Which camera is this?
Update: This was an April’s fools’ joke in collaboration with DPReview. Sorry, guys ;)
Just a quick one – I had a day off before starting my new job, so I was out go-karting with my dad yesterday (I won, hah), and we went for a bit of a touristic travel around London afterwards. Near London Bridge, I saw someone who was taking some photos. Nothing unusual there, I hear you say, but what caught my attention was the camera he was using – what IS that thing?
I only managed to snap one useable photo:
I like to think that I’m pretty decent at recognising cameras (I smile and nod whenever I meet anyone who carries a 40D, just like me, and I growl (only slightly) when someone’s looking smug, carrying a
top-end Nikon around), but this one is a bit of a mystery to me… It looks vaguely expensive, too.
The only dSLR camera I know of that has a swivel-screen like that is the Olympus E3 – which I reviewed for T3 magazine a few weeks back, so I know it quite well… And this is not it.
Do any of you recognise it? It’s driving me bloody bonkers!
Oh, since some of you e-mailed me to ask: This is the other picture I managed to snap – it doesn’t show the camera off as well, but perhaps it helps?
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Insights, suggestions and comments
It could be an analog rangefinder, but he’s not lokking through the viewfinder so I don’t know how would he focus. It looks like a black Canonet or Yashica.
Are you sure it’s analogue? Isn’t that an LCD screen on the back?
Sony Alpha A300 has one screen like this (http://www.sony.net/Products/dslr/a300/features.html), but the shape of the camera seems different…could it be a Leica with an added screen?
I recognise him! That’s a friend of mine who works for DP Review – so chances are it’s new/top-secret!
I have forwarded this blog post to him to see if he can shed light on it!
You should have asked the guy instead of putting his photo online…
New or top secret? He’s not going to tell you what it is, then, I bet :p It’s very retro looking apart from the flip up screen.
Thats Simon Joinson of DPReview. He’s holding a new camera from Leica.
doesnt look to me like a dslr to be honest, maybe something along the lines of a canon g9
Epson Rangefinder R-D1s ???
Big viewfinder though, looks more like a rangefinder.
April Fools?
After looking again at your pictures and those of the R-D1, I’m quite sure it is that camera. It has a white square over the lens and a bigger black one to the left of it (it can be seen on your 2nd picture). It has a tilting LCD and manual focus lenses (leica)
MikMik here’s a picture of the RD-1, doesn’t it’s LCD tilt the other way?
http://www.chaudigital.com/assetts/img/epson_rd1_rear.jpg
Well, it seems that R-D1 and R-D1s are different cameras, but quite symilar in the look, anyway
Larry, yes, it seems the LCD tilts the other way. I thought that it could be a visual effect (that it could be to the left) but in the second image it seems I was wrong.
Anyway, i looks like a rangefinder, and I think there are no other rangefinders out there, apart from the R-D1 and R-D1s and Leica M8
It’s not an R-D1 (or R-D1s which is a firmware-upgraded version of the former). Hinge on LCD is the top edge rather than on the left edge. Rangefinders with brightline viewfinders all have that white window between the normal viewfinder window and the rangefinder window to collect light for the brightlines. Also the top-plate of the epson has edge running a straight line all the way across the front of the camera, so this is not one.
My initial reaction to the first image was to think this might be a Zeiss Ikon body.
http://www.zeiss.com/zeissikon
The guy in the picture looks sort of like one of the faces that pop up in dpreview sample galleries from time to time, though. This being April Fools day and all, let’s say it is a prototype digital Zeiss Ikon with hinged LCD and the 24MP Sony 36×24mm sensor announced earlier this year :-)
The new sigma possibly? It’s a digital rangefinder with aps-c sized sensor.
Just an FYI the Olympus e-330 which was released early 2006 had the first live view with a tilting screen.
Sigma DP-1
Sigma DP1 with a photoman lcd screen
What really flummoxed me was that the screen seemed to hinge upwards – what’s the logic in that? Most of the time, if you do need to use a hinged screen, it is to take the photo when holding the camera above your head (so you look up at the display)… Right?
.. unless it is actually a double hinge, so it goes both ways, but it didn’t look like that, somehow.
It looks like an really old digital camera… My art teacher has one for studio photography.
A Sigma DP1?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtLylj3V-EQ&feature=related
YouTube – Sigma DP1 user review
my guess is dp1 sigma, though the epson rd-1 looks like a better match (though it’s an older camers)
the rd1 lcd flips all the way around. behind the lcd, it has an old school exposure diagram like film cameras (which is nice because it protects the lcd from scratches)
FILM Leica M – likely M4-2 or M4-P (from the matte black “chrome” finish, lack of visible red dot, and recessed viewfinder – M6 and later have flush viewfinder glass). Angled Leica rewind crank visible on the top corner at this end. Camera with NO meter, so the photographer is looking DOWN at it to set aperture (note left thumb on lens’s aperture ring) and shutter speed using the dials.
The “LCD” is just a tag end of camera strap sticking out where he is gripping the camera with his right hand.
Good joke!
You’re right, I haven’t seen a DP1 with a swivel display…
look at the 3rd pic (whatis-22) it is most definitely an lcd and not a strap. as for it being a leica, it is likely that it is (or a clone, like the rd-1)
Maybe a Leica D-Lux 3?
Aw, I’m so sorry all – it was all an April’s fools’ joke in collaboration with the amazing DPReview!
I thought so :-), but don’t leave us in the dark, now. What was the camera, after all?
what’s the joke? you already know what the camera is? it isn’t a camera at all? pretty idiotic excuse for a joke, don’t you think?
a better joke would have been to go back to the clown barf website template
That is a Sigma point and shoot with some advanced features, it is a very good camera iq wise but very limited feature wise. It sells for about $1,000 us. Very rare.
Looks like a Leica to me
The camera is a mixture of:
Olympus 35 RC rangefinder
Sigma DP1
and a Sony Alpha 350 with Minolta 50mm f/1.4 on it.
Richard – DPReview
It looks like a Canon G9.
It definately LOOKS like a Canon G9. However, the G9 does not have a tilted lens.
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