Lee L said:
See my last post, referring you to page 3 of the Keppler article.
Lee
Lee, with Keppler as your source, I can see why you think that the ZI is a revision of the R2A. Unfortunately, the Keppler article is full of inaccuracies. I guess that at his age, he should be commended on the fact that he can still produce a 3-page article.
In that same article, Keppler claims that the list of Cosina/Voigtlander rangefinder lenses include the following: 21/4, 35/4, & 50/1.7. The CV stable of RF M-mount lenses doesn't include any lenses with these specs.
Similar errors can be found in his comments about the Zeiss Ikon. He states that "the base of the rangefinder is improved to 70 mm." In point of fact, the base line of the ZI measures 75 mm.
Keppler's statement that "the internal camera specifications are almost identical to the CV R2A" is equally mistaken. He himself points out that the "finder is vastly improved," so we know that this spec is different - which is a major difference on a rangefinder camera. In a general sense, the two are similar because they both have AE, manual focus, & electronic shutters. However, the difference is in the details.
The most significant difference between the finders of the two cameras isn't even mentioned by Keppler. The ZI finder includes 28 mm frame lines, making it the longest effective base length of any RF camera ever with 28 mm frame lines built into a single viewfinder. The widest frame lines on the R2A are 35 mm.
The electromagnetic controls of the two shutter systems are different. The more sophisticated controls of the ZI allow for permanet AE lock while AE lock on the R2A is strictly manual.
But the biggest difference in the shutter systems of the ZI & the R2A is the immediacy of response. Shutter delay for the ZI is 14 ms (milli-seconds) in manual & 20 ms in AE. This compares with 12 ms for the M6 & 25 ms for the M7. No other camera in the world can match this immediacy of response. When Pop Photo tested the Bessa R, they measured the shutter delay at 100 ms. The Konica Hexar RF was measured at 120 ms. Rangefinder photographers pride themselves on being able to capture the decisive moment in a way that SLR photgraphers cannot. The ZI provides this capability; the Bessa cameras, true to their SLR roots, do not.
The metering system of the ZI was changed from that of the R2A to make it more sensitive. You can see that simply by looking through the lens mount at the secondary shutter blades where the metering pattern is different on the ZI.
Even in the small details, the internal specs of the R2A & the Zi are different. The ZI has been built with a light-tight integrity that does not require foam in the back channels. Like almost every other camera you can find, the R2A has foam strips. When the foam goes, the camera leaks light.
Keppler states in his article that "Cosina did not hew to the same optical designs as the original Voigtlander lenses." This is a true statement. It is why criticism is justly deserved fro slapping the Voigtlander label on a series of lenses & cameras that have emerged from modern Cosina designs & which have nothing to do with the name they bear.
However, the Zeiss Ikon is a completely new camera design & is in no way a re-issue of a Cosina camera. The same is true for the lenses. These are Zeiss lenses and have nothing to do with any lenses that were ever developed by Cosina.
When he visited the Cosina factory in March. 2005, Stephen Gandy of Cameraquest said that the Zeiss Ikon shares no parts in common with any
Bessa camera. While this may have been a stretch since they both use standard Copal parts in their sshutters, for example, his basic point is that these are two completely different cameras.
Bill