New RD-1x

positive is that rd1 will be kept alive, negative is THEY REALLY NEED A NEW SENSOR. more bits than mega pixels! personally, im really very disappointed. Heard about a new Epson rf is on the way 2 weeks back and hope for some ground breaking specs. Sigh, guess I'll stick to film for now.
 
deepwhite said:
They could've done better. Much better. Or just do nothing.
If it's about continuing a great product that they shouldn't have given up in the first place, AND they couldn't find a good sensor that performs well beyond 6MP (by the way, I got no problem with 6MP), at least price it lower.
I don't know if the price is reasonable from Epson's side, but it's certainly not reasonable in the market of 2009.
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I think Epson expected the RD1 family to die a sudden and painless death when they discontinued the camera - and were surprised that it refused to lie down. It still goes strong, and as I've said elsewhere, the images I get from my RD1s are better in many ways than from my M8 (the new one I had a total of 24 hours before it was dispatched for its first holiday in Germany).

On the price thing, y'know markets work like this: if they don't sell them at that price, they will lower it. ;-)
 
wow. what a smart reply and a very constructive one. but your pictures are boring at best. so...

I think its a good step for Epson to keep the RD1s parts alive. Besides M8.2 which I incidentally own but not happy with, I have the option of another M-mount digital other than the nonsense G1.

tokek said:
.........gear heads expect things, photographers just get on with it
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tokek said:
.........gear heads expect things, photographers just get on with it
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eh eh eh, yes indeed !
I still use both the R-D1 and M8 and sincerely the 6mpx of R-D1 are more than enough most of the time (of course, if you print larger than A3 and do exhibits ... it might not be enough, but than you use something else)
The larger screen is a nice thing yet I think being flippable was more interesting.
SDHC ... I don't care ... I am too slow myself.
The grip ... why not ...
As for the low light ISO, 1600 draws beautiful files which is not the case of many much more recent cameras on the market today, so though it could be improved ISO1600 is a creative advantage with that camera IMO.
Finally, we should be glad that Epson takes this risk in time of crisis and show it is still in the digital rangefinder business. This could lead to a future generation with more substantial improvements. It also gives a few more years of potential life to our R-D1s as Epson will have to support parts more time.
 
Wasn't the ability to turn the LCD around (i.e. hide it) one of the advantages of the thing? It made it look like you were using a film camera. Stupid pricing though, but I'm sure they're still making a loss on every one of them...
 
Really, what's not to like?

THere was an R-D1 for sale here within the last seven days at $1800; I sold mine for $1500 and regretted it. If they are available at a street price of $2000 that is a much better alternative to a used camera. And it's a VERY viable alternative to the M8 - especailly now all the Zeiss Cosina-made wide angles are available, which wasn't the case at the time, to cope with the drastic sensor crop.

WE have all collectively moaned over the last two or three years at Epson's lack of commitment to the camera. Now they've put a new (ok, 'new') one out and we all moan.
 
I'm just disappointed by the news myself. For the others, if you find it a great news, that's great.

I guess I just love my R-D1s too much and set my expectation too high.

As for the "gear-heads v.s. photographers" comment, it's really like taking a Leica shot, that's got beautiful grey scale transition, inserting it into a Xerox, and getting a dead-black & dead-white only image.

There are so many people in between "pure gear-heads" and "photographers that still use a wooden box".
 
bigdavid said:
wow. what a smart reply and a very constructive one. but your pictures are boring at best. so...
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Pretty harsh comment dude. I just took a look at his site and there was many nice pics there, but thats just my opinion ;)

Great of Epson I say!
 
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I think it's Brilliant news.

There is a market, Epson realised that people are buying used R-D1 cameras for $1700-1800 on ebay, and decided to offer an alternative, now for $200-300 more than used you can get a brand new one with warranty!
On top of that this means that spares will be available for a longer time, so it is good news for existing R-D1 owners as well.
Last but not least the used price is bound to drop, so who could not afford one a month ago will probably be able to get one in a couple of months!

Why people complains so much?
 
tokek said:
.........gear heads expect things, photographers just get on with it
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Hehe, very true.

A digital RF would be a nice thing to have, but the new Epson I consider to expensive for what it is.

So I 'got on with it', bought a huge pile of film and had my FED and Zorki CLA'd :D The Leica M2 and Canonet are still doing fine too.

One year ago I didn't even HAVE a RF, now I have four...
 
Jonas said:
Pretty harsh comment dude. I just took a look at his site and there was many nice pics there, but thats just my opinion ;)
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I agree. I have always liked a lot Tokek's work. Well-thought out photography so I can probably understand why he made the initial statement. Which by the way I found more funny than provocative.
 
What statement you guys made that up and blamed it on me.............. :D







it's PMA time everyone is looking for that new toy........... most will be disapointed:dance:
 
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Merkin said:
it appears that I misread the poorly translated site that is one of the sources of info: http://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ja&u=http://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/rf/2009/02/27/10302.html&ei=mnKnSe_eJYjHnQe24qjwDw&sa=X&oi=translate&resnum=2&ct=result&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dhttp://dc.watch.impress.co.jp/cda/rf/2009/02/27/10302.html%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-US:eek:fficial%26hs%3DdjF


The link shown at the end of the article in question was from 2007, referring to a 28mm color skopar kit lens back then. My fault everyone. I removed the reference from my initial post.
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This is quite a pearl in the translated page:
"Lever switch in the left part of the warship"
 
Olsen said:
This RD-1x shows that no more suitable sensor for a digital rangefinder camera is available yet. Which is the conclusion from many other discussion threads speculating on when a new M9 will be available.
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I don't see how this proves anything about the M9. The CCD in the M8 is far more advanced than what the Epson is using, which appears to be a basic 6MP chip, based on 10 year old technology. The offset micro-lenses used in the M8 CCD, put it 2-4 generations ahead of what Epson is using and the M8 sensor is now almost 3 years old. That means that the M8 sensor is based on technology that's maybe 4-5 years old.

The original RD-1 used the same SONY sensor as the Nikon D100 and I would be very surprised if it was even still in production. If this is a different sensor (maybe the same as in the Nikon D40 or D70?), they had to update some of the support electronics to allow the camera talk to it. In that case the logical choice should have been to step up to a higher MP sensor, like in the D60/D90/D300. But maybe EPSON didn't want to spend the money to design a faster bus, image processor etc.
 
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