Will the M9 encourage or discourage Zeiss to make a Digital Ikon?

[Roger Hicks]

Carl Zeiss' decision to re-enter the rangefinder market was also driven by a couple of other factors. First, Kyocera had withdrawn from the market, which had been its major outlet for its lenses in 35mm and what was a growing medium format segment. Also, Hasselblad was moving away from Zeiss as a sole supplier for its camera lenses, having sourced lenses from Fuji for its Xpan and then the new 6x4.5 cameras.

Both of these left Zeiss without major outlets for its camera lenses. And in the marketplace -- out of sight means out of mind and then soon to follow you're marginalized.
.

That's not my reading of it. Their organization as a foundation means they can think for the long term, and they have no desperate need to stay in the consumer camera lens market. Of course they welcomed the chance to cooperate with Cosina for many reasons, but the idea (as I understand it, and I've never asked specifically) was from Kobayashi-san, not from Zeiss.

Cheers,

R.

 

[parsec1]

Dear Roger,
I know, you would have to kill me first before you told me .hehe
Regards
Peter

 

[wgerrard]

You're right, but i think $2000 is just a wish.
The RD-1 uses a sensor out of the box, it would not be possible with fullframe.

Well, I wasn't thinking about full frame sensors. I expect I should have said as much. What I have in mind is the typical improvement of digital products over time and a larger, but not necessarily, full-frame sensor.

Why do you always talk abour M4/3? (I mean many people 🙂)
It's a complete different system what supports the mount of M-lenses, but not in a way we like it!

Because it's the size and convenience of rangefinders that attracts me, not the lens mount or manual focus or the use of film. I'd consider any comparable camera with those attributes, like my OM-2N. Although I've made what is for me a sizeable investment in M-mount lenses and have recently started to process film and have an enlarger (still!) on its way here, there is a very good chance I will sell all of that and buy into M4/3, or similar, tech if and when the right camera hits the market. I don't think I'd be alone.

 

[DRabbit]

Now that Sony has a full-frame sensor, I kinda think it's more possible to see an offering from Zeiss (given their relationship). At least I'm hopeful about it 😉

 

[bedaberger]

Now that Sony has a full-frame sensor, I kinda think it's more possible to see an offering from Zeiss (given their relationship). At least I'm hopeful about it 😉

I hope too!
I've just the chance to get a new M8 for €2300, but when I think long enough about it, it seems to be a compromise...
I'm not sure if I should take this chance to switch to digital with some compromises, or still wait for a improved and achievable system camera, as maybe the digital Zeiss.
But for a higher price, I'm sure.

???
Peter
???

 

[italy74]

Hi guys
over zeissrumors, the webmaster posted just something that might be relevant for the feasibility of such camera, by Zeiss, Sony or whoever else wants (and is allowed) to join Sony. It's always a CCD design, not a CMOS one, but who knows..

http://www.zeissrumors.com/

 

[Frankie]

Hi guys
over zeissrumors, the webmaster posted just something that might be relevant for the feasibility of such camera, by Zeiss, Sony or whoever else wants (and is allowed) to join Sony. It's always a CCD design, not a CMOS one, but who knows..

http://www.zeissrumors.com/

I wish I could read the text, but the diagram [picture] is worth more than a thousand words.

As I had posted in other threads, each micro lens is a simple single element lens...howsoever positioned. Closer is better, but perhaps the lens could also be aspheric shaped, neutral density filtered...any technique to accommodate wide angle RF lenses, and all in the domain of nanoengineering.

Zeiss makes optical devices enabling nanoengineering.

Based on this hard technical news, I would now bet a ZMd could be announced in 2010 Photokina. I would happily pay $3500 for the camera body. A $2000 premium over the ZM body but no further recurring cost of film/processing/scanning...~$1 per B/W picture in my locale.

And better yet, this new chip is a low noice 34.8Mp 5 micron 4800 x 7200 CCD chip...

The ZM body need little modification to satisfy my desire of direct control, from Auto-ISO [another marking in the ISO dial], to a SD/battery remaining window, to a lockable dial for white balance and Raw/H-JPEG/M-JPEG settings...where the film advance now sits.

What else do you need to get going?:bang:

The space behind the ZM shutter is ~5mm [where the pressure plate now is], enough for a CCD or even the circuit board. I could tolerate a small hump hidden within the LCD.

Since there is no live view, and chimping/histogram is after the fact, no need for a built-in but plug-in LCD instead [thus upgradeable].😀

 

[bedaberger]

Have you seen pictures of the predecessor sensor (HAD I)
I'm not sure if it is also an application in photography?

Sony already released the news of this new sensor in May 2008...

 

[Wiyum]

Well it seems clear to me that Sony, in the new HAD CCD and the Exmor-R backlit CMOS chips, has some new toys for Zeiss' R&D department to play with. I'd be shocked if they didn't have some of these at an R&D site, feverishly determining the estimated R&D cost of bringing a dRF to market. If that number is small enough, they may jump in. Many (not all) would say that they've found a way to make cameras and lenses in Japan that do not do disservice to the Zeiss name, brand, or heritage, and taking advantage of this could leave Leica playing with one hand tied behind its back, price-wise. Simple economics dictate that a FF dRF that performs well at 24 or 34 megapixels could compete easily with the m9. At $7000, Leica has set a very high bar that Zeiss needs to crawl under. How far under to make it worthwhile is hard to say, but let's assume that if they could make a FF dRF for $3000-$4000, they could expect to make a not-insignificant amount of money there. If not, they'll keep selling lenses, simple as that. But there's certainly money to be made, both on cameras and on lenses, to be bought by new RF customers. There's certainly *some* value in bringing in more RF users for ZM lenses, it just isn't clear how much.

At the same time, Zeiss is a company that isn't afraid of leaving money on the table. I'm still amazed that they haven't redesigned the ZF lenses with AF motors and released them in ZA mount. Seems like a no-brainer to me, Sony Alpha being the de-facto "digital Contax" for the moment (their options in Nikon, Canon, and Pentax mounts notwithstanding, and also not offering AF and thus being somewhat limited in appeal). Meanwhile, Mamiya and PhaseOne's mount is an open design, and Zeiss has plenty of glass, specifically the Contax645 designs, that would love to find their way to said system, yet they don't seem to be moving on that one either. As has been pointed out, they make plenty of money in plenty of places, so it is hard to determine which profit-drivers they'll pursue. Certainly I think more ZA primes and PhaseOne/Mamiya lenses would be a no-brainer for printing money, much moreso than a dRF.

Then again, they rather cannily rehoused all of the ZF lenses in lovely (matching) professional motion picture housings, which was an innovative and brilliant way for them to get even more money from that well. I'm hopeful that they can find value in a dRF. I'm just not convinced of it.

 

[Keith]

The thing that seem painfully clear to me is that if Zeiss and Cosina want to stay in the market as camera manufacturers they will both have to produce a digital 'something!'

In Cosina's case it would virtually have to be a rangefinder because that seems to be where their expertise in lens manufacturing lies ... Zeiss maybe not so much!

 

[Frankie]

What Zeiss has is the very best RF. The value is:

$ZM - $ZM/SW = $650 MSRP
​

A lens is a lens, ideally projects a flat field into a flat field. Whether it was designed for a SLR or RF matters little.

Cosina lucked out making LTM lenses, and later remaking them for M-mount. It cannot make and re-make lenses for legacy cameras forever. It had a practice run of making dRF...on the back of Epson. All Kobayashi San has to do is to source a newer chip, even another APS size one. The 12Mp ones used by Nikon couldn't be all bad.

Zeiss knows how to make digital cameras...and anything they put their minds to. Just look at their 2001 112Mp DMC and the newer 2008 RM-D. A single chip FF RF is child's play.

I believe the backroom RF R&D boys are all trying to decide a course of action for the CEO: Add special micro-lens/filters in the front, doable now; or wait for yet another generation of CCD.

The company CEO has a different decision to make: get in now, or be squeezed out later...and at what cost/benefit?

Getting in deeper with another film camera is unwise. Learn from Nikon, Canon, Sony...even Leica; or study the demise of Konica, Minolta, Yashica, Contax...

Non-action is effectively getting out.

 

[Wiyum]

What Zeiss has is the very best RF. The value is:

$ZM - $ZM/SW = $650 MSRP​

​

I'm not trying to be obtuse, but I genuinely have no idea what you're saying here. Please explain.

Non-action is effectively getting out.

You may be right there, but as long as someone (Leica) is providing current bodies for M-mount lenses, Zeiss can make money selling ZM lenses, all without having to invest in developing a camera of their own. Or they could even stop making the ZM lenses... they make their real money in many other places, the ZM line in particular is likely negligible in terms of profits. It took firms as experienced and storied as Leica and Kodak (financially both troubled, but certainly as experienced as humanly possible in solving these problems) a number of years to get full frame dRF correct. Zeiss is an amazing firm, but these problems are real and they'd have to invest quite a bit to solve the issues that Leica only just overcame.

You can argue that sales of cameras and additional sales of lenses might make the investment worthwhile, but none of us knows for sure. Too many unknowns for us to form an educated guess.

 

[Frankie]

$ZM - $ZM/SW = $650 MSRP

The price of a ZM (with RF) minus the price of a ZM/SW (without RF for use with wide angle lenses via VF) is the cost of the whole RF unit itself...about $650 based on Manufacturer Suggested Retail Price.

 

[ulrikft]

This is my main fear before spending a lot of money on M9.. a ZId coming out for half the price. I guess that is a chance one always takes? 😉

 

[doubledan]

Will the M9 encourage or discourage Zeiss to make a digital Ikon

Will the M9 encourage or discourage Zeiss to make a digital Ikon

I love using the ZI rangefinder and my trusty M5. But when it comes to digital, I'm not entirely a purist: I would welcome ANY type of smaller-than-dslr camera with a full-frame sensor that accepted M-mount lenses. I suspect we are likelier to see some such thing, with virtually seamless EVF and precise focus confirmation for manual focusing, before Zeiss-Cosina-Sony or anyone else produces a true mechanical rangefinder body with advanced electronics.

The success of the m43 cameras, and now what appears to be a serious evolution of very small cameras with APS sensors (Leica X1 and, apparently, a Nikon to come) seems to point in this direction. As for the technology needed to reach FF sensors that can handle the sharp angles of light with M lenses, I don't understand the pessimism. Surely, if Kodak has pulled it off for the M9, other makers could do it as well. And as with all sensors, they would become cheaper over time.

Dan

 

[Roger Hicks]

This is my main fear before spending a lot of money on M9.. a ZId coming out for half the price. I guess that is a chance one always takes? 😉

Buy an M9 and a lottery ticket at the same time. The likelihood of ZI making an FF digicam for half the price of an M9 is probably a good deal less than the likelihood of winning the lottery.

Cheers,

R.

 

[ulrikft]

Buy an M9 and a lottery ticket at the same time. The likelihood of ZI making an FF digicam for half the price of an M9 is probably a good deal less than the likelihood of winning the lottery.

Cheers,

R.

That was what people said about a nikon fullframe when I got a 30d a year before the d3/d700 adventure started.. 😛 But i get your point. I guess one never knows, but the likelyhood of a Sony sensored Zeiss drf is low.

 

[Frankie]

We can never know what Zeiss is thinking. After all, Zeiss is a foundation and does not answer to shareholders.

However, despite Kobayashi San's well known dislike for digital, we know he answers to purchase orders (Epson R-D1). If Zeiss wants to build a ZMd, he will accept the P.O....his people got to eat even if he does not.

And, before long, he will also find a Japanese-style face-saving way of introducing a Cosina Bessa D. We all know film is dead-ended, and Kodak or Fuji or whoever is still coating emulsions had long lost market control...ever heard of SonyChrome before? 😀

[In my field, the 9" x 9" film format in use for 50 years was unceremoniously dropped in favour of postcard size or smaller CCD [composites]... Kodak or Agfa is now a side-show of a side show. Fuji and Ilford were never even a player.]

Sony is not sitting idle either. It make its own CCD. Its A series DSLR is priced keenly to gain a foothold dominated by Nikon (purportedly its own CCD customer) and Canon; and sporting Zeiss lenses!

Building a RF camera is no magic. A Leica M is really just two boxes. The upper one holds the RF unit. The lower one holds film cartridge, the chassis, and take-up spool. The lower box of a RFd is even simpler. The trick was to overcome the oblique light hitting near the frame perimeter. 🙄

If I were in charge of rushing a RFd to market, I would simply offer custom anti-vignetting filters to my lens array for now and sort out firmware correction later...6-bit coding and all that. Loosing one f-stop or so is not that big a deal...so we start out at ISO 200. :bang:

I could afford a D3X or any DSLR any time. I won't buy it because of the bulk and weight. Taking pictures is supposed to be fun. Carrying so much weight is not.

The M43- or APS-sized pocket'able cameras is attractive to me for the lighter weight. I am not hung up on the physical CCD sizes. If an EVF or a retro-RF or VF M43 is the new evolution branch, so be it.

 

[FS Vontz]

To all you people who said that they might just sit back and enjoy extra lense sales due to the M9, would they not get even more lense sales if there was another digital rangefinder on the market?
I bloody hope they do make one. That M9 is an incredible amount of the money for what you get.

 

[Roger Hicks]

We can never know what Zeiss is thinking. After all, Zeiss is a foundation and does not answer to shareholders.

Quite. And they generally don't build things unless someone pays them handsomely to do so.

'Zeiss' can't think anything. Only individuals within Zess can. And from some acquaintance with some of the individuals in question, I can't easily believe that they'd take a punt on this tiny a market, on speculation.

Cheers,

R.