The original R-D1, announced by

Epson Seiko Epson Corporation, or simply known as Epson, is a Japanese multinational electronics company and one of the world's largest manufacturers of computer printers and information- and imaging-related equipment. Headquartered in Suwa, Nagano ...

in March 2004 and discontinued in 2007, was the first digital

rangefinder camera A rangefinder camera is a camera fitted with a rangefinder, typically a split-image rangefinder: a range-finding focusing mechanism allowing the photographer to measure the subject distance and take photographs that are in sharp focus. Most va ...

. Subsequently, three modifications of the original ''R-D1'' were produced - ''R-D1s'', ''R-D1x'', and ''R-D1xG''.

R-D1

''R-D1'' was jointly developed by Seiko Epson and

Cosina is a manufacturer of high-end optical glass, optical precision equipment, cameras, video and electronic related equipment, based in Nakano, Nagano Prefecture, Japan. History Cosina is the successor to Nikō (or "Nikoh"), a company set up as ...

and manufactured by the latter, which also builds the current

Voigtländer Voigtländer () was a significant long-established company within the optics and photographic industry, headquartered in Braunschweig, Germany, and today continues as a trademark for a range of photographic products. History Voigtländer was f ...

cameras. It uses Leica M-mount lenses or earlier Leica screw mount lenses with an adapter. An unusual feature to note on the ''R-D1'' is that it is a digital camera that has a manually wound shutter with a rapid wind lever. The controls operate in the same way as film-based rangefinder cameras. Data such as white balance, shutter speed, picture quality, and shots remaining are all displayed with servo driven indicators on a dial like a watch face (made by Epson's parent company Seiko). With the rear screen folded away, it is not obviously a digital camera. ''R-D1'' and all of the subsequent modifications of the camera have been using the same 1.5x crop factor sensor, interline-transfer CCD ( Sony ICX413AQ). The same sensor as used in Pentax *ist D,

Nikon D100 The Nikon D100 is a discontinued 6-megapixel digital single-lens reflex camera made by Nikon Corporation and designed as a consumer alternative to the professional D1 series cameras. It was the precursor of both the more advanced D70 and D200 ca ...

. Sensor originally dates to 2002.

R-D1s

The successor of ''R-D1'', the ''R-D1s'' was released in March 2006. The ''Epson R-D1s'' is mechanically identical to the ''R-D1'', but with a firmware upgrade. It adds: * JPEG+RAW mode * Quick view function *

Adobe RGB The Adobe RGB (1998) color space or opRGB is a color space developed by Adobe Systems, Inc. in 1998. It was designed to encompass most of the colors achievable on CMYK color printers, but by using RGB primary colors on a device such as a comp ...

mode * Noise reduction for long exposures Users of ''R-D1'' could upgrade their camera to have the same functions.

R-D1x

The successors of the ''R-D1s'', the ''R-D1x'' and ''R-D1xG'' were made available from 9 April 2009 in Japan only. They feature very similar feature set except for few modifications: * Larger 2.5" LCD display (vs 2" in the previous model) but with the same resolution - 235K * LCD is no longer articulated and cannot be closed * Support of

SDHC Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

memory cards which increased max. capacity to 32 GB (vs. 2 GB for previous models) * Improvements in accessibility of rangefinder adjustment * ''R-D1xG'' model also includes removable grip On 17 March 2014, Epson announced that the ''R-D1x'' is discontinued.

References

External links

''Epson R-D1'': A field test
The Luminous Landscape * covering history, owner issues, FAQ, accessories, and Rich Cutler's information
''R-D1'' specific forum
on Rangefinderforum.com Digital rangefinder cameras R-D1 {{camera-stub