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Contax RTS III ?


StS

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Well - define "wrong side." ;)

 

The vast majority of 35mm cameras (Leica, Canon, Minolta, Nikon, Pentax) with a top shutter dial have placed it on the same side as the Fuji, ever since Barnack set the style.

 

So it was Kyocera/Contax that put it on the "wrong side" in the first place.

 

Of course, originally it was on the shutter-advance side because it connected directly to the shaft of a horizontal-traveling clockwork shutter. And the other side was taken up by a rewind knob. Once vertical-blade shutters, and then electronic shutters, and then motorized rewind, made the mechanics different (or even irrelevant), designers were free to move the dial anywhere they wanted - thus the Contax RTSIII/RX/Aria style. (Note that the Contax S2, with a clockwork shutter and rewind knob, had to revert to the "Barnack" layout.)

 

Other options were: on the front, like the Leica slow-speed dial or the Contax I or the Ricoh TLS; or around the lens mount (Olympus/Nikkormat)

 

My guess is Fuji was not thinking of the RTS III, but simply working from the existing X100/X-1/XE-2 camera layouts. Exp. comp and shutter dial in the same places, move the viewfinder to the center, add "something" on the other side (in this case an ISO dial).

 

The quote-"prism-hump"-unquote shape doesn't have a lot of room for variation - chunky Contax/Nikon FTn/Alpa/Sony A7/Minolta XK shape - or pointy Canon F-1/Olympus OM shape. I expect Fuji chose the shape that looked LEAST like the OM-D series, for current product differentiation, rather than worrying about what a defunct camera from 15 years ago looked like.

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FUJI X-T1 seems to be very well designed, with a beautiful retro look.

I can understand that one can see a bit of Contax RTS in this camera.

If I remember correctly, Porsche designed the Contax RTS.

With design and image quality at top, probably Fuji here has a winner.

For us who live in the colder regions of the world, it is interesting to see that the camera is guaranteed to operate down to -10 degrees Celsius.

Maybe I have a future "hiking companion" in this camera.

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Just read some 'first look' reviews after this morning's official release. Impressive.......if the performance and build quality are as promised and IQ passes muster.

 

I wonder what Leica has up its sleeve with the T....

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