Early Thoughts and a coupla questions

[chrisso]

I've been using my RD-1s with a couple of Leica M lenses in low light situations (touring the US with a band).
I'm no more than an amateur photographer, so although I have mostly RF experience, it's taken me a lot of trial and error to get at least one image in the camera I regard as 'good'........or good enough for me.
So far I'm doing no more than previewing the images (all RAW) in Epson's PhotoRAW.
Should I be buying a 'better' RAW converter?
I'll probably buy some kind of version of Photoshop once I want to progress to processing, archiving and printing some pictures.
Anyway, I love the B&W images the RD-1s produces.
The camera is simple and straightforward to use, just my inexperience in photography and digital photography is stopping me from creating more pictures.
Initially I have two problems......
1) Metering.
The onboard histogram graph is most often bunched down the lower end of the spectrum. So I've tried to over compensate by a stop, despite what the meter tells me. The histogram still barely touches the higher register, but the resultant images look nice. Also, in PhotoRAW's 'overexposure warning' feature, some of my highlights are coloured red. Is it normal to blow out a few highs in order to get a better exposure for the main subject? Should I continue to ignore the RD-1s meter to a certain extent?
2) Focusing.
My RAW images look sharp - thankfully.
But I'm having trouble focusing in low light situations. I'm having to point the camera at a high contrast area, just to see enough of the two images to converge them. My M6 is much easier to use. Am I doing something wrong.
Secondly, I can converge vertical lines to produce a sharp image in the viewfinder, but horizontal elements always seem to be misaligned. Does this mean my RF is out? As I said, I'm coping OK with the vertical plane and my RAW files look suitably sharp.
I'm just finding the RD-1s much more taxing to focus than my M6.
Thanks for any thoughts and advice.

 

[J. Borger]

Chrisso,

For the metering . .... in my experience the Raw files are indeed to the left of the histogram (conservative metering to protect the highlights)...i would not worry about "right" metering because such a thing does not exist. If you like your pictures on the dark side there is noting wrong with a histogram to the left. I have done it myself several times ... compensating exposure to get a histogram in the middle ..... but after that i made it darker in post-processing (putting the histogram back to the left again) because i wanted a dark mood y picture.
In other situations, for instance if i want a high key image ... i expose to the right and blow the sky (highlights) to complete white for instance.

So it all depends on the scene and more important ..... the way you want your image to look!
You are your own judge here ...
If you shoot into the light (for instance for a band on stage) it is normal to overrule any meter by at least a stop .. so if your pictures look nice that way .. keep on compensating that 1 stop. You are in charge not the meter!

THe nice thing with raw-files is that you can always compensate afterwards to a certain extent🙂

 

[Terao]

Many here consider that the R-D1 is set to bias towards underexposure in order to protect the highlights. I tend to shoot as metered and then adjust in PhotoRaw as the amount of correction varies. Overall though the meter does a good job, certainly indiscernible from my all-singing all-dancing Nikon DSLR metering.

I don't have problems focussing in low light, vertically or horizontally. What I do find is that I need to pull the focus of my eye to see the rf patch clearly - can't describe it but I almost need to concentrate on the patch. My rf is fine horizontally and just a touch out vertically, bear in mind that the rangefinder base length is much shorter than a Leica so it will be harder to find focus.

As far as RAW goes I do my basic adjustsments in PhotoRAW and finish in Photoshop. Most times the files don't get as far Photoshop...

 

[rvaubel]

Chrisso
You have found what a lot of us have found i.e. the Epson seems to want to protect highlights a little too agressively. I tend to dial in about +2/3 stop exposure compensation.

As to the focusing, the Leica is better. What do expect for 3K? It also sounds like you have a little vertical alignment problem. However, most of us have been able to achieve good focusing results despite Epson's so-so implimentation of the rangefinder.

Its a great camera, but it's no Leica.

Rex

 

[chrisso]

Thanks for the help. 🙂