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Is there a market for a 500$ Manual Focus FF body?

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ottonis

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I wondered how well a very affordable (e.g. 500 - 1000 USD), high-IQ, full frame, mirrorless ILC body would be received by the market if it had a state of the art FF sensor (such as Sony's latest 42 MP BSI sensor) but otherwise be completely dumbed down, i.e. without any sort of autofocus, without a jpeg engine and without any video codecs (but the possibility to output high quality uncompressed video stream via HDMI to an external recorder). No automatic exposure or any other programs. Just manual mode, prferabky with most operations dealt by dedicated buttons. It should, however, provide live view.

One other impirtant feature should be a well thought out construction of the body, optimized for best possible heat dissipation / cooling of the sensor and CPU, thus further minimizing read noise and preventing overheating (still a big deal with many Sony E mount cameras during video recording).

It would be sort of a purist's camera, providing outstanding IQ and leaving the photographer alone to deal with manual settings and manual focus lenses.

Personally, I would love the idea of getting best possible IQ at a very affordable price. Of course, the handling would demand a steep learning curve.

What do you guys think of that? Who would like to get such a camera body?

Any opinions, ideas and criticism are very welcome!

Best

David
 
I would like to see one, and buy one...but I believe this type of camera can only be released once mainstream and bigger niches are already filled up.
 
$1000 brand new - I highly doubt anyone is going to issue a full frame body for any cheaper than that.

The AF is somewhat workmanlike and you can simply pretend it's not there (as I did for the first 18 months). You never know, though - you might try it one day by accident and find it comes in handy sometimes.

The video overheating thing might be a pity. (Or there might be a workaround - pop the rear LCD out a bit?)
 
Leica just attempted this with their M-D:

Loading…

us.leica-camera.com

Not exactly in the price range you are looking for however. In typical Leica fashion there is an extra zero in the price.
 
Jefenator said:
$1000 brand new - I highly doubt anyone is going to issue a full frame body for any cheaper than that.

The AF is somewhat workmanlike and you can simply pretend it's not there (as I did for the first 18 months). You never know, though - you might try it one day by accident and find it comes in handy sometimes.

The video overheating thing might be a pity. (Or there might be a workaround - pop the rear LCD out a bit?)
Click to expand...
I think that's good advice.

Extras such as AF and AE certainly add to the cost of lenses, but I suspect their contribution to the cost of camera bodies is marginal (the high ticket items being the case/mount/IBIS, the sensor itself and the power and chipset and related electronics. I'd expect the jpeg engine and video codecs to also be a marginal contributor to the cost.

So, while a camera body without AF and AE might be slightly cheaper, if you're talking a7RII quality sensor and body, leaving out those marginal items is not going to reduce the price by two thirds (or more, if you want it for $500). Especially when you consider that leaving them out will limit the market for such a body, thus limiting economies of scale in manufacture (so it could well work out *more* expensive, not less).

So I expect it would be more effective and probably more economical to choose from the available FF bodies and just turn off the features you don't feel you need.

--
Former Canon, Nikon and Pentax user.
Online Gallery: https://500px.com/raycologon
 
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SilvanBromide said:
So I expect it would be more effective and probably more economical to choose from the available FF bodies and just turn off the features you don't feel you need.
Click to expand...
 
ottonis said:
I wondered how well a very affordable (e.g. 500 - 1000 USD), high-IQ, full frame, mirrorless ILC body would be received by the market if it had a state of the art FF sensor (such as Sony's latest 42 MP BSI sensor) but otherwise be completely dumbed down, i.e. without any sort of autofocus, without a jpeg engine and without any video codecs (but the possibility to output high quality uncompressed video stream via HDMI to an external recorder). No automatic exposure or any other programs. Just manual mode, prferabky with most operations dealt by dedicated buttons. It should, however, provide live view.

One other impirtant feature should be a well thought out construction of the body, optimized for best possible heat dissipation / cooling of the sensor and CPU, thus further minimizing read noise and preventing overheating (still a big deal with many Sony E mount cameras during video recording).

It would be sort of a purist's camera, providing outstanding IQ and leaving the photographer alone to deal with manual settings and manual focus lenses.

Personally, I would love the idea of getting best possible IQ at a very affordable price. Of course, the handling would demand a steep learning curve.

What do you guys think of that? Who would like to get such a camera body?

Any opinions, ideas and criticism are very welcome!

Best

David

--
www.flicker.com/davidsphotoblog777
Click to expand...
I used to think something like a Zeiss Ikon would be great but I don't think it would work for digital.

Once you have the infrastructure for a digital camera to take still photographs, it's pretty much software that determines the other features potentially available. If a manufacturer decides to eliminate autofocus in one of their cameras, it's not that the camera doesn't support autofocus, it's that the manufacturer has deliberately disabled a feature that's still present in the camera. I'm only in favour of purism and minimalism when the convolutions are removed--not simply hidden.

What I would prefer is if Sony updated the firmware to improve the manual focus experience e.g. magnify a portion of the frame but not the whole frame, so you can achieve critical focus and compose the shot at the same time.

I also think that once a company goes down a niche route, they subtract time, money and resources from their main product. With film cameras it made sense, with digital cameras, not so much.
 
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ottonis said:
I wondered how well a very affordable (e.g. 500 - 1000 USD), high-IQ, full frame, mirrorless ILC body would be received by the market if it had a state of the art FF sensor (such as Sony's latest 42 MP BSI sensor) but otherwise be completely dumbed down, i.e. without any sort of autofocus, without a jpeg engine and without any video codecs (but the possibility to output high quality uncompressed video stream via HDMI to an external recorder). No automatic exposure or any other programs. Just manual mode, prferabky with most operations dealt by dedicated buttons. It should, however, provide live view.
Click to expand...
it's already here.

used a7r's are going for a $1k or less, with 36mp and 14.4x in the evf, it's one of the strongest mf camera bodies there is.
 
osv said:
ottonis said:
I wondered how well a very affordable (e.g. 500 - 1000 USD), high-IQ, full frame, mirrorless ILC body would be received by the market if it had a state of the art FF sensor (such as Sony's latest 42 MP BSI sensor) but otherwise be completely dumbed down, i.e. without any sort of autofocus, without a jpeg engine and without any video codecs (but the possibility to output high quality uncompressed video stream via HDMI to an external recorder). No automatic exposure or any other programs. Just manual mode, prferabky with most operations dealt by dedicated buttons. It should, however, provide live view.
Click to expand...
it's already here.

used a7r's are going for a $1k or less, with 36mp and 14.4x in the evf, it's one of the strongest mf camera bodies there is.
Click to expand...
 
osv said:
ottonis said:
I wondered how well a very affordable (e.g. 500 - 1000 USD), high-IQ, full frame, mirrorless ILC body would be received by the market if it had a state of the art FF sensor (such as Sony's latest 42 MP BSI sensor) but otherwise be completely dumbed down, i.e. without any sort of autofocus, without a jpeg engine and without any video codecs (but the possibility to output high quality uncompressed video stream via HDMI to an external recorder). No automatic exposure or any other programs. Just manual mode, prferabky with most operations dealt by dedicated buttons. It should, however, provide live view.
Click to expand...
it's already here.

used a7r's are going for a $1k or less, with 36mp and 14.4x in the evf, it's one of the strongest mf camera bodies there is.
Click to expand...
 
ottonis said:
I wondered how well a very affordable (e.g. 500 - 1000 USD), high-IQ, full frame, mirrorless ILC body would be received by the market if it had a state of the art FF sensor (such as Sony's latest 42 MP BSI sensor) but otherwise be completely dumbed down, i.e. without any sort of autofocus, without a jpeg engine and without any video codecs (but the possibility to output high quality uncompressed video stream via HDMI to an external recorder). No automatic exposure or any other programs. Just manual mode, prferabky with most operations dealt by dedicated buttons. It should, however, provide live view.

One other impirtant feature should be a well thought out construction of the body, optimized for best possible heat dissipation / cooling of the sensor and CPU, thus further minimizing read noise and preventing overheating (still a big deal with many Sony E mount cameras during video recording).

It would be sort of a purist's camera, providing outstanding IQ and leaving the photographer alone to deal with manual settings and manual focus lenses.

Personally, I would love the idea of getting best possible IQ at a very affordable price. Of course, the handling would demand a steep learning curve.

What do you guys think of that? Who would like to get such a camera body?

Any opinions, ideas and criticism are very welcome!

Best

David
Click to expand...
 
love the idea ! The size would be quite small and it would definitely make me jump on it.
 
Just as there is a market for a 20k new porsche 911. But I don't think the manufacturers would want to be a part of it....

I thought a similar thing a while back... Maybe Sony could introduce a camera designed for legacy glass. But why wold they do this? Means they would only make money on the camera and it would be a very niche product too. I'd buy one. But due to the nature of a FF camera it wouldn't be cheap anyway. 2k dollars... and wouldn't sell many.
 
ahaslett said:
As a bonus, AF isn't exactly a strong point for the A7R.
Click to expand...
good point, lol... most people don't want to hassle with serious manual focusing, so no pdaf makes it an undesirable camera for them.
 
... Is worth well over that alone, I'm afraid. The superfluous stuff that you want to keep out is basically free as it's software Sony already has, so you save nothing by not including it. FF sensor, better build... I'd say $3-4k. So buy an A7RII and don't use AF. .
 
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Like a lot of people on this thread I suspect that removing a lot of features wouldn't actually save money but have the opposite effect of raising the cost by turning it into a niche camera. What I really want is a way to semi permanently hide all the features that I don't use so that the camera will seem a lot more streamlined and simple like the old school cameras we all miss. Shouldn't be too hard for the software people to come up with a way to hide things right.
 
Someone asks this question about once a month and the answer never changes. Hell to the no. Plus an A7 in M mode with manual ISO and legacy glass basically is that. Personally I don't understand the need but I am no masochist.
 
1sol3ss said:
love the idea ! The size would be quite small and it would definitely make me jump on it.
Click to expand...
It would only be small if it didn't have IBIS - which doesn't seem to be among the things David (the OP) wants left out.

The things he does want left out are not things that take up much room (they are mostly software, and aside from that, maybe a few wires...).

--
Former Canon, Nikon and Pentax user.
Online Gallery: https://500px.com/raycologon
 
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