Fuji patented their complex ovf apparently more for the purpose of showing off their ability to do so. For those that must have a connected optical viewfinder there is either this or Leica or the continuing range of dslr camera bodies. All these devices are more complex/expensive to produce in a time where electronics is taking over. Even Fuji has re-released it's signature hybrid ovf model with another, smaller, cheaper evf based version that will sell by the truckload to those that remain unconvinced that optical viewfinders are absolutely necessary. Surely these great optical finders are marvels of mechanico-optical technology but the Ricoh Mode2 view of the image that you are about to capture must make mockery of the "perfect image in the viewfinder" and still allow the capture of perfectly framed, perfectly focused images. What is seen through the optical viewfinder is not the actual image captured. There are subtle differences such as exposure and white balance amongst others. However we can easily diverge into argments about framing and the gaining up of evf screens to compensate for low light. Opening the lens for enough light to focus when using an slr/dslr and stopping down on capture, the necessity for a dof preview button and the complete disconnect between the image going to the sensor and the ovf view on a straight through finder. Fuji fixed this in a quite technical manner but I suggest that it is more likely to trickle out from their line up of models rather than trickle in to become a regular feature of them all.
After giving optical finders a serve I must admit that they are very good and useful an many still prefer them but technically and price wise they owe more to nostalgia and it still can be done that way than a long term future. As long as photographers like them and buy them then they must continue to be made. However I suggest that the dslr viewfinder set up is still the very best for professional use, the RF still works, makes for a smaller camera body package, and looks great. Fuji's hybrid system is a great achievement, but a cheaper evf version will have the masses more excited. The vast bulk of the camera buying public not only don't mind even the current existing evf capabilities and in fact hardly care at all if the camera has an eye-finder of any type - being quite content with the lcd alone.
In this scenario Fuji are milking tradition but Sony are heading down the track of "electronics", along with Samsung and probably Ricoh as well. It would be a brave wager by Ricoh to lock their future into directly emulating Leica, a company that gets by on its reputation allowing it to charge whatever it likes to ensure a profit is made. Most camera companies have to price their product at a level that will sell in larger quantities. Would you buy a Ricoh at twice the price? It would still be cheaper than a Leica, and arguably just as good, if not serving a second purpose of being heavy enough to crack nuts with.
Lenses? Sony has shown directly, and other manufacturers indirectly, that the future of lenses is simpler, smaller and let the firmware correction take care of the imaging faults. Even now barrel distortion correction in-camera makes a mockery of the complex efforts of careful lens arrangements and precision grinding to achieve the same thing by the optical process alone.
As cheap firmware corrected lenses become better then highly technical mechanical-only lenses will become more rare and more expensive. Perhaps the vast majority of non-firmware corrected very capable lenses have already been made? This is the elephant in the lens-room. Ricoh gets some criticism over it's lens/sensor coupled modules because "tradition" says that you keep your lenses and just upgrade bodies. But what if each lens might need specific (to sensor?) in-body firmware correction. The Sony RX1 is perhaps the way of the future. Lens/body coupled and when it no longer suits there will be another one - at least the GXR system allows the camera back to be recycled.
Concurrent with the lens-firmware death lock increasingly matched to sensor is a cheap(er) constructed lens that is closer to throw-away. Compact cameras have been doing this for years, now more complex sub-professional cameras are coming into range. Many will shell out enough money to buy the (not cheap) RX1 in the full certainty that once the body no longer is technically current then the lens will be discarded with it. The lens of course would not be upgradable to a new body in any case as sensors and their controlling chips march on.
There will always be a market for high quality lenses that are stand alone, but even now Canon dslr bodies come with a database of "optimisations" in firmware for their lenses. Lenses that were designed in another age and were principally meant to be exchangeable over successive camera bodies. Many, if not most, Canon lenses have a heritage going back to slr days and the FD/FL where electronics and firmware correction were completely unknown. As cameras become more electronically sophisticated cheaper made lenses, designed by computers, made by robots, will be corrected to do things that even expensive lenses cannot do optically. Where to then? Do you persist in buying great mechanical lenses for new bodies that cannot compete with a cheap-made simple design lens that is lighter, cheaper and more automatically good. One that can be mated to a larger sensor in a smaller body?
Of course the current M mount module allows a whole raft of exquisite old lenses (that might work without firmware correction) to be mounted - every one of them is likely to have mechanically connected focus and aperture rings. The way the new lens manufacture process is spinning out making new mechanically connected lenses must be becoming less and less likely.
Make the most of what you see, future lenses are going to increasingly look quite different from what tradition tells us is necessary - much as optical viewfinders whilst useful are more a reflection of a photographic tradition that will surely die as those who have come to photography more recently through the use of lcd-only compact cameras will inevitably decide.
Whatever Ricoh have in store for us I am almost sure that it is not an uber-traditional Leica clone for those that think that a Ricoh is a cheap backup for their traditional shutter squeeze.
Another thing that is certain. (Say) it costs $400 to make a lens that currently sells for a "cheap" $800. I would surely be right to argue that a new lens built into camera, matched to sensor, smaller, lighter but with great performance might cost $40 in-camera, but the price will not come down - the lens component part will still be a cheap "$800". Until price competition brings it down? Get away .... cheap cameras are bound to be no good ... ask a Sony RX1 buyer, ask a Leica fan.
Cheap compact digital cameras ruined the profit margins in cameras, I think a new profit-centre is emerging.
If we laugh then I point out that the Pentax Q standard 50mm eq f1.9 prime lens is a lightweight plastic wonder. Takes great images even if it feels like it is made out of a milk container top. Turn off the image correction in camera and the barrel distortion is quite evident. Turn it on and the image seems perfect. Manual focus by wire and it feels tactile and excellent - a great little lens, I love it. Must be cheap as chips to make in Asia, check the stand-alone price for these lenses. The future is with us, I rest my case.
Tom
