edlaurpic
Established
Having just purchased (and returned) for a refund an R-D1S that I got from a Japanese dealer, this is to provide some actual hands-on experience with the camera. (The reason I returned it was that the camera was advertised as coming with an English Language manual, but it came without one ... no hard copy book, no CD, no downloadable user's guide for the new camera. . .. everything was in Japanese.
First, the good news:
All of the features that were described in the recent release about the R-D1S appear to work beautifully. It is particularly nice not to have to deal with the double-push shutter release problem and to be able to magnify raw files as much as jpegs in the LCD. The menus are extensions of the old ones and also very easy to use and understand. I took some shots with the current model 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit in low light in a restaurant and they are beautiful, less noisy in low light areas, even nicer with more natural color (at least in the camera I got) than my original RD-1.
Now the bad news:
Both of these dealers would not promise to exchange the camera for a new one if the one purchased was defective (e.g. was not focusing correctly or was still doing the double push shutter thing), even if it were defective right out of the box. At least Epson USA, although, as near as I can tell, do not fix a returned camera, replace it with a new one if youur camera is malfunctioning. Similarly, the only way the Japanese dealers said they would deal with a malfunctioning camera is you would have to send them back the camera they would take it to Epson if something went wrong (visions of weeks or months of delays). That said, even without the guide, I was able to figure everything out pretty well. I did not test the upres capability and am not sure if the hot pixel fix worked, but I expect if I had checked I would have found that it did. Lastly, the rangefinder base length issues are still there with the camera, so about half of my dozen or so Leica lenses focused right on; the rest were slightly off (close focusing).
So this is what I have concluded:
If I can get a camera from a dealer in Europe or Japan who will agree to replace a malfunctioning camera, I might spring for the $2500 and buy an R-D1S and sell my old R.D1 . On the other hand, if I can get the firmware update in June, I see no downside in holding on to my R-D1, except for the delay in getting the new features.
First, the good news:
All of the features that were described in the recent release about the R-D1S appear to work beautifully. It is particularly nice not to have to deal with the double-push shutter release problem and to be able to magnify raw files as much as jpegs in the LCD. The menus are extensions of the old ones and also very easy to use and understand. I took some shots with the current model 21mm f/2.8 Elmarit in low light in a restaurant and they are beautiful, less noisy in low light areas, even nicer with more natural color (at least in the camera I got) than my original RD-1.
Now the bad news:
Both of these dealers would not promise to exchange the camera for a new one if the one purchased was defective (e.g. was not focusing correctly or was still doing the double push shutter thing), even if it were defective right out of the box. At least Epson USA, although, as near as I can tell, do not fix a returned camera, replace it with a new one if youur camera is malfunctioning. Similarly, the only way the Japanese dealers said they would deal with a malfunctioning camera is you would have to send them back the camera they would take it to Epson if something went wrong (visions of weeks or months of delays). That said, even without the guide, I was able to figure everything out pretty well. I did not test the upres capability and am not sure if the hot pixel fix worked, but I expect if I had checked I would have found that it did. Lastly, the rangefinder base length issues are still there with the camera, so about half of my dozen or so Leica lenses focused right on; the rest were slightly off (close focusing).
So this is what I have concluded:
If I can get a camera from a dealer in Europe or Japan who will agree to replace a malfunctioning camera, I might spring for the $2500 and buy an R-D1S and sell my old R.D1 . On the other hand, if I can get the firmware update in June, I see no downside in holding on to my R-D1, except for the delay in getting the new features.
