Epson R-D1: The $3000 Digital Rangefinder That Rewound the Clock

The R-D1 launched in 2004 as the world's first digital rangefinder, hit $3000, had a 6MP CCD and an M-mount, and was quickly forgotten by most photographers outside Leica circles. What makes it worth revisiting now isn't nostalgia — it's the reminder that analogue-inspired digital design was a real commercial bet twenty years before Fujifilm made it mainstream. If you shoot M-mount glass and want a CCD-era digital body to pair with it, the R-D1 occasionally surfaces secondhand. Mostly this is a curiosity piece, not a buying guide.