How long until a Chinese company makes a digital rangefinder?

Here comes a real Chinese full-frame camera: DJI announces the Inspire 3 with a 45MP full-frame camera

If you've got the chance to start anew like the Chinese, why hop on a sinking boat? Those who have the capacity go for the cutting edge and the most lucrative, with DJI being the perfect example. The new rangefinder lens makers like the artisans on the other hand, are part of a much larger supply chain in southern China sustained by all sorts of (often industrial) demands for optical parts, out of which they're able to cut the price down. I don't see a chance of the components of rangefinder cameras - not to mention a digital one - being part of this supply chain.
 
Archlich said:
I don't see a chance of the components of rangefinder cameras - not to mention a digital one - being part of this supply chain.
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As I mentioned above, Seagull based in Shanghai, once a prominent Chinese camera maker, brought a flawed digital TLR to market some five years ago, and when it flopped, it gave up on the camera market altogether. Instead, it focused on other optical ventures. Cheers, OtL
 
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Out to Lunch said:
As I mentioned above, Seagull based in Shanghai, once a prominent Chinese camera maker, brought a flawed digital TLR to market some five years ago, and when it flopped, it gave up on the camera market altogether. Instead, it focused on other optical ventures. Cheers, OtL
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Chinese makers in the 1990s to the early 2010s were all for the quick money. Even big boys as established as Seagull couldn't be spared from that. I vaguely remember this very TLR being a Panasonic LX7 hacked into a "TLR" body. Laughing stock since inception, it's doomed to flop. What's more important is there's little technological prowess involved in making it - that even if it did sell, they wouldn't have been able to accumulate the know-how to incrementally move forward toward something more original and complicated like, well, a "digital rangefinder".

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Googled and it's called the Seagull CM9, which was released in August 2014. I was right: it's not a TLR at all. The taking lens is the same Panasonic zoom lens in a new housing; the "viewing lens" is a projector. You got one screen in the shade and another on the back, both showing a fixed 1:1 crop. Kinda creative as they had at least put some effort into tweaking the ergonomics. It has a sibling called the Seagull CF100, released a few months earlier, that was a straight rebadged Panasonic LX7. Must have been inspired by the other maker that's been rebadging Panasonic cameras for the "quick money"...

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I do find the recent April Fool's prank of the "TTartisan FF camera" being somehow plausible though. Wouldn't be surprised if it - or more likely IMO, Viltrox, decided to go for it. They'd have no problem sourcing the sensor, processor and shutter component and have an abundance of programming talents in Shenzhen to work on the software. Just that it'll likely be just a "mirrorless" instead of being a rangefinder.
 
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Sonnar Brian said:
The 7artisans 50/1.1 and 75/1.25 M-Mount lens are original designs; the TTArtisans 50/0.95 is an original design, the Mitakon 90/1.5 is an original design. You will not find the optical formula used in these lenses anywhere else. The LLL lenses are reverse-engineered copies, and state as such.
I very much like the adjustable cam mechanism in these lenses. Makes life easy. I can optimize a lens for the color of the filter used on the M Monochrom.
I agree the Chinese are good at reverse engineering- but most of the lenses being manufactured in China are not reverse engineered from existing designs, and producing such fast optics is not a trivial task. Any of the companies that can produce a mount to work correctly across range can produce a Rangefinder camera - if they wanted to.
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I love the adjustable cams. What great engineering / design. Way better than “shims”.
 
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