[Leica] 50mm ZM C-Sonnar

[tgray at 125px.com (Tim Gray)]

On Apr 01, 2012 at 09:05 AM +0100, Frank Dernie wrote:
>I could be wrong but the 2 versions of the RD-1 ie the RD-1 and RD-1s 
>looked like Epson re-announcing the same camera to sell  existing 
>unsold in stock parts.

That could be true.  There was also the more recent R-D1x.  Anyway, they 
sold that camera for many years.  Maybe it was profitable, maybe it 
wasn't.  They certainly didn't decide to pull a page out of the book 
from Blackberry, reducing the price of the Playbook from $499 to $199 in 
a matter of months and effectively writing it off as a loss.  People 
*have* been buying the R-D1 enough that it was apparently worth Epson's 
effort to continue to sell them.

>My point is that it is extremely unlikely that anybody could possibly 
>manufacture a lower price digital rangefinder at the volume of sales 
>likely for a non-autofocus camera with expensive lenses. Lets not 
>forget that the CV and ZM lenses, whilst less expensive than Leica 
>lenses are still very expensive compared to mass produced autofocus 
>equivalents from the big makers.

I'm somewhat aware of production costs and know enough to know that many 
of us who have no experience with have no idea how expensive things can 
be :)

That being said, Cosina and Zeiss have managed to make a very nice set 
of rangefinders at multiple price points MUCH cheaper than the Leica 
equivalent.  So you already have a manufacturer who could build a great 
RF mechanism like the Zeiss Ikon.  There's obviously sensor 
manufacturers who can make decent sensors, say Sony.  Again, I don't 
know how much such a camera would cost, but if they could put one out 
the door around $4k, I think they'd have a seller.  I do not know if 
that is possible.  I don't know if it's impossible either.  There's 
another company besides Leica who have decided that it was profitable to 
make an M mount digital camera WITH microlenses on the sensor to 
optimize corner performance for M lenses.  Ricoh.  Too bad it's not full 
frame.

I would imagine as we get better at making sensors, it will get easier 
and cheaper to make a full frame RF camera for cheaper than Leica can do 
it.  I think it was silly as of 3 years ago to wish for a mythical $2k 
digital Sony Zeiss Ikon (people were on some forums), but I don't think 
it's silly to think that some day in the next 5-10 years, someone might 
come out with a full frame digital RF that costs about as much as the 
current 5DIII/D800 equivalent.

Remember, it was only a couple years ago where it was 'impossible' to 
make a full frame sensor for a Leica M.  They figured out how to do 
that.