The Grip for the RX1RII Development Report #1

Hello, this is ENZZO.

It has been a while since the RX1RII was announced to release overseas and I can’t stop wondering when it is going to be on the market.

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Well, the best selling body suit in Ulysses is for the RX1. (And it is still constantly selling.) To think that it has been three years since its release, you can call it unusually long seller.

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When we ask our users the reason, they say it’s the grip; with the body suit, it is very easy to hold the camera. Since the grip part of the RX1 is rather flat, and the space between the grip and the lens is narrow, they feel it is a little hard to hold tight.

Now today’s main subject is from here. I have been thinking some “ways to hold the RX1 better except for the body suit” for a long time. It is so called the external grip.

Of course I know there are a bunch of metallic grips launched from third parties and I’ll tell you that, I’ve bought all kinds of them available on the net whether it’s made in Japan or in overseas. However I haven’t met the right one for me; I always find something wrong with it. I’m sure it means it is so difficult to make the “the grip which fits everyone without a sense of incongruity”. Now, we, Ulysses, would like to challenge the task all the more for its difficulties.

First, I started to come up with a concept of it.

  1. Able to obtain the natural comfortable grip no matter how big or how small your hand is and how you hold it.
  2. Suitable (of course not too eccentric) design to match the RX1.
  3. The grip with high quality material.
  4. The grip that makes you feel happy to hold it and makes you feel like taking more and more snaps.

Something like this? Well, I’m afraid I raised the height of the hurdle so high by myself, didn’t I?

Next I thought how I can figure the shape of the grip close to the ideal one. Fortunately, the size of the hands of our staff members is all different; there are people from 150cm high to over 180 cm in Ulysses. So we could try and inspect the grip quite widely.

Then I tried making a basic design using clay. I started the work after I covered the camera with a masking tape, since I can’t put the clay on my precious RX1 directly.

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Next, I heaped clay on the grip part; I heaped clay rather much at the beginning, since I will shave later anyway.

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Then I held the grip and squeezed the clay. Hey guys don’t tell me my hand is hairy!!

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Then I got something I have no idea what it is. On the clay, I can see palm print clearly as well as fingerprint. If this is found on the murder scene, it is too easy to specify the criminal and it’s gonna be no dramas. Oh, well…

If I make the grip without thinking based upon this clay, it’s going be one fit only for one person. So this is just a model. Well, you’ll see how it is going to be. I’ll get back to you soon.

To be continued to the second report.

Please look forward to it.

Thank you.

Bye now.