990's.
 
Highway 61 said:
I had written this already and frankly I am a little puzzled that nobody took me up then, but I still can't figure out why Nikon would invest money, energy, R&D time and the like, at manufacturing a digital RF camera body for their customers to mount Leitz-Leica M or Carl Zeiss-Cosina ZM lenses on it.

Just wouldn't make any sense as for the economics.

If that camera even comes out, it will have a Nikon proprietary mount, the F mount or - more likely - a totally new one.

Remember - despite a demand that was quite larger than the one regarding that hypothetic digital RF system, Nikon never made any entry-level DSLR supporting their own manual focus AI/AI-S lenses, and probably because they didn't want their customers to use their old Nikkor or third-party Tokina-Tamron-Sigma etc lenses on a new Nikon body.

A small, light, simple yet very capable DSLR like what the D40X was, supporting a 1.3x 12MP sensor, and now featuring a coupling prong for the AI/AI-S lenses would be that BIG thing.

But this will never occur, for easy-to-get marketing reasons.

I bid on a new proprietary lens mount for their "digital RF" camera, and I think it will be an autofocus system with an electronic rangefinder built in an optical variframes zoom finder - it won't be a Leica M8 clone.

If it ever gets manufactured.
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I bid on that too. Nikon would want this RF mount to be as compatible with their F-mount lenses and create demand from Nikon pros with their existing nikon glass. Fully compatible electronically and mechanically. Not some basic F-M adaptor currently. An extra RF body for pros alongside their D3/D700/D3x makes calculated business sense too.

Discussing a Nikon digital RF in a pure RF context is limiting. Nikon is a DSLR camera maker first and foremost. Even Olympus says upfront 4/3 would be compatible with micro-4/3. M-mount compatibility (with limitations) is a future option.
 
Are you talking about making it compatible with their AF lenses through some electronic connection? I'm not sure how you would RF couple an older F mount. I don't know why you would want to hang big, heavy F mount lenses on an RF, though.
 
Ray Nalley said:
Are you talking about making it compatible with their AF lenses through some electronic connection? I'm not sure how you would RF couple an older F mount. I don't know why you would want to hang big, heavy F mount lenses on an RF, though.
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weddings, concerts, indoors, war-zones, street etc anyplace where silence or discretion is advised. Nikon is extreme forward looking, not radical. Creating demand from existing use base is sound business sense.

F-compatibility is only 1 consideration. I checke. An F-mount has bigger throat than M-mount. In the 80s, a bigger electronic EF throat gave Canon a huge advantage in flash, AF & metering over Nikon who stuck to F mount.

Nikon tech is now at 3D matrix, AFS & TTL and more. I think electronic compatibility is most important to Nikon. I dun imagine Nikon would adopt a simple M mount with technology restrictions.

Of course, a small line of mini-F lenses to start. Holes in the lineup can be easily plugged by F series. If Contax G can be successful despite Leica dominance, Nikon would hv a bigger advantage today doing the same.

I'm not after technology in RF world yet I would instantly buy a new (Mini-F mount) 24-70 AFS 2.8 the size of the existing Summicron 90mm f2
 
Double Negative said:
Back when digital was still coming of age, there was a company that was planning just that. It never saw the light of day, unfortunately. Just too hard to pull off, even today, IMO. For starters, making a sensor that's no thicker than a strip of film!
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You're talking about the Siliconfilm EPS-1, right? They were actual products...
With everyone talking about the tremendous advancements made in camera manufacturing during the last years, I wonder what the EPS-1 would look like today had they not filed for chapter 11???

They had great sample pictures like these: (don't forget, this was 1998!!)

This one from http://www.dpreview.com/news/0102/01021404pma04.asp#siliconfilm Use this link for large pictures. Don't know why, but using the image links below only takes you to smaller previews... :-(

http://a.img-dpreview.com/news/0102/pma2001/SiliconFilm/Joanna3.jpg

And the following two from http://www.imaging-resource.com/EVENTS/PMAS01/982172823.html Again, use this link...

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NPICS1/SFILM_lisa3S.jpg

http://www.imaging-resource.com/NPICS1/SFILM_Val5S.jpg

They even had 4.2 and 10M models coming... http://www.dcviews.com/cameras/siliconfilm_view.htm

I love conspiracies and always thought they might have been "persuaded" to announce bankruptcy. Just try to imagine how much more money CaNikOlyTax made with their all new digital cameras; cameras we keep upgrading every 12-18 months for another couple of "mega pix"!
How much easier to keep using our "beloved film cameras", switching digital film inserts every second year...

Cheers,
Michael
 
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It was never practical, despite them showing up with a working sample. With modern power hungry sensors it would require more battery power. And, it would only work in cameras that had an existing electrical contact to trigger it, like the signal that triggers a data back. Not going to work in your Leica M. ;)

And where would the market be? You are looking at several hundreds dollars minimum, to do what? Stick in your old AE-1 Program? Why not just buy a Canon Xsi?
 
Ray Nalley said:
Not going to work in your Leica M. ;)

And where would the market be? You are looking at several hundreds dollars minimum, to do what? Stick in your old AE-1 Program? Why not just buy a Canon Xsi?
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Unfortunately I have to agree about the Leica M... :(
But, besides owning 3 Ms, I also still have my Pentax LX and MX... :D

And please, the insert was 800 US$ in 1998; how much was a "real" digital camera back then? 10-20000? How much are they today?

Technological advancements (and price drops) don't stop at cameras, they work for "film inserts" too...

Michael

PS: Still prefer using my Ms with film over the digital K10D that hardly sees any action. I can wait for "them" to sort it all out...
PPS: Why not just buy a Canon Xsi? You are joking, right?
 
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Congrats. there are 8 pages on this subject. 2 days to go... I think I will stick to film and my existing RF cams, as should Leica, for sound economic reasons in this current climate. The digital world is having a helluva time of it solving for film substitutes. Doesn't seem so easy now but let's have faith in the future and expect all the present digital sensor problems to be nothing more than a bout of hiccups when looking back.
Vignette free WA shots, lowlight noise free shots, easy lens interchangeability, all something to look forward to.
With film you've got it now but I didn't need to mention that. Digital for the sake of it or 'because you can' ? Nahh!
 
there should be a market for rangefinder, because the first thing most people complain about their D3 and D300/D700 is its size and weight. interests can be cultivated once there is a product there.
 
I posted a few thoughts two days ago and this thread is, somehow, all of a sudden, active...hopefully for the better.

One of the painful realization when aerial cameras transitioned into digital, started in 2000, was that all existing notions needed rethinking.

For example:
  • For 50 years, no one in aerial imaging used light meters..."F4 and be there" was all. [Maximum aperture available was f5.6, and after 30 years, f4.]. Now, operators talk histogram all the time... And, why not flight planning (prepositioning) software, and anything else embedding learning and experience, the root cause of the RTFM issue of today.
  • Everyone uses ONE standard wide-angle lens [6" focal length over a 9"x9" frame, 74-degrees horizontal or vertical (or X and Y as we say it)]...what else?]. Now lens are 12" focal length or longer equivalent [100 or 120mm over a ~100x150mm or smaller size because no one has been able to make a full frame chip 9"x9" in size and make wide-angle lens work...too much vignetting, sound familiar?].
If I were given a clean sheet of paper and a meaningful budget to conceive the NEW DRF, I would seriously study the late Contax G2, which had:
  1. A zoom viewfinder, covering 28mm to 90mm, and lenses as wide as 16mm can be used with external view finders.
  2. Auto-focus using an internal motor or manual focus using an external wheel.
  3. Auto-exposure or manual, auto-bracketing in user selectable sequences.
  4. A modern bayonet lens mount...so what if it is not an M- or F-mount.
  5. An arsenal of good lenses, even a zoom...
  6. A titanium body shell and built like a brick.
The firmware is almost there.
 
@ray nalley - i don't think $2,000 will be the price for full frame. note that the d700 doesn't even sell for that that so i really doubt a full-frame dRF would fit into that price.

really the point is that can nikon produce a M8 for less than $2,000? thats a resounding yes and i would be happy with that. if full frame happens, it happens.

if i can use my M mount lenses, all the better. i wonder whatever happened to the digiHexar prototypes from konica? it would be sad if sony just sits on them.
 
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