menos
Veteran
I upload now the first files, I got out of my new EPSON R-D1.
They are more of the playful and snapshot kind, to evaluate the behavior of the camera under certain conditions. Please excuse the trivial character of the content therefore ;-)
…
Shooting the EPSON for the first time is pretty straight forward, if you used a Leica M for a few weeks. Nothing about it seems to be complicated or going in the way of shooting. What pleased me the most, is that shooting it "as a film camera" with the LCD disabled works very, very well. There is no need of chimping or interaction with menus. You can just photograph like with any well made film camera. At no point of operation, the camera demands the photographer of using the LCD or a menu, to set up a function during shooting. All controls including ISO, WB, file quality, shutter speed, aperture have direct, mechanical controls on the body as found on well made classic film cameras.
There is no need, to read through menus for changing white balance or ISO as with other digital cameras. It is a very successful and operation oriented design in this respect. The camera is not exactly handsome, but highly functional in its design.
People can argue about the shutter advance lever or the jog dial. Both solutions though are easy to use and do justice to their respective underlying functions. The decision on the jog dial usage and placement is entirely valid, even for one handed operation of the camera, as it is only used during maneuvering the menus - not during shooting. This is very similar to the usage of the rewind know on classic Rangefinder designs, being used only during shooting brakes, to change film.
The manual shutter advance allows for a design without internal motors for shutter cocking and the decision for a noiseless preparation for the next frame in critical operation. The actual noise after depressing the shutter release is a short metallic click (slightly louder than a Leica cloth shutter due to the higher pitch but much less noisier than any SLR, I tried so far).
The battery life of the 3 used Li-Ion batteries of unknown source though let me down, which can and should not reflect the cameras performance (I was surprised, one gave me only about 25 frames). I bought 2 more NP80 samples today, unfortunately with only 1350mAh, as these were the only ones, locally available.
I am looking forward, to check their frame count during the next weeks.
The "Fuji NP80" style batteries with 3.6 − 3.7V and 1350 − 1800mAh are of a standard type, used in many different Japanese electronic devices and widely available from different (mostly Chinese) manufacturers. Costs for these are very low.
I shot on yesterdays rainy evening just about 2 rolls of film during some break of the heavy downpour, we had yesterday in Shanghai. I shot RAW + JPG as I plan, to use the B+W JPGs out of camera the most. They show a very high quality to my eye. The RAW files, I plan to use for color work or critical processing with shadows and highlights.
File quality:
I had to pick my chin off the ground, after I saw the first frames in Lightroom without any processing. I simply was not prepared, to see such files from an (in my mind) already old digital camera.
JPG as well as RAW are exceptionally clean and have a very, very fine and pleasant grain. People, who demand noiseless, clinic digital files for landscape or studio work should look elsewhere. This camera is not ideally used (but of course possible to be used) for these kind of photographic tasks.
I shot the entire evening @ ISO 1600 and will continue to do so (with film, I usually shoot @ ISO 3200 under such lighting conditions).
I had only a few moments with the camera and files so far but could not resist, to take one of the exemplary low light shots, I do most of the time (city life, very dark with strong light sources across the frame and quickly moving subjects) and dialed a +2 stop exposure correction (!!!) from ISO 1600 to ISO 6400 in without any further correction or processing.
ISO 1600 as exposed in camera:
ISO 6400, pushed JPG (!) by 2 stops in Lightroom 2.5:
unprocessed RAW file:
A 3 stop push to ISO 12400 was also easily possibly, but would need further corrections, as first banding fragments appeared in the extreme dark areas in the picture - I was too lazy for that now, but I promise, this will be the direction, where my usage of the R-D1 goes. Said banding @ ISO 12400 looked similar in excess to the banding, I get from Ricoh GRDIII files @ ISO 1600 in similar lighting conditions without any pushing. This is very impressive indeed.
I am very, very impressed too by the files in terms of highlight and black point quality. Without any adjustment only the slightest bit of blown highlights can be found, which can be corrected with the slightest adjustment even from the JPGs (this is not the case with my Nikon 12MP files from the D3 and D300).
A good example for this is the shot of the young woman, turning towards me in heavy traffic.
I exposed the shot for her dark clothes and wanted to create a flowing white traffic wall behind her with a slow shutter of 1/30. Her turning head was slightly to quick for the shutter though.
The file had NO BLOWN HIGHLIGHTS, except the slightest thin line around the overexposed area.
I have never seen that before! The EPSON seems to have a very wide margin, when it comes to overexposing highlights compared to my Nikon cameras, which I have to dial down 1/3 or 2/3 stops with exposure compensation in program modes.
When I started, to shoot more pushed Tri-X than my Nikon DSLRs, I did this explicitly because of the more robust files, I could extract from the negatives.
With the EPSON R-D1 though, it looks, as it is possible, to use the digital Rangefinder parallel to my Leica M with Tri-X without a quality downside.
I am so happy with the camera, that I might work on a small review with lots of photographs, when I find some time for it (my daily work has priority though).
…
Used processing: import, sharpening, slight (+/- 0.3 EV) exposure correction, export as JPG with sharpening for screen)
All BW frames are direct JPGs out of the camera itself (color set in camera to monochrome).
All color photographs are RAW files without any processing for color reference.
All frames were shot with the Leica 50mm f1.4 Summilux ASPH mostly wide open.
Please excuse, the lack of precise focus, as the rangefinder still needs to be adjusted. That is a project for the next free weekend (if there will be any ;-))
--
www.teknopunk.com
www.teknopunk.com/load.meter.shutterspeed.aperture.shoot/
They are more of the playful and snapshot kind, to evaluate the behavior of the camera under certain conditions. Please excuse the trivial character of the content therefore ;-)
…
Shooting the EPSON for the first time is pretty straight forward, if you used a Leica M for a few weeks. Nothing about it seems to be complicated or going in the way of shooting. What pleased me the most, is that shooting it "as a film camera" with the LCD disabled works very, very well. There is no need of chimping or interaction with menus. You can just photograph like with any well made film camera. At no point of operation, the camera demands the photographer of using the LCD or a menu, to set up a function during shooting. All controls including ISO, WB, file quality, shutter speed, aperture have direct, mechanical controls on the body as found on well made classic film cameras.
There is no need, to read through menus for changing white balance or ISO as with other digital cameras. It is a very successful and operation oriented design in this respect. The camera is not exactly handsome, but highly functional in its design.
People can argue about the shutter advance lever or the jog dial. Both solutions though are easy to use and do justice to their respective underlying functions. The decision on the jog dial usage and placement is entirely valid, even for one handed operation of the camera, as it is only used during maneuvering the menus - not during shooting. This is very similar to the usage of the rewind know on classic Rangefinder designs, being used only during shooting brakes, to change film.
The manual shutter advance allows for a design without internal motors for shutter cocking and the decision for a noiseless preparation for the next frame in critical operation. The actual noise after depressing the shutter release is a short metallic click (slightly louder than a Leica cloth shutter due to the higher pitch but much less noisier than any SLR, I tried so far).
The battery life of the 3 used Li-Ion batteries of unknown source though let me down, which can and should not reflect the cameras performance (I was surprised, one gave me only about 25 frames). I bought 2 more NP80 samples today, unfortunately with only 1350mAh, as these were the only ones, locally available.
I am looking forward, to check their frame count during the next weeks.
The "Fuji NP80" style batteries with 3.6 − 3.7V and 1350 − 1800mAh are of a standard type, used in many different Japanese electronic devices and widely available from different (mostly Chinese) manufacturers. Costs for these are very low.
I shot on yesterdays rainy evening just about 2 rolls of film during some break of the heavy downpour, we had yesterday in Shanghai. I shot RAW + JPG as I plan, to use the B+W JPGs out of camera the most. They show a very high quality to my eye. The RAW files, I plan to use for color work or critical processing with shadows and highlights.
File quality:
I had to pick my chin off the ground, after I saw the first frames in Lightroom without any processing. I simply was not prepared, to see such files from an (in my mind) already old digital camera.
JPG as well as RAW are exceptionally clean and have a very, very fine and pleasant grain. People, who demand noiseless, clinic digital files for landscape or studio work should look elsewhere. This camera is not ideally used (but of course possible to be used) for these kind of photographic tasks.
I shot the entire evening @ ISO 1600 and will continue to do so (with film, I usually shoot @ ISO 3200 under such lighting conditions).
I had only a few moments with the camera and files so far but could not resist, to take one of the exemplary low light shots, I do most of the time (city life, very dark with strong light sources across the frame and quickly moving subjects) and dialed a +2 stop exposure correction (!!!) from ISO 1600 to ISO 6400 in without any further correction or processing.
ISO 1600 as exposed in camera:
ISO 6400, pushed JPG (!) by 2 stops in Lightroom 2.5:
unprocessed RAW file:
A 3 stop push to ISO 12400 was also easily possibly, but would need further corrections, as first banding fragments appeared in the extreme dark areas in the picture - I was too lazy for that now, but I promise, this will be the direction, where my usage of the R-D1 goes. Said banding @ ISO 12400 looked similar in excess to the banding, I get from Ricoh GRDIII files @ ISO 1600 in similar lighting conditions without any pushing. This is very impressive indeed.
I am very, very impressed too by the files in terms of highlight and black point quality. Without any adjustment only the slightest bit of blown highlights can be found, which can be corrected with the slightest adjustment even from the JPGs (this is not the case with my Nikon 12MP files from the D3 and D300).
A good example for this is the shot of the young woman, turning towards me in heavy traffic.
I exposed the shot for her dark clothes and wanted to create a flowing white traffic wall behind her with a slow shutter of 1/30. Her turning head was slightly to quick for the shutter though.
The file had NO BLOWN HIGHLIGHTS, except the slightest thin line around the overexposed area.
I have never seen that before! The EPSON seems to have a very wide margin, when it comes to overexposing highlights compared to my Nikon cameras, which I have to dial down 1/3 or 2/3 stops with exposure compensation in program modes.
When I started, to shoot more pushed Tri-X than my Nikon DSLRs, I did this explicitly because of the more robust files, I could extract from the negatives.
With the EPSON R-D1 though, it looks, as it is possible, to use the digital Rangefinder parallel to my Leica M with Tri-X without a quality downside.
I am so happy with the camera, that I might work on a small review with lots of photographs, when I find some time for it (my daily work has priority though).
…
Used processing: import, sharpening, slight (+/- 0.3 EV) exposure correction, export as JPG with sharpening for screen)
All BW frames are direct JPGs out of the camera itself (color set in camera to monochrome).
All color photographs are RAW files without any processing for color reference.
All frames were shot with the Leica 50mm f1.4 Summilux ASPH mostly wide open.
Please excuse, the lack of precise focus, as the rangefinder still needs to be adjusted. That is a project for the next free weekend (if there will be any ;-))
--
www.teknopunk.com
www.teknopunk.com/load.meter.shutterspeed.aperture.shoot/
