Rumors about the Epson R-D2?

Nemo said:
Anyone knows something new about a possible R-D2 next February?
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I doubt that very, very much...

Although a slightly cheaper one (ditch the analog dial and maybe a few more megapixels) would be very much appreciated as a second body :D
 
Rumours and gossiping are not so my cup of tea. Have absolutely no knowledge of what ever should "happen in february". Stephen Gandy from Cameraquest, which is closer related to the Cosina company than I am, has stated here and on the CVUG that there's absolutely no digital RF, if in collaboration with Epson or Zeiss, to be expected in the next time (but he hinted about new Voigtländer film gear). Follow the R-D1 threads here and you'll understand why Epson and Cosina are rather reluctant with new DRF projects. That market niche is small, and they have lost money with it so far.
Didier
 
Didier said:
Stephen Gandy from Cameraquest, which is closer related to the Cosina company than I am, has stated here and on the CVUG that there's absolutely no digital RF, if in collaboration with Epson or Zeiss, to be expected in the next time
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Stephan also stated he had absolutely no insider knowledge regarding either a digital Zeiss or CV DRF. This he states was purely speculation on his part so please everyone takes his statement with a grain or a bucket of salt (depends on whether or not you’re an optimist).

In my opinion- we may see a digital Zeiss at Photokon (or how ever that show is spelled) next year despite Zeiss’s statement that a DRF will only happen when a full frame option is possible (it will most likely be a 1.3 or 1.5 crop factor). Anyway I hope to see a new player- don't you? : )
 
endustry said:
The problem remains that neither Cocina nor Zeiss have any background in electronics. To release a DRF, it would still be necessary for them to partner with an electronics company. Would this new electronics partner do any better job than Epson did with the R-D1? Who knows. A better question is: who's willing to pay to find out?
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Zeiss has a lot of electronics know how and they have a lot of conections to digital camera makers of some sort, if you want to send one to mars for example it is a good idea to get Zeiss involved :)

And they could allways partner up with Jenoptik.

So if Zeiss insists on digital not good enough for rangefinders at the moment, I believe it.
 
Nemo said:
A new Epson R-D2 with a 10MP sensor would be easy to develop at this moment...
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Better let Leica/Zeiss/Cosina know that as their engineers have been laboring under the illusion that it is still expensive and difficult. Maybe you could send them your secret formula for 10MP RF :)
 
Given that the RD1 used a stock Nikon D100 chip I'm sure they could get a stock D200 chip in an RD2. Surely they could "borrow" something from the M8 technology, just as Leica probably "borrowed" from the RD1.
 
The problem isn't that it couldn't be done, the problem is that there is absolutely no commercial incentive for anybody to develop one. Epson put their hand in the fire first and got burned. Leica went second and got singed. Who else would want to risk getting a bad rep for quality in return for, at best, a slice of a very small sales "pie"?

I think that if we do see another DRF, it will come from a maker nobody has expected: maybe a Chinese technology company that wants to earn a reputation, or a lens company that could benefit from another platform for which to sell its products.

In another thread somebody brought up Sigma, and I thought that was an interesting suggestion: they make cameras as well as lenses, they've got a lot of development capability, and they're something of a maverick that isn't afraid to go where others aren't (witness their development of their own lens mount for their SLRs, and their advocacy of the Foveon chip.)

If someone such as Sigma came in, though, I predict they'd want to develop their own fully-electronic RF lens mount so they could monopolize lens sales and optimize the lenses for digital imaging, rather than sticking with the traditional but problematic-for-digital M mount.
 
jlw said:
The problem isn't that it couldn't be done, the problem is that there is absolutely no commercial incentive for anybody to develop one. Epson put their hand in the fire first and got burned. Leica went second and got singed. Who else would want to risk getting a bad rep for quality in return for, at best, a slice of a very small sales "pie"?

I think that if we do see another DRF, it will come from a maker nobody has expected: maybe a Chinese technology company that wants to earn a reputation, or a lens company that could benefit from another platform for which to sell its products.

In another thread somebody brought up Sigma, and I thought that was an interesting suggestion: they make cameras as well as lenses, they've got a lot of development capability, and they're something of a maverick that isn't afraid to go where others aren't (witness their development of their own lens mount for their SLRs, and their advocacy of the Foveon chip.)

If someone such as Sigma came in, though, I predict they'd want to develop their own fully-electronic RF lens mount so they could monopolize lens sales and optimize the lenses for digital imaging, rather than sticking with the traditional but problematic-for-digital M mount.
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I've mentioned Sigma in teh past, but I probably am not the only one. Their fixed focal length APS-c sized camera gives me hope.

I think that you nailed it on the head with the lens mount, which has been beaten to death in another post. To make it viable for a new party to come in with a dRF, they are going to have to sell lenses; there is just not enough cash in just the bodies. My hope is that they would follow the Nikon and not the Canon model. Nikon made the dSLRs compatible with all the F-mount lenses, but with various levels of performance. If I were goint to do it, I'd make the mount backwards compatible with the M mount, but make it so that the new mount has greater capability, like Tv exposure capability, or even (gasp!) autofoucs. That plus "digital ready" (coatings, angle of incidence & such) would let people get into the body, but then want to get new glass.

I still holdout hope for a B&W only camera, on the lower end. Less worry about the IR, potential higher resolution and higher ISO performance.

Sony through the KM technology would be a nice fit.

Mark
 
Leica had difficulties due to the big size of the sensor.
The actual R-D1 uses an APS-C 6MP sensor made by Sony. It would be easy to replace it by a new generation 10MP APS-C sensor made by Sony too.
 
While the Sony sensors may be pin compatible, there are many other things that would have to change such as clock rate and faster processor to now handle nearly double the number of bits in the same time period or faster. Also buffer sizes would have to increase and so on. So it isn't as simple as just chaning the chips. On the other hand, chip technology has changes substantially since the R-D1 was designed and noe doubt it coul be improved upon with a new model.
 
Of course. Moving 10MP files is more difficult, but new processors and memory make things easier.
10MP DSRL are very popular at this moment, just like 6MP DSRL cameras were when the R-D1 was developed. It is "mature" (and cheap) technology.
 
jlw said:
The problem isn't that it couldn't be done, the problem is that there is absolutely no commercial incentive for anybody to develop one. Epson put their hand in the fire first and got burned.
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What??? They didn't get burned. They burned themselves.
 
Trius said:
What??? They didn't get burned. They burned themselves.
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EXACTLY! Epson failed the market, not the other way around. Their inability as a camera company does not shed any light into the DRF market potential. How Leica will fare with the M8 ought to give us a much better assessment. And aside from the current painful early teething problems, it looks like the M8 is going to be a great success. And of course there is Cosina, who is continuing to happily make RF cameras and lenses to its "niche". So even though it may be a small market relatively speaking, it is definitely there and probably strong enough for the right company (with Cosina as its partner) to bring out a successor to the R-D1. Just not Epson.
-Carlos
 
I have not enough experience about the tech details but was surprise me about the Epson RD-1 (still tempting me...) experience is the complete absence of marketing strategies (at least in the country where I live, Italy, where Epson has a good name for printers) ). Absolutely no advertising. If you take any photograohy magazines you find advertising fir the most known digital reflex cameras. But for a special, almost unique camera like the RD1 never seen one page of advertising. How could they imagine to sell it ?
Even difficult to find in the biggest shops! I managed to have one in my hands during a business trip in Switzerland (Berne), I ask info in a famous italian shop and the only answer from the sales man was "oh, it is a good camera (!) but you know very expensive" . He did not make the effort to take one and show me the features ! Does anyone really think it is possible to get many sales with a similar behaviour ? I do not think .
Beside some tech problem which (seems me) appear later, already read many times in these pages. It s a pity, an occasion lost !
robert
 
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