There has been all kinds of buzz about the
new Rolleiflex digital camera, for its cool vintage style, and the promise of making you look cool by photographing on medium-format when everybody else's cameras digital. I, personally, wanted one from the start, especially when I saw there was a plain black one (although it seems everyone used the shiny red photo in their blogs, because it's more eye-catching). Here's a slick photo of both versions:
However, here's another common promotional photo:
This thing is freakin'
tiny. There's no pretending there's any film in that camera. My heart sunk. When classic camera companies
make digital versions of their existing camera bodies, I get excited -- then
I see the pricetag. While poking around to see if any company is making reasonably-priced digital replicas, I found the Minox website. They've got an entire
"classic cameras" category -- but what do I see there? The
Rolleiflex camera again; not promising. All of the cameras they offer are in 'mini' sized bodies, about 1/2-scale, including a
Hasselblad and a
Leica like the links above. How sad -- turning these great cameras into toy versions of themselves. I'd like to see a company make a full-size
TLR digital camera. It's not like they have to license a name from anyone -- a zillion camera companies put them out before 35mm was as popular, and they continued to be made for purists since. The layout of the camera is so iconic, it just needs to
look like the Rolleiflex camera above. The guts don't have to be any different than a good point-and-shoot camera, because neither have a TTL viewfinder, no interchangeable lenses...I hate it when I think an idea is so obvious, and nobody's doing it.
However, here's another common promotional photo:
This thing is freakin' tiny. There's no pretending there's any film in that camera. My heart sunk. When classic camera companies make digital versions of their existing camera bodies, I get excited -- then I see the pricetag. While poking around to see if any company is making reasonably-priced digital replicas, I found the Minox website. They've got an entire "classic cameras" category -- but what do I see there? The Rolleiflex camera again; not promising. All of the cameras they offer are in 'mini' sized bodies, about 1/2-scale, including a Hasselblad and a Leica like the links above. How sad -- turning these great cameras into toy versions of themselves. I'd like to see a company make a full-size TLR digital camera. It's not like they have to license a name from anyone -- a zillion camera companies put them out before 35mm was as popular, and they continued to be made for purists since. The layout of the camera is so iconic, it just needs to look like the Rolleiflex camera above. The guts don't have to be any different than a good point-and-shoot camera, because neither have a TTL viewfinder, no interchangeable lenses...I hate it when I think an idea is so obvious, and nobody's doing it.
