sojournerphoto
Veteran
I'm not sure there is really - I think the market is probably quite small. The market for 1Ds3s and D3xs is already small and they are very useable pro cameras with a long development history and the ability to amortise cost over seeral generations. Zeiss said they didn't want to get involved in digital until they could offer a mature product that would protect their customers investment - i.e. not be looking to change every 2 to 4 years. This means they need to seel a reasonable number over a sensible time horizon to amortise development costs (which will be much higher than for the film Ikon).
I think resolution is now at a point of reasonable maturity given there are several cameras above 20Mp, but unless they can piggy back off another sensor manufacturers research (as Leica do with Kodak) it can't happen. I would really like a digital Ikon, but I'm not holding my breath.
Mike
Bill58
Native Texan
I think the world's market must be very small indeed. How many people outside of us here at RFF use rangefinders? Damn few I think and most of us will hold onto our film cameras till there's no more film made.
nico
Well-known
I don't know how much large must a market be to make a dRf profitable but I think the rf users are much more than the Rff community: in Italy, but I'm sure in many other countrie is the same, there are photosites for leicaphiles or rangefinder users whose members are not Rff members too; I also know people who owns a rf without being a member of any web community.
Anyway, the problem, in my opinion, is to develop a rangefinder camera that can be sold not only to the rf usual user but also to dsrl users as a compliment to their gear.
Frankie
Speaking Frankly
As I had said before, the Mega Pixel war is at truce once full frame is reached. From that point on, only smaller thus more pixels could be cramped in...but will not fall much below 6 micron because of noise, again.
[Just learn from Kodak's development history...started at 9 micron and evolved through 7.2 micron to now 6 microns filling the 645 format. Kodak could easily re-cut its 50Mp chip into two 24 x 36mm 24Mp full-frame chips... It's the size of the order that counts here. Perhaps Leica knows...M9.]
And, why do you think the new Leica S2 is specified in terms of pixels array...not frame size?
Zeiss can wait of course...but that was why they had to abandon photogrammetry in 1995, after nearly a century of leadership, all because of digital (I was a vocal challenger). They can always make lenses for the M, F, and whatever vacant mounts...competing against Tokina and Soligor and the like...accepting the new role of always a bride's maid, never a bride.
My interest in RFd, particularly a ZMd one camera/lens outfit is for light weight travel use, no sense in becoming a pack horse even on vacation. My next trip is early 2010 and I will buy a used and soon much cheaper RD1s (not the RD1x with the unwelcome fixed LCD, price is not the object). If no better rumour/news is in the horizon; an even cheaper Canon G11.
Life is for living, not waiting.
[Just learn from Kodak's development history...started at 9 micron and evolved through 7.2 micron to now 6 microns filling the 645 format. Kodak could easily re-cut its 50Mp chip into two 24 x 36mm 24Mp full-frame chips... It's the size of the order that counts here. Perhaps Leica knows...M9.]
And, why do you think the new Leica S2 is specified in terms of pixels array...not frame size?
Zeiss can wait of course...but that was why they had to abandon photogrammetry in 1995, after nearly a century of leadership, all because of digital (I was a vocal challenger). They can always make lenses for the M, F, and whatever vacant mounts...competing against Tokina and Soligor and the like...accepting the new role of always a bride's maid, never a bride.
My interest in RFd, particularly a ZMd one camera/lens outfit is for light weight travel use, no sense in becoming a pack horse even on vacation. My next trip is early 2010 and I will buy a used and soon much cheaper RD1s (not the RD1x with the unwelcome fixed LCD, price is not the object). If no better rumour/news is in the horizon; an even cheaper Canon G11.
Life is for living, not waiting.
Sam N
Well-known
Just playing devil's advocate:
Film camera R&D is almost nothing compared to DRF R&D, so your first bullet point doesn't really work. This is part of the reason we got such great cheap Bessas. The film transport and much of the tooling has been around for decades at Cosina. Manual wind / manual focus SLRs wouldn't sell anymore, so Cosina realized it could spend some R&D on a great compact RF mechanism and sell their cameras for ~$600.
As for the "bite the bullet" part... Zeiss has always been a lens company more than a camera company, so again the point falls kinda flat. They're certainly not an electronics company like Panasonic, Samsung, or to a large extent Canon/Nikon. I'd bet Zeiss make way more of their money from Cine lenses and other things than from anything related to 35mm photography (most of which they don't even make themselves, but only design). Zeiss also probably doesn't want to put its "premium" brand on something that doesn't work well, so why wouldn't they wait for the technology to make a decent FF DRF?
Frankie
Speaking Frankly
The R&D in a digital camera are primarily the sensor and firmware...there is no need for a transport, and thus no tooling either.
AND, Zeiss/CV had already built an even better RF for the ZM...long base, bright, good eye relief...many opined that it is even better than Leica's pride and joy [and I concur, I have both an M and a ZM].
Long ago Canon, and recently Nikon/Sony had all achieved full-frame sensors and successful commercial products. All Zeiss has to do is to negotiate with [recently renewed for 5 years] partner Sony.
Zeiss does more electronics than most people realize. Few are aware that Zeiss has a 112 Mpixel (8000 x 14,000) DMC aerial camera since 2001...$1.5 million++. The lens was sourced from Jena [formerly East German Zeiss, now called JenOptik]. And just last year they released a new RMd model. [Search under Z/I Imaging.] What do you think the firmware of those cameras are like...and the circuit boards and...
[Zeiss also did Forward Motion Compensation in aerial cameras in the '50's and any number of classified cameras under USAF contracts. In the industry, we say "Zeiss is nice...and Zeiss is right"].
There is no question that "Zeiss is optics". I said so myself often. Ernst Abbe, deceased a century ago, physicist and silent partner of Carl Zeiss the businessman, whose will founded [and funded] the Zeiss we know today [really a foundation, not a commercial company].
Abbe invented methods of making good lenses so that Zeiss could make its famous microscopes, and cameras, and planetariums and range finders [for artillery] and sniper scopes [for the WWII Mauser rifle] and... It has achieved its reputation not by waiting.
Dan States
Established
There is definitely a pent up demand for a digital camera that has the kind of tactile feeling that good mechanical cameras have. The Olympus EP1 is a smash hit based on small size, metal case and cool style.
Make a DRF for a decent price and you'll sell the hell out of them....A decent price being $1700-2500, not the idiotic levels Leica has achieved. Equip them with live view and you have a pot of gold on your hands.
Make a DRF for a decent price and you'll sell the hell out of them....A decent price being $1700-2500, not the idiotic levels Leica has achieved. Equip them with live view and you have a pot of gold on your hands.
Sam N
Well-known
Dan, what makes you say the E-P1 is a smash hit? I've seen a lot of excitement about the camera, but I have yet to see any in the wild (though it is still a very new camera).
Anyway I agree that the price should be reasonable, especially since for some (me at least) it would be a secondary system to a DSLR.
Anyway I agree that the price should be reasonable, especially since for some (me at least) it would be a secondary system to a DSLR.
Trius
Waiting on Maitani
Methinks Frankie knows a lot more than than a lot of us.
andy_v
Established
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Well seeing as we're living in the world of fantasy ... imagining when Zeiss are going to give us a digital Ikon ... imagine this:
The Bessa III folder with a sensor from a Hasselblad digital back or similar grafted into it!
The Bessa III folder with a sensor from a Hasselblad digital back or similar grafted into it!
pevelg
Well-known
OR a digital back for a Mamiya 7ii.... YAY!!!