The future of the digital rangefinder?

[Wiyum]

A number of recent threads (those covering the R-D1x and the full-frame digital Leica M) have set my mind to wondering about the future of the digital rangefinder. Here are my thoughts; I'm curious to hear what everyone else is thinking.

First of all, Leica has a vested interest in further developing digital rangefinders. The M line is the backbone of the company, and the m8/8.2 has been a limited success. Many love the cameras, but many do not, and Leica has a ways to go if they're to satisfy everyone that would like a digital M body. Certain areas of improvement would be a larger, 36x24mm sensor, greater resolution, and improved noise at higher ISOs. Likely, they'll correct for IR and UV in-camera next time around as well. The R&D for such a camera will be staggering, and the price will reflect this. It is unknown just how far along Leica's engineers are in terms of solving the problems that a full frame sensor presents with such a short flange distance.

Beyond Leica, Zeiss is often thought of as a likely provider of a digital rangefinder. Many here would love to see a digital Ikon. Zeiss have stated that until they can release a full-frame Digital Ikon, they aren't interested. Zeiss' close relationship with Sony could provide the sensor (the 24MP sensor found in the A900) and the electronics to make such a camera a reality, but the cost of R&D doesn't seem like a good gamble for Zeiss. They are, after all, doing quite well selling lenses to m8 users, not to mention the fact that they have a much more diversified portfolio than Leica, selling still lenses in at least 7 different mounts, providing lenses for Sony's consumer cameras and camcorders, and producing top-quality motion picture lenses for film and high definition video. Is there enough profit to be had in a Digital Ikon, and the resulting sale of ZM lenses, to justify the R&D of making a full-frame digital M body?

The only other company with a vested interest in rangefinders would be Cosina. There's plenty to appreciate here. As rangefinder evangelists of sorts, they produce low-cost film bodies that are often an individual's first rangefinder. They certainly won't be the company that brings a full-frame digital rangefinder, but I could see them bringing a 1.5x Digital Bessa to market, if only because they probably sell fewer and fewer film Bessas every year. Such a camera would, for obvious reasons, have much in common with the R-D1. The key for Cosina would be to bring the price down considerably. $3000, after all, is far from the "low-cost, introductory" niche that film Bessas fill. What I don't know is what potential partners Cosina might have in the way of electronics.

And what of Epson? I see the R-D1x as a sign that Epson isn't very serious about this market, and an indication that their long-term plans are shallow if not nonexistent.

Who does that leave? Nikon is the most-often cited possibility. Certainly I think that many here would be first in line to purchase a digital rangefinder that uses the wonderful D3/D700 sensor. 12MP is a very sensible pixel count, and the results, all the way to 6400 ISO, are stunning. Nikon's proven that they can tackle technical challenges with effective R&D. But would it be worth it for Nikon to develop such a camera? Without producing their own lenses, it really wouldn't. Even if Nikon launched a line of M lenses, how many would buy the body and skip the lenses altogether? If Nikon's going to get involved at all, I think it would have to be as a partner with another company. If I were Leica, I'd be doing everything I could to try to get that D3/D700 sensor, because Kodak's a lousy partner these days.

So what do you think about the future of digital rangefinders? Will digital's continuing sweep force rangefinders into an even-deeper niche? Or will someone step up and actually get it right, keeping the flame alive?

 

[Pickett Wilson]

With the economy battering both Nikon and Canon's P&S and dSLR market, you can bet they aren't about to introduce a digital RF. I'm sure the economy is also hurting Cosina badly, so it would be a surprise if they want to step up with a digital at this point. Surely Leica is taking a wait and see approach the the worsening worldwide recession in developing anything new and likely VERY expensive.

 

[mark-b]

Voigtlander would be wise to bring out their own FF RF as a sort of "stimulus" to the others you've mentioned. I love their layout on the R4a; and they listen to what users want in an RF.

As for the future of RF's, I think it's the path that knowledgeable, advanced photographers take, as the lens designs are unburdened by 'reflex pentaprisms.

I'm confident that the economy will get worse, which will cause the death of many companies, and perhaps a secession or two. But I'm also confident that it will eventually get better.
It will just take time.

 

[bmattock]

Voigtlander would be wise to bring out their own FF RF as a sort of "stimulus" to the others you've mentioned. I love their layout on the R4a; and they listen to what users want in an RF.

As has been discussed many times, the CEO of Cosina has no interest in making a digital rangefinder.

As for the future of RF's, I think it's the path that knowledgeable, advanced photographers take, as the lens designs are unburdened by 'reflex pentaprisms.

Rangefinders are more of an affectation now.

I'm confident that the economy will get worse, which will cause the death of many companies, and perhaps a secession or two. But I'm also confident that it will eventually get better.
It will just take time.

I don't know what that means for rangefinders. As we move further and further out from the far edge of the 'age of film', the rangefinder becomes more and more a relic of the past. It remains one of my favorites, as does film; but my love of it doesn't save it from the ashes of history.

 

[Erik L]

you want my opinion, many professionals would want a rangefinder for work rather than say a 5dII. i think its much better to target the person who is a pro and can recover thier investment. therefore more megapixels and low noise are essential. the people will want weathersealing as well.

 

[mark-b]

RF's becoming "a relic of the past?" Doubtful. We'll see.

 

[bmattock]

RF's becoming "a relic of the past?" Doubtful. We'll see.

If history is any judge, the rangefinder will follow the TLR, folding camera, glass plates, and box cameras into obscurity. It doesn't make them any less useful to those who seek their advantages, it doesn't make them any less desired by those who use them. But fewer and fewer will appreciate or seek them out over time. This is the nature of things.

The SLR is most likely next on the chopping block.

Not that I am thrilled or looking forward to the demise of either, but a reading of history suggests that this is how things go.

 

[szekiat]

you want my opinion, many professionals would want a rangefinder for work rather than say a 5dII. i think its much better to target the person who is a pro and can recover thier investment. therefore more megapixels and low noise are essential. the people will want weathersealing as well.

Really? I don't know many working pros who will trade AF, IS and a wide selection of quality zooms for more narrow options. I mean, there are probably a few wedding shooters and old school press boys, but i think u will find them to be far and few between. Certainly the emerging generation of pros, most have started in the generation of USM AF and IS and will laugh at the thought of a mf option being the way forward....

Frankly i think RF is destined to the realms of nostalgia. Certainly why i use it myself...

 

[Pickett Wilson]

Most pros have to shoot too wide a variety of stuff during a working day. The versatility of the DSLR wins out there. There are pros who do stuff where they can shoot rangefinders in their work, but the number is small. There isn't, I suspect, a huge pent up demand for a digital rangefinder among working pros, FF or not.

 

[Phantomas]

Canon will not release a rangefinder in foreseeable future. They have no stimulus to do so. Canon has a HUGE appetite - every product group is budgeted to fight for #1 market share position and that is often the main internal measure of business progress. Next to that large volumes are important. Next to that - lenses. Canon will not release a camera and just give away attachment (lens) sales to third parties. At the same time they're definitely not in a position to start (re)developing a specific lens line-up for niche market. As some may know, Canon together with Japan in general is suffering from serious manufacturing capacity shortages (manpower) whereby even the mainstream products are cut short.

So no rangefinder from Canon. The best we can hope for is a realistic possibility of an "advanced compact" - fixed, quality lens (probably 28 or 35mm), good sensor, etc. Something like Sigma or Ricoh are trying to do.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

If history is any judge, the rangefinder will follow the TLR, folding camera, glass plates, and box cameras into obscurity. It doesn't make them any less useful to those who seek their advantages, it doesn't make them any less desired by those who use them. But fewer and fewer will appreciate or seek them out over time. This is the nature of things.

The SLR is most likely next on the chopping block.

Not that I am thrilled or looking forward to the demise of either, but a reading of history suggests that this is how things go.

I think this is pretty undeniably correct.

 

[djonesii]

Do not dismiss the middle here, a digital rangefinder may be redefined. While it has not been done yet, there is little technical reason that the optical finder in the G1 could not be programmed to be more rangefinder like .....

Change the body shape a bit, like some of the digital mock ups floating about on the web, and you wind up with a passable simulation of what a new school M mount camera might look like. Another rumor floating around is that Panasonic will introduce their own M adapter, and with luck, the character of the lenses will return enough to satisfy the RFF crowd.

As for me, I just plunk my CV lenses on the G1 and get a rangefinder like experience. When I choose too, I just take the mount adapter off, and then am back to just a lightweight mid range SLR quality P&S. It's working really well for me.

I agree with the comments re the optical/digital range finder, only Leica has the drive, and IMHO, the knells are tolling....

Dave

 

[emraphoto]

Most pros have to shoot too wide a variety of stuff during a working day. The versatility of the DSLR wins out there. There are pros who do stuff where they can shoot rangefinders in their work, but the number is small. There isn't, I suspect, a huge pent up demand for a digital rangefinder among working pros, FF or not.

that about covers it.

 

[hlockwood]

I'm not up to date on the current status of flexible integrated circuits, but they exist and continue to be developed. If a curved sensor were available, that might open the possibility of a FF M8 without body modification.

Harry

 

[rsl]

I'm not up to date on the current status of flexible integrated circuits, but they exist and continue to be developed. If a curved sensor were available, that might open the possibility of a FF M8 without body modification.

Harry

Harry, that'd probably work if you also built lenses that focus on a curved focal area (can't call it a plane). If Leica did that the M series would be dead for sure.

 

[rsl]

I posted this on RFF just about a year ago and was appropriately crucified as a result, but I’m going to post it again anyway. If you disagree, that’s fine but I think the past year has shown that my predictions aren’t far off the mark. I’ve edited the post slightly.

----------------------------------

Since I spent a couple decades in the sixties and seventies doing street shooting with Leicas and loved the cameras, I’ve hoped, and continue to hope, there’ll be an M9, but I suspect there won’t be one, or, if there is, it won’t be much different from the M8. The question Leica now has to face is how big a market exists for a rangefinder? I suspect you can at least get a clue on the Leica discussion threads. Everyone tells me you can’t learn anything by reading camera fora, but, in the case of the M8, I think you can. If you’ve never done it, check out Nikonians. It’s hard to read five or six threads on that forum without falling asleep. Nikons are boring. There’s nothing controversial about Nikons. The cameras just make pictures. People don’t love their Nikons, except for their reliability, flexibility and exceptionally fine photographs. Leicaphiles love their cameras because of the way the camera feels in their hands, because you still have to take the stupid base plate off to change flash cards, because you have to set aperture and focus manually, and because there’s a tradition that goes way, way back. If you grew up with film Leicas in the days before digital, you’d really like that feeling in your hands again. At least I would. That attitude is what lets Leicaphiles go on excusing the shortcomings of the M8.

Leicaphiles get together on fora like this to exchange subjective thoughts rather than strictly objective information on subjects like how to clean a sensor. I’m sure the people on the M8 fora are only a subset of people owning M8s, but probably not an awfully small subset of those who actually use the camera on a daily basis – as opposed to those who bought the camera to shoot pictures of their cat, or because they thought they’d become Cartier-Bresson with a Leica in hand but then discovered they had to learn new things to use the camera. If I’m right, the market for rangefinders is limited, and, since we’re all getting older, the limited market’s probably becoming even more limited.

There’s another problem on the horizon: Remember how expensive lcd computer screens were in the beginning? It was difficult and expensive to make a 15 inch lcd screen for a laptop – even a monochrome one. But now you can buy a color lcd TV screen that practically covers a wall for about the same price you’d have paid for, say, a 21 inch computer monitor when color lcd screens were just getting started. I suspect the same thing’s going to happen with digital sensors. They may not get huge but they’re going to get cheaper and better. At some point not too far off we’re going to see point-and-shoot cameras with sensors that rival the current D3 sensor. That doesn’t mean you’re going to see a full-frame sensor for an M. That’s a different problem. But it does mean that some of the advantages of a rangefinder – size and weight – are going to be available on a very capable point-and-shoot. It’s already starting to happen.

So, when a good point-and-shoot becomes a reasonable camera to use on the street, what’s left for the rangefinder? Oh yes, people tell me you can focus a rangefinder more accurately than a point-and-shoot. But whether or not that continues to be true depends on what goes into a really good point-and-shoot. I’m pretty sure rangefinders will rule the roost in some specialized kinds of photography, but beyond that, what? I read posts on these threads about landscape photography, but if you’re serious about landscape you don’t try to do it with an M8 or a D3 or an EOS1ds Mk???. You do it with at least a 4 x 5 or, if you’re really serious, an 8 x 10. And before long you’ll be able to go out with your 8 x 10 view and its $3,000 digital back and get real landscape stuff. I’m not suggesting true Leicaphiles will give up their Ms for point-and-shoots, but I am suggesting that point-and-shoot development is going to shrink the rangefinder market even further.

So if you’re Leica, looking ahead at what’s coming – after failing to do that for eight years while others were plunging into digital – what do you see? I think you see a shrinking market that forces you to do some serious green eyeshade work to figure out whether or not you can afford to invest in an M9.

And it seems to me the answer’s not encouraging. The initial rush to buy the M8 is over, and a lot of those M8s were bought by people who’d bought the R-D1 but wanted a rangefinder with a red badge. Then, there’s the problem caused by the M8s faults. Leica lost a lot of prestige because of those faults.

If the “M”s were being produced by a US company I’d know the answer immediately. Most of our companies have been taken over by MBAs. To them today’s bottom line is everything. They’d drop the M9 in a heartbeat. I don’t know what Herr Kaufmann will do, but I’m not encouraged by the “perpetual care” program for the M8, which looks like a punt.

(Added): What, other than the warm swell of nostalgia, is a rangefinder especially good for compared with a DSLR? Well, when I walk up a trail near Cripple Creek that starts out just below 10,000 feet and goes up and down another six or seven hundred feet I’m carrying a D3 with 24-70mm lens – a 5 pound combination. It would be wonderful to be able to carry a little, light, M8 on one of those trips. But which prime lens would I carry? Oh, guess I’d need to carry several in a camera bag. But the time I got my kit together I’d be back to 5 pounds, so I guess that’s not really an advantage. To me, a rangefinder is a street camera. It’s absolutely superior in that role – for several reasons. But how many people are still doing serious street work? And, of those, how many would insist on a rangefinder if there were a point and shoot with roughly the same image quality that could focus accurately (or be used with zone focus) and shoot with the same shutter lag as the D3 (essentially zero)?

I’m not happy about all that either, but that’s progress.

 

[aniMal]

For me, the main attraction with the M8 is ergonomics & handling. Second is the image quality from wides, and size.

If is was possible to get a digital FM2, I would probably use my Nikon gear as much as the Leica. It goes without saying that I am not doing sports photography...

I think there is a basic core to photography that will never be outdated. That is simply because you need an exposure, you need an aperture, and you need a focal length. Those basic choices will always have to be made, automatic or manual.

Most people get interested in these choices when getting serious about photography, and a fair percent of those who learn to work manually will prefer to have full control of all the variables themselves for most jobs.

So, I think there will be a niche that will remain big enough for digital RFs to exist. That is newly developed M9s, continued 8.X versions, or even old M8s being serviced and kept alive somehow if no other options come around.

I think it is right that the prices of sensors will drop, and as the maximum is now about reached for pixel count versus realistic lens designs, the chances that someone brings out a digital RF will probably remain the same as now. It will not be cheap compared to dSLRs, but then again it might not be too expensive when we reach a stage where sensors are on the same price level as electronics in general. Which might happen.

Anyway, it will be interesting to see what happens, but I have no doubt that most of the ´main modes´ of photography will remain. Just look at the boom in large format photography, there are a lot of newcomers who explore and learn - mostly trough forums like this!

 

[hlockwood]

Harry, that'd probably work if you also built lenses that focus on a curved focal area (can't call it a plane). If Leica did that the M series would be dead for sure.

Ignorance can lead to much speculation. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the optics of putting the image onto a flat plane, in particular, correcting for the aberrations due to non-paraxial rays, skewed rays, etc.

While I can see how vignetting can be corrected by software/firmware because it only involves intensity, correcting focal errors would be far more challenging, if not impossible. Or perhaps, impractical would be a better word.

Harry

 

[rsl]

Ignorance can lead to much speculation. I'm afraid I don't know enough about the optics of putting the image onto a flat plane, in particular, correcting for the aberrations due to non-paraxial rays, skewed rays, etc.

While I can see how vignetting can be corrected by software/firmware because it only involves intensity, correcting focal errors would be far more challenging, if not impossible. Or perhaps, impractical would be a better word.

Harry

I'm no optical engineer either but I do know that one of the problems in lens design is getting the lens to focus the whole image on a flat plane. Failure to do that leaves you with softness at the edges and other problems. What you said is interesting. Seems to me that if we could come up with a parabolic sensor and then make lenses that focus on a parabolic surface we'd eliminate a whole bunch of problems. You couldn't do that with film. It had to lie flat, or at least follow a very gentle curve as in a panoramic camera, but you ought to be able to do it with a digital sensor array. Maybe your idea is just a little ahead of its time. The result wouldn't look anything like a M though.

 

[Jim Radcliffe]

So what do you think about the future of digital rangefinders? Will digital's continuing sweep force rangefinders into an even-deeper niche? Or will someone step up and actually get it right, keeping the flame alive?

I can't say that I think the future is bright on a large scale but I believe that many amateurs/hobbyist are becoming tired of their DSLRs... I was and because I could not afford an M8 I used the D-Lux 3, 4 and the Sigma DP1.

It wasn't until a month or so ago that I found and M8 in mint condition for half price. I'm still getting to know the camera but certainly enjoy the small size and the results of using it thus far. I only have one lens (28mm Elmarit) but hope to go with a CV 15 before too long. I do enjoy shooting wide.

The masses will never want a rangefinder as most people really do not want to think.. and a RF requires thought... they really just want to point and shoot.. and to the credit of the P&S producers those cameras are getting better and better all the time.

So... the future is probably good for Rangefinders in the hobbyist and pro sector but I doubt they will ever become mainstream. The cost alone would keep most at bay... I can't remember anyone in the last 10 years asking me if I could recommend a good manual camera.