The Pentax MZ-D, also known by its internal code name of MR-52, was a prototype
digital single-lens reflex camera
A digital single-lens reflex camera (digital SLR or DSLR) is a digital camera that combines the optics and mechanisms of a single-lens reflex camera with a solid-state image sensor and digitally records the images from the sensor.
The reflex des ...
from
Pentax
was a Japanese camera and optical equipment manufacturer. Currently, it exists as the Pentax Life Care Business Division of Hoya's medical endoscope business, as well as the digital camera brand of Ricoh Imaging, a subsidiary of Ricoh.
Penta ...
of
Japan
Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
. It was announced at
photokina in September 2000
and was demonstrated to the press at the
Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show in January 2001.
In October 2001, Pentax cancelled the camera, stating "The cost of manufacturing the prototype SLR 6-megapixel digital camera meant it was not a viable product for our target market"
The MZ-D was derived from the top-of-the-line Pentax film camera of the time, the
MZ-S. To give space for the extra circuitry and battery power required for a digital camera, the MZ-D shape incorporated the size and shape of the MZ-S' optional
battery booster and vertical grip. It also shared the
Pentax KAF2 lens mount
A lens mount is an interface – mechanical and often also electrical – between a photographic camera body and a lens. It is a feature of camera systems where the System camera, body allows interchangeable lenses, most usually the rangefinder ...
.
The MZ-D was to use the same 6
megapixel
In digital imaging, a pixel (abbreviated px), pel, or picture element is the smallest addressable element in a Raster graphics, raster image, or the smallest addressable element in a dot matrix display device. In most digital display devices, p ...
(3072×2048) full
135 film
file:135film.jpg, 135 film. The film is wide. Each image is 24×36 mm in the most common "small film" format (sometimes called "double-frame" for its relationship to the "single-frame" 35 mm movie format or full frame after the introduc ...
frame sized (24×36 mm)
CCD (model FTF3020-C
) from
Philips
Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...
that was used by the
Contax N Digital
The Contax N Digital was a six-megapixel digital SLR digital camera, camera produced by Contax in Japan. The camera was announced in late 2000, and began to be sold in spring 2002, after several delays. The camera received mixed reviews from the ...
. The lack of success of that camera and the image quality problems it displayed suggest to some that Pentax may have had other reasons than cost to cancel the MZ-D project.
Michael Reichmann of ''The Luminous Landscape'' stated, "For whatever their reasons Pentax decided that they couldn't build a camera with this chip, while Contax decided to forge ahead. To save face? Possibly. We'll likely never know for sure"
In 2003, Pentax released a different design 6 MP APS-C sensor size DSLR, the
Pentax *istD.
Notes
References
* ''Tomkins, Michael''
PMA 2001 Show: Pentax EI-3000 and unnamed digital SLR - exclusive pics!Imaging-Resource.com
retrieved on November 21, 2005.
* ''Dimitrov, Bojidar''
Bojidar Dimitrov's Pentax K-Mount Page
retrieved November 21, 2005.
''Asahi Optical Historical Club (2000)''
''Asahi Optical Historical Club (2000)''
{{Full-frame DSLR cameras
MZ-D
Pentax K-mount cameras
Full-frame DSLR cameras