Hands-on with the Epson R-D1 digital rangefinder (old is new!)

Time now to look at something old yet something new at the same time. A photographer just got the old Epson R-D1 digital rangefinder and he is sharing his first impressions and high ISO pictures in the dpreview Leica forum. You can jump directly to the ISO pictures if you like (slow on dialup).

The Epson R-D1 was announced in 2004 (see dpreview, Luminous, etc) in very limited availability, with a 6mp APS-C sensor. Even more limited was the announcement of the follow-up, the R-D1x, which appears to be a Japan-only camera.

The opening price for the R-D1 was $3000 back in 2004. The camera is so rare that there are none on KEH, and there is only one of each model on eBay.com offered by Japanese exporters for $3300+ each.

And while DSLRs have seen a lot of new models, new features and dramatic price-point drops in the last few years, to the dismay of fans of (digital) rangefinders, not a whole lot has happened in the D-RF world other than the Leica M8, M8.2 and M9.