New Pixii+ Digital Rangefinder Has an Extended Viewfinder, New Eyepiece
French company Pixii has announced the latest version of its APS-C digital rangefinder camera, the Pixii+.
Building upon the version of the Pixii released last December, the Pixii+ (model A2572+) offers many new features, including a refined rangefinder design, new magnetic eyepiece, improved exposure mode, and a better focusing experience.
The camera’s new extended rangefinder utilizes an optical prism to send a second image into the center of the viewfinder. The viewfinder itself is a high-definition optical inverse Galilean formula viewfinder with LED frame lines. The new rangefinder design is 13.5 millimeters longer than the previous iteration, enabling photographers to focus “the most demanding lenses,” including lenses with apertures as fast as f/1.0.
“We have combined the optical enhancements with a new mechanical design. The rangefinder lens is now controlled by a micro ball-bearing sliding along the translation shaft. This both increases the focusing comfort and improves the overall accuracy by an order of magnitude,” Pixii promises. “Pixii+ will let you explore new depths of fields.” With the extended rangefinder, the camera supports “more than a hundred” different lens models.
There is also the new “Magic Eyepiece,” which Pixii says will improve camera operability and usability. Photographers can replace the standard eyepiece with diopter correction ranging from -3 to +3, with half-diopter values also available. Changing the eyepiece doesn’t require a special tool, as the new eyepiece is magnetic. There’s also a new magnifying eyepiece that offers a 1.5x zoom to make focusing easier. Pixii says this is suitable for 50mm and longer lenses.
Software is a big part of the Pixii experience. Last year’s model was the first digital rangefinder camera to sport a 64-bit processor, which enabled the capture of “true” monochrome DNG files and allowed the company to implement sophisticated computational photography features into its camera, plus significantly improved live view and image processing.
Alongside improved hardware, Pixii promises better software in the Pixii+. The company has also improved the accompanying smartphone app, allowing users to perform focus peaking, zooming, and geotagging. The improved software also includes straight-from-the-camera JPEG images and improved EXIF support. These software features are also available now for standard A2572 model owners.
Speaking of the standard A2572 Pixii camera released last year, the Pixii+ shares many features with its predecessor, including its 26-megapixel BSI-CMOS APS-C image sensor. And like last year’s Pixii camera, the new Pixii+ has a native ISO range from 160 to 12,800, sports a standard Bayer color filter, and utilizes a Leica M-mount. The camera includes numerous on-body controls and dials and delivers critical information to the user via small information displays and interactive viewfinder.
Pricing and Availabiilty
The Pixii+ is available to order now for €2,699, or about $2,863. The camera comes in space gray and black colorways and offers storage options from 16GB to 128GB. Shipping will begin in November.
Image credits: Pixii
