Minor updates announced by Epson for its hit R-D1 rangefinder-style interchangeable lens digital camera

Yesterday, Epson's Japanese consumer web site,
www.i-love-epson.co.jp, revealed that a slightly updated version of the
R-D1 retro-style rangefinder digital camera, the R-D1s, is on the way. Even with Japanese to English translation tools, it's not easy to discern from the Japanese-only pages what the R-D1s adds to the original R-D1 feature-set.
DPNow technical consultant, Danny Chau – an ardent R-D1 owner and user, can read some Japanese text and confirmed that the headline feature updates are the inclusion of an Adobe RGB colour space mode, for in-camera JPEGs to supplement the original's SRGB JPEG mode, and the addition of a simultaneous RAW and JPEG recording mode.
There is also some mention of support for Epson's Print Image Matching version III (PIM III) system for optimising the printing of original camera images. This may relate to the addition of PictBridge direct printing functionality in the R-D1s too. Whether these features will be of much interest to a typical R-D1 user is a moot point, though Danny does say he is very impressed by the camera's JPEG quality output.
It's now two years since the R-D1 prototype was shown to surprised visitors to PMA in Las Vegas. There had been talk of the R-D1, which is a joint venture with camera manufacturer, Cosina, being a limited edition run of 10,000, though we understand it has sold well beyond that limit and demand for the £2,000 ($3,000) camera remains healthy.