Cameraquest has Bessa D page up

Good morning,

 

Stephen just put this up on his site

 

http://www.cameraquest.com/voigtpma2004.htm

 

(sorry I don't know how to make a link) . Not really much to add to

the discussion, however he does give an exact date of 11 March!

 

Gerry

<a href="http://www.cameraquest.com/voigtpma2004.htm">link</a> </p>

 

I'm just showing off, Gerry! ;-)

WOW! Just three weeks away! The boys in Solms must be a nervous lot. As for the rewind knob/crank? My absurd brain envisions a little tiny generator, a few fast turns ofthe crank and you got yourself charged batteries!

>Al Kaplan Photo.net Hero, feb 20, 2004; 08:27 a.m.

 

>My absurd brain envisions a little tiny generator, a few fast turns ofthe crank and you got yourself charged batteries!

 

Hehe... and you get to watch the needle move from 'E' to 'F' as you crank.

Also check out the new CV35mm f2.5 pancake II. Focussing down to 0.7m too. Nice.

Methinks the folks in Solms need to crank up their R&D efforts more than just a little unless they want their digital market to be captured by CV/Epson. Hurrahs to CV for their attentiveness to the desires of the marketplace.

Definitely interesting. Thanks for the link.

But if it's an APS-size sensor, doesn't this render all of the classic lenses (35, 50) as useless?

I gotta admit it, I'm fairly impressed!

 

The APS size sensor is about the same as the Nikon and Canon sensors. That is probably

why they could make the camera and allow the use of wider lenses. It partially solves the

rangefinder geometry problem we've been discussing. So, your 35 becomes your standard

lense, the 24 is a slight wide angle, 21 is wide, and so on. But don't worry CV has lots of

really wide lenses (like the 15 and 12) that will give you super wide perspective. Now, on

the long end, the 135 becomes a serious tele, and that will be cool too.

Sub-headline: "The biggest Rangefinder news at PMA was the newly announced collaboration between Cosina and Epson to produce the world's first Leica M mount rangefinder."

 

That sounds a little inaccurate.

<i>But if it's an APS-size sensor, doesn't this render all of the classic lenses (35, 50) as useless?</i><P>

 

Now for all of us that have been wanting a 75mm f/2 lens, we need only to pop on our 50mm Summicrons.

Lets hope that the wide lenses will work on the Bessa D. I think that the 21 and wider may have their rear elements too close to the APS sensor to give a decent image.

<i>But if it's an APS-size sensor, doesn't this render all of the classic lenses (35, 50) as useless?</i><BR><BR>No more complaining about vignetting with the Noctilux at F1.0 :)

Are the viewfinder framing inaccuracies of a rangefinder system relative or absolute? In other words with a smaller sensor/viewfinder will he framing shift that occurs as you go closer to infinity be the same or worse compared to an M?

I was talking with one of the guys at my local camera shop who had been to PMA. He said the price he heard kicked around was around $1000. He also said it's an Epson product and will be sold through Espon's dealer network. This could be inaccurate, but I don't know where Gandy gets his idea that it may be more than an M7. He might be angling to get a few hundred pre release and sell them at a super premium. Any way, we'll know more soon.

I'll admit to a silent bet with myself that the Konica/Minolta mix would result in a digital Hexar RF given the resources of the Minolta digital slr development. I lose and now must be my personal slave for a week - unless of course this camera never appears.

Thanks.

 

My gut is now Leica will need to come out with a 1.3 or 1.0X to compete on $$ and marketing, especially if they wait 2 years.

 

Jorn their is hope that Hexar RF will be made into a digital version since Minolta has just come out with a DSLR.

 

Now do we have the patience to wait until 11 March?

 

Have a nice icy weekend.

 

Gerry

The Bessa is great, not bad, news for Leica. First, it gives all the Leica-loyalists a digital

option for their Leica glass. Second, it lends credibility (i.e. that it is technically feasible)

that Leica can and will actually build a working digital M. Thus, the Bessa D beaths new

life into Leica M lens sales.

What's next? A Deardoff 8x10 digital...

Here is a guy that appearently got to (actually) handle this camera before PMA. Not much new info really, seems the lever is for real and working however.

 

http://www.excite.co.jp/world/url/body?wb_url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mjchotoku.com%2Fcolumn%2Fcolumn_digital%2Fdigital_23.html&wb_lp=JAEN&wb_dis=2

I read March 11th as being the date "details" will be availble, not the camera itself.

Beau* - he said "The biggest RANGEFINDER news at PMA....", not "the biggest news...".

 

Since Leica had preannounced their intention to go ahead with a digital-M, and there were no other rangefinder-related PMA announcements - I guess this qualifies, no?

 

Me, I'll wait to see what Leica and Epson actually comes up with (and at what price and quality). If Leica can produce a full-frame chip that actually works with a 21/24, and for less than a new car, then I might jump that way. If all Leica produces is ANOTHER aps-cropped camera, the Epson looks like a shoo-in - maybe.

 

In a 'gadgets' catalog I did see a hand-cranked recharger for cell-phone batteries (2 minutes cranking gets you 10 minutes of talking). Might not be a bad idea for digicam users heading out into the wilds.

I became slightly overjoyed!

If it becomes so, this deserves respect.

Andy P, I was referring to the fact that they say it's the first-ever M-mount rangefinder, which sounds kind of funny. Of course, they meant to say first-ever _digital_ one.