Epson rd-1 skewed horizon?

[mastaliu]

Hi, I had a look at the resources and couldn't figure this out....my internet isn't the best so I'll go ahead and ask with apologies if the issue is fairly obvious:

All my shots with my RD-1 have skewed horizons- I thought it was my unsteady hand, but this happens even on a tripod or flat surface. Any ideas? I'm in PNG and reluctant to ship my beloved camera to Steve's Camera Service in California.

Thanks.

 

[uhligfd]

Any actual pictures available > they are digital, right, so please post some examples.

I would surmise they are operator errors, all of them.

 

[Phil_Hawkes]

I sympathize... with the OP. I am sure that I had the same problem. Could have been operator error, but I'm sure I was trying to shoot level with the horizon.

I haven't taken any outdoor photos for a while, so I don't have any photos on hand to demonstrate.

Phil

 

[mastaliu]

I can't post photos at the moment. Could be operator error of course, but I have tried everything I can think of - using a level, using a tripod, trying various scenarios, getting other people to shoot - same story, the horizon is always off by about 10%.

I get straight horizons with my other film rangefinder....not sure what's going on, but not using the Epson is driving me nuts!

thanks.

 

[SteveM(PA)]

Maybe your framelines are tilted? Mine are, by about 10% I guess, and it is a pain in the butt! But as far as I know, there is no fix. So I try to compensate, but I always forget. If anyone's had any luck fixing it, please give it up! 🙂

 

[Quinn Porter]

Any actual pictures available > they are digital, right, so please post some examples.

I would surmise they are operator errors, all of them.

Actually, the problem is probably tilted framelines. They're not uncommon on the RD-1.

 

[mastaliu]

This seems to have been a common factory fault with the RD-1, but this only started with mine several months ago, it shot fine before.

Fingers crossed there is some solution....

 

[back alley]

how would frame lines be the answer when the camera was on a flat surface?

 

[nksyoon]

Try some shots with a spirit level and a tripod to rule out user error. I've always been suspicious that the framelines on mine were tilted but never took the time to verify it.

 

[Mr_Flibble]

There's a slight tilt in mine too I guess. I was taking test pictures of my fire-place using a 35mm CV lens when I first got the camera. I lined up the tiles with the viewfinder and all images were slightly tilted.

It's only a minor annoyance to me though. But if it can be fixed I'd like to hear about it.

 

[ZorkiKat]

Someone in the forum reported two or three years ago that his Epson R-D1s had a "tilted" sensor. No amount of careful framing through an other wise aligned frame line can correct that.

My Epson shows view "higher" than what the sensor sees. The bottom part, in horizontal shots, is almost always cut off.

 

[Ezzie]

Mine's tilted too. Haven't tried out spirit level and tripod yet, but if shooting according to bright lines and lining these up against a veritical or horizontal it's always off. But by 10% ?When correcting this afterwards in Aperture, 2-3% usually does it.

 

[phototektour]

My pics are tilted too.

And testing very carefully the situation with an external viewfinder on a tripod it verified that the sensor is tilted :-(( That´s bad, but not very uncommon at digicams. The sensor of my first Pana LC-1 (=Digilux2) was tilted too. Afaik there is no fix except to send the cam back for changing. Make me lucky and tell me another story.

Fortunally the double pics in the center are tilted nearly to the right position to get a right horizont.

e.g.

 

[ZorkiKat]

( That´s bad, but not very uncommon at digicams.

Including DSLRs. My Pentax K10D has a tilted sensor too. And some parallax as well. The viewfinder shows less at the left and more to the right and bottom than what the sensor gets. Horizons get tilted. And when doing portraits, the top gets cut and more is shown at the bottom.

The parallax issue with DSLR is not unique to this Pentax. I saw this with my Fuji S2 too.

 

[Michiel Fokkema]

I tested a RD which I wanted to buy and had the same problem. It drove me nuts. I'm not sure if it was the framelines or the sensor.

Cheers,
Michiel Fokkema

 

[Ezzie]

As long as you're not too sparse when framing it can be corrected in post processing. But most of the time I check the monitor, which sometimes does disturb the flow. Can't quite decide yet, if it irritates me or not.

 

[kalex]

Glad I'm not the only one with this problem. when I got my R-D1 i thought i was going nuts 🙂. all shots were not aligned. Once I got use to the camera, the problem became less apparent. but its still tilted a bit, much less than when i first got the camera. It is an easy fix in Lightroom though so I'm not really worrying about it.

 

[BearCatCow]

Glad I'm not the only one with this problem. when I got my R-D1 i thought i was going nuts 🙂. all shots were not aligned. Once I got use to the camera, the problem became less apparent. but its still tilted a bit, much less than when i first got the camera. It is an easy fix in Lightroom though so I'm not really worrying about it.

It afflicts my camera slightly too but it's really not a big deal. I find it comparable to the slight skew you get trying to align your film in a scanner. 🙂 Like you say, a 5 second fix in lightroom/photoshop/picasa.

 

[Wallo]

I have actually observed that I have less often need to correct tilted horizons on handheld R-D1 images than on handheld DSLR images. My R-D1 hasn't seen a tripod yet, and I haven't tested the accuracy of the framelines in any controlled way.

 

[phototektour]

I have actually observed that I have less often need to correct tilted horizons on handheld R-D1 images than on handheld DSLR images. My R-D1 hasn't seen a tripod yet, and I haven't tested the accuracy of the framelines in any controlled way.

Don´t worry, be happy.
My R-D1 and D300 (and some more in the past) are going the other direction.