Reflex and Photokina

Moorlander · Aug 15, 2018

Last year there was a successful Kickstarter project to lauch e new 35mm SLR camera: Dead Link Removed
This project seems to have had a few delays and they are not able to ship by the end of this month. This does happen with kickstarter projects – I belong to those who backed the Ferrania project. However, in their last update, the people behind Reflex mentioned that they are still planning to present the camera at this year’s Photokina in Cologne – BTW anyone planning to go? – I was on the Photokina site but I could not find the people behind this project in the database of the exhibitors. Does anyone know more. I am planning to gop to Photokina and I definitely would like to go to that stall. So if anyone knows anything more, could you please post it. Thanks

AgX · Aug 15, 2018

Good investigation! And a not surprising result.

To be fair, sometimes it can be difficult to find an exhibitor as they register under some legal company name and not the wellknown brand.
But in the case of the Reflex camera you cannot even find a legal company name on their Kickstarter nor on their very own site... Just the name of one guy, no address.

(People may argue that is the idea of such project, first gathering money and then starting a production company. But this also means giving money in advance into the complete blue... )

AgX · Aug 26, 2018

Shortly after I hinted at the fact that there was no news for months after them having collected the money and that they were over due, they made a non-substantial announcement.
One day after the above postings they stated to be busy with preparing for Photokina...

foc · Aug 27, 2018

AgX said:
Shortly after I hinted at the fact that there was no news for months after them having collected the money and that they were over due, they made a non-substantial announcement.
One day after the above postings they stated to be busy with preparing for Photokina...

That's the power of APUG sorry PHOTRIO and of course yourself AgX

Marco Gilardetti · Aug 28, 2018

As said in previous threads, I really wish them good luck (I'm one of those that would like everyone to succeed in life!) but in my opinion their project is already flawed with useless complication. It might have been interesting if they could make a camera that would take and gather all strong points of older cameras, but it seems to me they're gathering what has proven to be a nightmare: built-in custom electronics that would rapidly fail, interchangeable back that mostly bankrupted the Carl Zeiss foundation, a useless tiny flash in the corner, etc. I don't even want to investigate about how the shutter was made - I'll keep the doubt.

Perhaps I don't get to which kind of customers this camera is aimed to. It looks like a mix & match of concepts and parts, some of which ultraprofessional - stuff that only Zeiss dared to engineer and market - and others for total beginners like that laughable flash. And heaven knows what the electronics are about.

AgX · Aug 31, 2018

As we already learned, posting on Apug has effect:

Photokina

So now we got:

-) a true (but shaky) private company, not founded for that Reflex project

-) an address

-) a phone number

-) a stand

M-88 · Sep 28, 2018

Can anyone give an update regardig the Reflex on Photokina?

Ste_S · Sep 28, 2018

Didn't the parent company (Net SE) declare themselves bankrupt ?

AgX · Sep 28, 2018

As seen in post #6 they have been listed as exhibitors, and still are.
In the new product presentations at online magazines they did not show up so far.
I guess we shall know more when we got our biannual Apug Photokina report.

AgX · Sep 28, 2018

But on September 25th, thus the day before Photokina, they posted this:
https://www.facebook.com/ReflexSystem/photos/a.130351694329207/246996252664750/?type=3&theater

abruzzi · Sep 28, 2018

I saw a story on one of the more popular photo news sites (I forget which) about the lens, which made me scratch my head. There was an offhand comment in the article implying that the cameras will be shipping later this year. Shouldn't that be the news story? It gave me flashbacks to the Meyer Optik fiasco that was reported recently, that they would run new kickstarters before previous items were shipped so as to keep cash flow rolling in. A kind of pyramid scheme. Reflex should really show that they can complete and ship something before moving on to something else.

AgX · Sep 28, 2018

Ste_S said:
Didn't the parent company (Net SE) declare themselves bankrupt ?

No, that is the holding behind the "Ihagee GmbH" and their "Elbaflex", a project that failed on Kickstarter already, saying to revive a Kiev model.

pentaxuser · Sep 28, 2018

As a disinterested outsider with no stake in the outcome I have just read all of the posts now. The alarm bells are ringing in my head so loudly that paracetamol tablets will not be enough.

I take it the company is based in the U.K. Has anyone checked what is actually at the London address?

pentaxuser

AgX · Sep 28, 2018

The Limited just seems to be a hull at hand, threatened in the past to be delisted again.
At least the backers now have a legal counterpart.

faberryman · Sep 28, 2018

Either they are at Photokina or they are not. Can anyone shed light on so basic a question?

abruzzi · Sep 28, 2018

faberryman said:
Either they are at Photokina or they are not. Can anyone shed light on so basic a question?

Presumably. This article seems to state that they announced the new lens at Photokina (its a little vague how it is worded):

https://www.thephoblographer.com/20...project-three-manual-focus-full-frame-lenses/

AgX · Sep 29, 2018

Announced. But so far there seems to be no report of anyone seeing at Photokina that lens, let alone the promised working pre-series sample of the camera.
But as said, let's wait for the regular Photokina report to show up at Apug.

Moorlander · Sep 29, 2018

A huge disapointment

This Wednesday I went to Photokina and made a direct bee line to the Reflex stall. But alas no Reflex camera to be seen. The representative had a couple of prototypes of their lenses but not a single copy of the Relex camera, the reason I went there. The (sic!) prototype was not presentable. How does that tally with their update of July 16th?

„As mentioned in previous updates, Design For Manufacturing is where we had our biggest learning curve as a hardware startup. What makes this specific case more challenging is that there are not many specialist manufacturers around and since the product is a combination of optical, mechanical and electronically parts, it was not easy to find the right contract manufacturing partners. Additionally because of the relatively small production run, parts sourcing is more difficult because of minimum quantity orders.”

Not a single word, that they could not even show one presentable

Instead they go ahead and develop lenses? Why? The proposed camera charm was that you can use legacy lenses. Also there are a number of interesting manual lenses with various mounts such as Laowa, Irix, Samyang just to name three brands.

I left the stand greatly disappointed. Perhaps something will still come out of it. However “don’t hold your breath” comes to mind. If they do not have a presentable prototype by now, I cannot see how they can have production up and running by the end of the year.

AgX · Sep 29, 2018

If one Kickstarter project dries out financially, one could start another to gain a new source.

From the idea behind the Reflex camera, as uttered on their Kickstarter page, it makes no sense to offer own, new-designed lenses.
However, a F1.8 40mm lens could be an alternative to a F2 35mm.

faberryman · Sep 29, 2018

What is the "the native Reflex AR-i" lens mount? As I understand it, we are still talking about manual, stop-down metering from the 1950s.

AgX · Sep 29, 2018

The Reflex camera design is based on a proprietary mount that accepts various adapter plates for common mounts. This mount is called "I-mount".

I got no idea though what "AR" is meant to be...

AgX · Sep 29, 2018

faberryman said:
As I understand it, we are still talking about manual, stop-down metering from the 1950s.

First TTL SLR was introduced 1963.

However the Reflex Project had it about aperture priority metering, which would mean in common use even a more modern, more complex system which necessittates an aperture simulator at the lens. And thus adapters coping with two mechanism (automatic diaphragm and aperture simulator).

Chan Tran · Sep 29, 2018

AgX said:
If one Kickstarter project dries out financially, one could start another to gain a new source.

From the idea behind the Reflex camera, as uttered on their Kickstarter page, it makes no sense to offer own, new-designed lenses.
However, a F1.8 40mm lens could be an alternative to a F2 35mm.

If they want to make lenses they should make the body to accept only their lenses and in that way the camera to lens interface would be much better. The entire project makes no sense.

CMoore · Sep 30, 2018

Moorlander said:
A huge disapointment

This Wednesday I went to Photokina and made a direct bee line to the Reflex stall. But alas no Reflex camera to be seen. The representative had a couple of prototypes of their lenses but not a single copy of the Relex camera, the reason I went there. The (sic!) prototype was not presentable. How does that tally with their update of July 16th?

„As mentioned in previous updates, Design For Manufacturing is where we had our biggest learning curve as a hardware startup. What makes this specific case more challenging is that there are not many specialist manufacturers around and since the product is a combination of optical, mechanical and electronically parts, it was not easy to find the right contract manufacturing partners. Additionally because of the relatively small production run, parts sourcing is more difficult because of minimum quantity orders.”

Not a single word, that they could not even show one presentable

Instead they go ahead and develop lenses? Why? The proposed camera charm was that you can use legacy lenses. Also there are a number of interesting manual lenses with various mounts such as Laowa, Irix, Samyang just to name three brands.

I left the stand greatly disappointed. Perhaps something will still come out of it. However “don’t hold your breath” comes to mind. If they do not have a presentable prototype by now, I cannot see how they can have production up and running by the end of the year.

Sorry if a missed it in your post, but what did the person working there say about the camera.?

AgX · Sep 30, 2018

Moorlander:
"The (sic!) prototype was not presentable."

From another source it seems they did not made much words about why not.

Reflex and Photokina

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