Just got my new R-D1 .. general questions on it?! :)

[jimbobuk]

Hi folks..

Not got enough time yet to add enough to this thread, over the next few days i'll add the odd question as it comes up.

The camera arrived and is in good working order.. everything seems ok.. in the short.

i) it has some hot pixels visible in various conditions, getting worse with higher ISOs, and darker exposed conditions.. not counted them but at the worst setting i'd say there are definitely a few.. I tried some exposures with the lens cap on at various ISOs.. this is a silly testcase as it forces a length exposure at all ISOs... it seemed that by the end of doing a long 1600 exposure there were loads of heated pixels.. I'm guessing that at that sensitivity it would never occur unless shooting in a similarly pitch black setting (ie. never then) .. in normal use there are a few hot pixels seemingly visible if they were lit up strongly.. ie. darker conditions brings them out where as exposures in brighter light has fewer to none of them. On the whole i think its fine, not a big problem at all..

ii) the range finder seems accurate, i can focus at 1.7 with reasonable accuracy.. my glasses and my general eye sight seems to conspire a little against easy use of the viewfinder.. its getting easier.. I have noticed that the overlayed 2nd image seems to be slightly out in the vertical direction (though i can nearly perfectly fix this by moving my eye position relative to the viewfinder though its starting to have to move the eye too high to see through the finder as well as i could).. ie. when you make it focus you can see its focused and aligned in the horizontal but its slightly out in the vertical. Is this deliberate? Is this easily fixable, I've heard about a screw under the hotshoe?? I can easily live with it, it seems to be worse at the nearer distances of focus, its hard to quantify distances but if you are looking at an edge thats horizontal i'd say it becomes slightly thicker or minutely seperated from the actual image when focused.. ie. slightly above where that line is in the main window.

I've taken some shots to check the straightness of the framelines, not looked at those images yet.

All in all I'm more happy than bothered by these minor issues.. it feels nice and firm, and weighty in the hand... the wind on is nice, reminds me of film cameras even though i've not really shot with many only recently with my XA.

I'll hopefully be taking a load more shots with it over the next few days to get a real feel for things. Anything else i should look out for?

Thats about it for now.. cheers, and as always your advice is really appreciated.

 

[jlw]

Welcome to the fractious R-D 1 family! I'll stick a few answers in amongst your questions:

It has some hot pixels visible in various conditions, getting worse with higher ISOs, and darker exposed conditions.. not counted them but at the worst setting i'd say there are definitely a few.. I tried some exposures with the lens cap on at various ISOs.. this is a silly testcase as it forces a length exposure at all ISOs... it seemed that by the end of doing a long 1600 exposure there were loads of heated pixels.. I'm guessing that at that sensitivity it would never occur unless shooting in a similarly pitch black setting (ie. never then) .. in normal use there are a few hot pixels seemingly visible if they were lit up strongly.. ie. darker conditions brings them out where as exposures in brighter light has fewer to none of them. On the whole i think its fine, not a big problem at all..

It's not unusual to have a few of these (nor is it unusual with digital cameras other than the R-D 1!) especially when you're shooting JPEG image. JPEG compression adds edge "artifacts" that make the hot pixels more apparent. The ones you describe sound exactly typical. Only you can be the judge of whether or not the number and location of the hot pixels are a problem for you.

One workaround for the problem is to shoot in raw mode rather than JPEG; most of the raw-image converter software has the capability of detecting and "spotting out" hot pixels.

I have noticed that the overlayed 2nd image seems to be slightly out in the vertical direction (though i can nearly perfectly fix this by moving my eye position relative to the viewfinder though its starting to have to move the eye too high to see through the finder as well as i could).. ie. when you make it focus you can see its focused and aligned in the horizontal but its slightly out in the vertical. Is this deliberate? Is this easily fixable, I've heard about a screw under the hotshoe??

This is also something several other R-D 1 owners on RFF have encountered. No, it's not deliberate, and yes, your eye position can have something to do with it. But if the RF patch is noticeably misaligned vertically when you're viewing with your eye in a comfortably centered position at the eyepiece, it's undesirable.

Yes, it can be adjusted easily via a screw under the hot shoe. However, it takes a bit of dexterity and the right tools to remove the hot shoe without scratching the top cover, and to turn the screw (it's very tiny) without disturbing any of the other adjustments there.

If you bought your camera new so it has a warranty, you might want to have it professionally adjusted (or exchanged) under warranty rather than risk bunging it up by doing it yourself. If you bought your camera used and it's not covered by a warranty, there are independent repair people (Don A. Goldberg is one) who can adjust these rangefinders for you.

I'll hopefully be taking a load more shots with it over the next few days to get a real feel for things. Anything else i should look out for?

One other problem that's reported occasionally is inaccurate focusing, especially at close distances and/or with one particular lens or another. It sounds as if you've already done some basic checking for that, but you might want to do it a little more formally, with every lens you have for your R-D 1, just to make sure it's okay.

Beyond that, just check the normal things you check with any camera that's new to you: General operation, smoothness of controls and that they all work, try the flash sync contacts, etc.

Again, welcome -- we'll look forward to hearing how you're doing.

 

[Gid]

Jim,

What you have described is fairly common. I haven't noticed any hot pixels on mine - I always shoot in raw and I've never looked for them. My RF patch drifts occasionally vertically and I've fixed it myself - really easy to do after the first time, but you do need jewellers screwdrivers (ie small but not short) a torch and a light touch.

My advice to you is to go and shoot some "normal" pictures and check out the results. If the majority of your shots are tilted, then you may have out of square frame lines although it takes a while to get used to this camera if you're new to RF - my initial shots were all over the place, but these days most are bang on.

Shoot raw - your control over the results is worth the effort.

Shots straight out of the camera will look a little soft, so apply some USM before worrying about focus issues.

Summary - use it and if you like the results then don't worry. DO NOT GO LOOKING FOR PROBLEMS - YOU'LL ALWAYS FIND SOMETHING!

Just enjoy it.

Gid

 

[jimbobuk]

Thanks for the replies guys. I'll do some more formal checking when i can. Some normal shooting will happen in a sec, so hopefully it'll have good results.

I may be interested in fixing this vertical alignment issue but it sounds complicated. A page or thorough description on how to do it would be great. Getting it serviced to do this is an option. I don't think it has an epson warranty anymore, and being based in the UK i wouldn't want to send it abroad to be fixed for something relatively minor.

I'll see if the viewlines are out significantly.. I'm guessing that eye position can skew this slightly to.. I did take one shot last night and its not perfectly straight but its hard to remember, more formal testing required. To be honest i'm not overlay bothered about being out by a small amount, I'm not usually THAT strict with my horizontals when taking pictures anyway so it wouldn't annoy me that much. I'm assuming the framelines are much more difficult to fix, ie. it has to be properly serviced.

Hot pixels seem to be taken care of by my raw program, ideally they'd be none but its not that bad so far. I guess the CMOS in my canon is much better from this perspective.. it only really showed up occasional ones with lens cap on shots looking for it, i can't say i've ever noticed them in a proper shot, including long exposures that i did for fireworks and other night time shots. Then again a lot of people with better eyes than me dont like the colours the CMOS produce.. I certainly like the colours grabbed so far by the R-D1.

Anyways, enough.. Thanks again.. To be continued 🙂