Pioneer DF-S2 (2001)

The Pioneer DF-S2 was a digital scanning back designed for medium format cameras like Hasselblad models. I think it was Pioneer's only contribution to the digital camera market. The scanning back had an enormous resolution of 18.5MP and could create images as large as 17460 x 10600 pixels (for each color that is). Nothing for the average joe back then as home computer couldn't handle the size of the images. A special computer to process the images was expensive but mandatory (one full scale color scan resulted in a 1GB file!). An image scan took up to 15 minutes and 30 minutes for a full 6-band image (14bit color and 8bit grayscale). The digital back was ideal for large scale, detailed photography of 3D objects or highly detailed images of tapestries, paintngs etc. The digital back was sold for a staggering 5,000,000 Yen, equal to some $50,000 making it one of the most expensive digital backs of all time.

The digital back came in an aluminum suitcase with a processing unit and a dedicated 10 meter cord. The processing unit was attached to a computer by SCSI-2. The camera weighted 2kg, the processing unit another 2kg and the suitcase even 7kg. The digital back could be operated under Windows and MAC computers.