Its here

[Jamieson]

My R-D1X has arrived in amazing condition and ive been getting used to the camera. The shutter crank takes some getting used too but i find myself actually quite enjoying having to use it .. Bizarre !

I do some small issues, i hope somebody can help me with.

- I have a Voigtlander 35mm Ultra lens, wide open (F1.7-F2.8) it is very very soft and suffers from pretty strong chromatic aberrations. Is that normal or it is just this lens ?

- The manual focus / rangefinder seems to work well, but i find that there is a lot of play in the focus, i seem to be able to turn the focus ring about 10-15 degrees before i see a change reflected in the rangefinder system. Again is this normal ? Is that because this is an LTM lens on an adapter so the coupling isnt great ?

Hope you can offer some helpful advise, thanks

Jamieson...

 

[porktaco]

shouldn't be any play in the focus.

might be the lens. i shot a canon 28 on my rd-1 a lot, and it's not a lens noted for its corner sharpness.

 

[steveclem]

Sounds like the lens has a long(ish) focus throw, do you have any M mount lens to compare it against?
Welcome to the club, did yours come with the grip?

 

[Jamieson]

Unfortunately its the only lens i have... ive been pondering buying a VC 40mm 1.4 to see if that fixes it.. any idea if it has any issues on this camera ?

My camera is the R-D1X only, not the XG ...


Thanks

 

[steveclem]

I've had nothing like that with either of mine, I'm sure it's a lens thing, take it to a dealer and ask to try another lens or two. The vertical patch on the rangefinder mechanism sometimes drifts but it's a relatively easy fix.
Try this place for lots of info. http://r-d1.info/camera-use/problematic-lenses/

That's just one section of the site, shed loads more info there.

 

[jsrockit]

That lens is not soft.

 

[raytoei@gmail.com]

I like to do the following test on my R-D1,
(well, cheaper to do on digital than film):

Switch aperture to widest setting, f1.7m

Use a newspaper put it around 1.5 - 2m away, newspaper
upright propped against a wall or pillow.

I suggest the news paper, best with banner and with small text below.
(Humans recognise text better than other objects.)

Test the camera with the following 6 shots.

Rotate the lens from Infinity as starting point, "INF"
then rotate from INF to near your object, with VC lens,
the focusing patch should move from left to right.
Focus until you are near one of the selected letters on
the newspaper, by near, i mean a couple of mm in your
focus patch from the left. Take an exposure, call this "INF-LEFT"

Next do it spot on the Letter, "INF-MED" and do this
2mm (viewfinder patch wise), shoot and call this "INF-RIGHT"

With this done, rotate the lens until near focus, say 0.7m. i usually
name this as "ONE", and this time, rotate from nearest 0.7m to near
the subject, RF patch should move from RIGHT to LEFT.
Same thing except 2mm right side from the focus, take a snapshot,
call this "ONE-RIGHT", so the same for MED and LEFT.

Compare the images.

The purpose is to see if the lens and the camera RF is aligned. And if not aligned,
which image is sharpest, so if "INF-LEFT" is sharpest image, then next time you
shoot at f1.7, you may want to be left of centre by 2mm.

I do this for my lens and camera bodies. Some of my old camera body RF
are misaligned while some of my older lenses do get misaligned as well.

This works for me.

The 100% crop example above is typical of the test i do,
i focus on the R in STREET and i check the smaller letters below.

In the above example, on my R-D1, the 1950s Summarit 50 f1.5
is sharpest at "ONE-LEFT", ie. when shot wide-open at f1.5
when focusing from 1m to slightly off centre on the left.
Of course at more narrow apertures, this sort of accuracy
in focusing doesn't matter since the DOF will cover the error.

raytoei

 

[ericzhu]

- The manual focus / rangefinder seems to work well, but i find that there is a lot of play in the focus, i seem to be able to turn the focus ring about 10-15 degrees before i see a change reflected in the rangefinder system. Again is this normal ? Is that because this is an LTM lens on an adapter so the coupling isnt great ?

Jamieson...

I have a nikkor 35/2.5 LTM lens, it has the similar focus issue, and I know the reason now, pls. refer to:
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128234

 

[Jamieson]

Ive been doing a bit more testing... the lens seems to be very very soft at F1.7 & F2, and it sharpens up a bit by F2.8. By F4 it delivers nice crisp images..

How does the CV 40mm or 35mm F1.4 perform on the R-D1 ? Im thinking about a lens change, before i loose faith in my purchases...

 

[Classique]

Maybe the rd1x rf is not aligned correctly? From my experience, Ultron is not a soft lens and it should be clearly sharp by f2. Also, Ultron doesn't have that big of a focus throw and I can tell you that lenses with long focus throw (I have 2) shows RF movement even if I turn it by 1-2 degrees.

It could be that your ltm to m adapter is blocking part of the RF roller on the camera like ericzhu mentioned above. You should check if the cut out of the adapter is in line with the roller when the lens is mounted.

One thing with RD1 is that (only digital RF I have) focus issues not very apparent with film shows up on RD1.

 

[Classique]

Ive been doing a bit more testing... the lens seems to be very very soft at F1.7 & F2, and it sharpens up a bit by F2.8. By F4 it delivers nice crisp images..

How does the CV 40mm or 35mm F1.4 perform on the R-D1 ? Im thinking about a lens change, before i loose faith in my purchases...

On a different note, CV 35mm 1.4 stays on my RD1 most of the time. Size and ergonomic makes it a perfect combo for normal situations (not too tele or wide)

 

[Bille]

Ive been doing a bit more testing... the lens seems to be very very soft at F1.7 & F2, and it sharpens up a bit by F2.8. By F4 it delivers nice crisp images..

How does the CV 40mm or 35mm F1.4 perform on the R-D1 ? Im thinking about a lens change, before i loose faith in my purchases...

Scroll down for samples of the Ultron at f2 and stopped down.
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/lenses/fastlensreview.shtml

Also, what raytoei said.