A few more R-D1 / Zeiss 28mm Biogon pics

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Another "test" day with this lens yesterday. It's very much as I remembered from the G system. Very sharp at f/4 and up. The R-D1's auto white balance leaves something to be desired--shooting RAW is a necessity, I think. The Zeiss underexposes in daylight on the R-D1, but there is lots of shadow detail to be extracted in those files. In these pics I added a bit of fill light and "clarity" in Lightroom, after adjusting exposure.

I can't get over how awesome the "clarity" slider is in LR. It's like a highly selective contrast control that finds areas of mild contrast, like a cloud against blue sky, and gives the edges more definition. If you turn up the fill light and clarity all the way, then desaturate a bit, it looks like an illustration from a 1950's magazine. That's not what I'm doing here, though.

 

[Tuolumne]

Glad to see you out and about with the R-D1. 🙂 Is that the Harvard campus? There seems to be a bit of a magenta cast, especially in the sky pictures with clouds. Are you using a UV/IR filter? It really makes a big difference in color trueness.

/T

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

That's Cornell, where I teach creative writing. A very beautiful campus! The tuba players are outside my building.

I have some B&W UV filters in 39mm, but need to get one for the Zeiss, which I think is 46. does a plain old UV filter do the job, or do I need something special?

 

[Tuolumne]

You need an IR filter, but they are combined with a UV filter to give a high and low cut. Only the visible light spectrum is passed. It's the IR contamination that creates the magenta cast. So, yes, they are different. Unfortunately, they are rather pricey. Any of the advertisers here sell them. I usually try to buy a used one from Popflash to help cut the price, as well as the IR. But sometimes only new is availeble. The R-D1 needs them as badly as the M8, but only the M8 gets bashed for it.

/T

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

The R-D1 needs them as badly as the M8, but only the M8 gets bashed for it.

That's because the M8 costs five grand and is made by the supposedly best camera manufacturer in history...

 

[pgmj]

Hmm, I was under the impression that the magenta cast only shows up in tungsten lighting. Is it really an issue in sunlight?

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Tuolumne, maybe you could post a couple of otherwise identical daylight pics, one with the filter and one without...

 

[Jim Watts]

I think the slight move to the left of the Tint slider under White Balance in Lightroom would remove the Magenta cast in the skies here.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I think the slight move to the left of the Tint slider under White Balance in Lightroom would remove the Magenta cast in the skies here.

Great, thanks for the tip! I'll do that. My color vision is lousy, I'm afraid...I'm red/green color-poor and it's hard for me to see subtle casts like that.

 

[Nh3]

Hello mabelsound,

I took the liberty of trying to fix some of your pictures because they were just test shots, and hopefully show you that they're far better than you might actually think.

I used photoshop auto levels and unmask sharpening and on the tuba picture i tried to balance the light. I also run both pictures through the Kodachrome preset of Exposure2.

I hope you like them.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Hey, yeah, I do like that, thanks! I've got PS as well and rarely use it...I'll have to check all that out. Exposure is definitely on my wish list as well.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

Here we go, Nh3, I managed to get pretty close to your result without paying a couple hundred bucks for Exposure ;-)

 

[KJF]

I notice lightroom is cranking up the "tint" slider in my photos from the Epson R-D1 as well. Just as Jim says turn the tine down towards green a bit makes it better.

 

[Gid]

In my experience, Lightroom does not do justice to the RD1 when compared to Epson Photoraw, particularly with white balance.

There is some IR contamination with the RD1, but it is not in the M8's league - I have used both extensively so speak from experience. I will happily use the RD1 without IR cut filters and don't have to worry about all the people in the shot wearing magenta outfits.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

In my experience, Lightroom does not do justice to the RD1 when compared to Epson Photoraw, particularly with white balance.

I think you're right--but I just spent half an hour making a couple of R-D1 presets for Lightroom, one for bright sun, one for deep shade w/highlights...it's not hard & makes a new baseline to work from.

 

[Nh3]

Here we go, Nh3, I managed to get pretty close to your result without paying a couple hundred bucks for Exposure ;-)

The wonderful world of digital post-processing. 🙂

One thing which I love about digital is the sheer amount of detail in every exposure which gives you a lot of flexibility later on - especially when shooting RAW.

 

[KJF]

I think you're right--but I just spent half an hour making a couple of R-D1 presets for Lightroom, one for bright sun, one for deep shade w/highlights...it's not hard & makes a new baseline to work from.

Care to share your presets? I would love to see how close we can get to EpsonRaw. I played for awhile last night but still couldn't overcome the "muddiness" in lightroom.

I need to shoot some more with the R-D1 to get some more decent photos first but the lightroom workflow is so much more enjoyable it's worth trying. I used Lightroom exclusively with my previous cameras (Canon 5D and Nikon D300) and it was great, particularly with the D300.

 

[35mmdelux]

i like the pix as they were posted originally. the rest of the discussion is like splitting hairs. I hope my 28mm/2.8 ASPH can perform as good. tks.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

i like the pix as they were posted originally. the rest of the discussion is like splitting hairs. I hope my 28mm/2.8 ASPH can perform as good. tks.

Yeah, the point was to show some minimally processed pics, to give an idea of how the lens behaves on the camera--glad you liked 'em!

Care to share your presets? I would love to see how close we can get to EpsonRaw. I played for awhile last night but still couldn't overcome the "muddiness" in lightroom.

Absolutely. here they are:

R-D1 Bright Sun, Neutral
R-D1 Bright Sun, Slide Flim
R-D1 Deep Shade w/Highlights

Just right-click and save as, or if you're on a Mac, do whatever you do on a Mac to save stuff. Please note, the bright sun ones include a boost in exposure, since I use AE on my R-D1 and it tends to underexpose in bright light. The shade one I believe has no exposure setting--it will just keep the exposure setting you've already chosen.

I think the key is getting the tone curve and sharpening right. Hope these are useful, at least as a basis for further tweaking.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

BTW, I am adjusting those bright sun presets so they're a little cooler. I've been testing them with other lenses and it seems as though the Zeiss tends to coolness...with other lenses, the WB is too warm.