Lens suggestions for Epson rd1

[andjar]

It's best to get fast lenses for your r-d1.
The 7artisans 28mm f1.4 is great...no, it's fantastic!

Next i would hunt for a cheap voigtlander 21mm f4 color skopar.

 

[Godfrey]

On APS-C format, a 35mm focal length is a "traditional" 50mm equivalent normal. I bought a Voigtländer Color-Skopar 35mm f/2.5 (mint, in box, Ebay) for €371 delivered. That's an LTM lens ... I don't remember if the R-D1 takes LTM or M-bayonet at this point, you'd also need a mount adapter if the R-D1 is M-bayonet.

Personally, I find a fast normal lens is almost always my most used lens, and f/2.5 max aperture is fast enough for me. Even on my lenses that provide it, I only rarely use f/2 or larger lens openings, even on APS-C or FourThirds formats.

Just did a quick check and there are several Color-Skopar 35mm lenses available on Ebay at present for prices around €300.

G

 

[andjar]

I used a TTArtisan 50mm 1.4 on M Mount and saw some weird behavior. It would focus and be decently sharp close up until say 10 feet (even look nice) and then after say 15 to infinity, it just had a weird look and couldn't focus too accurately. I just haven't experienced that with Voigtlander or vintage lenses. They just work like they should.

Have you calibrated it? TT and 7artisans come with a calibration kit and many times need to be calibrated.

 

[JohnGellings]

Have you calibrated it? TT and 7artisans come with a calibration kit and many times need to be calibrated.

Well, it worked up close and to I don't know, maybe 15 feet well. I wouldn't know how to calibrate it to work well through the whole range. I know longer use it or an M.

 

[prmortimer]

Suggestion 1: Voigltlander Color-Skopar 4/25 m-mount.

Suggestion 2: Voigtlander Color-Skopar 4/21 m-mount.

Suggestion 3: TTArtisan 5.6/28 m mount.

Cheers, OtL

I see you mention a 25mm lens as a good choice.
Do you think it's needed to have an external viewfinder for this focal length ?
I know the RD-1 is supposed to support up to 28mm lens, but maybe 25mm is fine taking into account the whole integrated rangefinder ?

I found a Voigltlander Color-Skopar 4/25 at a supposedly good price (200 euros) and was wondering if it would be worth a shot, but I don't want to use an external tool.
As on the other hand, the 28 Color Skopar remains too expensive for me.

 

[Godfrey]

A 25mm is close enough to a 28mm that if you shoot "tight" with the 28mm frame lines, you'll be in the ball park for the 25mm. A few shooting sessions and you probably won't need another finder at all.

G

 

[Out to Lunch]

Do you think it's needed to have an external viewfinder for this focal length ?

When using the Color-Skopar 4/25 with the Epson, I usually don't use an external viewfinder and zone focus. Distance set to approximately 3 meter, f8, with ISO between 400 and 800. The more you do it, the better you get at framing the shot. Two recent examples:

 

[prmortimer]

Thanks to you two a lot !
@Godfrey did you mean shooting a bit wider than the 28mm lines ? shooting tighter would be closer to >28mm in my logic... but I may have misunderstood what you meant (french native).
Nonetheless, I'll probably give it a go.

Also, will there be issues with the rangefinder patch or this is not related to the frame line selector ?
I'm quite new to rangefinders (the RD-1 is my first which I just bought), so pardon me if my question is dump.

 

[Godfrey]

It's a little bit of reverse thinking ... I have the Pentax 43mm lens in Leica mount, but I don't have the 43mm optical viewfinder. However, I fitted the lens with a LTM to M-mount adapter that brings up the 35mm finder frame. So when I'm out shooting, I know the frame lines will show a little more than the lens can capture, so I frame "loose" within that space, leaving a bit of space around the main thing I want to capture and the 35mm frame lines so as to ensure that I've captured it all. If I fit the LTM to M-mount adapter that brings up the 50mm frame lines, I shoot "tight" on the frame lines because I know the lens will see a bit more than the frame lines delineate.

The same thinking applies to shooting a 25mm lens with 28mm frame lines ... Shoot "tight" on the 28mm guides because you know the 25mm focal length will see a bit more and you don't want to cut into your primary subject area. (BTW: This technique is/was what you always do with a Hasslblad SWC ... The SWC viewfinder only covers about 85% of the field of view of the lens so you always frame tight knowing that the lens will see a bit beyond the finder's frame lines.)

The key is learning to visualize what the lens will do and use whatever frame lines you have to help orient you to the space, not as a definitive limit to what you will capture. If you really really need precision viewfinder framing, a 100% viewfinder SLR or EVF camera is what you need. 🙂

G

 

[prmortimer]

Ok thanks I see what you mean.
I'd probably use other reverse wording but it's probably a way of thinking (whether you visualize the final picture or the framelines).

And regarding my other question, no issue with rangefinder patch regarding the lens lenght ?

 

[prmortimer]

I eventually bought the Snapshot-Skopar 25mm f4, which is the older (non RF coupled) equivalent of the Color-Skopar 25mm f4 (with same optics). Great lens with it's clicked range focusing. Nonetheless, I'm quite surprised by the vignetting when shooting >f8 in clear sky.

Is this expected ? Is there an issue with the lens ? Or could it be caused by the LTM - M mount adapter ?
According to reviews, this lens is not supposed to vignette at F5.6, even more so considering the Epson RD1 is a cropped factor.

Of note, it's not that hard to correct in post but I usually change lenses during the day (to a Voigtlander 35mm f1.4, which has no vignetting issues), so it's a bit painful to manually find pictures with vignette compared with a batch process.

Thanks for your help

 

[Godfrey]

Re: vignetting ...
😉 Believe what you see, not what reviews say.

(Oh yes, and to my eye that's fall off, not vignetting ... Vignetting as I was taught an eon ago has a hard edge in it: something in the lens assembly is causing a shadow to be cast on the image. This lens just seems to have substantial fall off, which might vary a good bit from sensor to sensor. It's an oldish lens and was not formulated for the digital sensor, never mind that the Epson R-D1 is an old sensor too which tend to be less forgiving of incident light angles... The optical match between lens and sensor can vary quite a lot.)

Given two lenses, one with pronounced fall off and another with very little, it should be very easy to load the whole lot into an image processing app (Lightroom or whatever), select all the ones that show fall off, and apply one correction to all of them to get them "almost" right. Fully finished rendering is always on a one image at a time basis, far as I'm concerned.

G

 

[Coldkennels]

Bear in mind that with lenses that wide, you're also going to get a degree of natural variation in the sky that can appear to be "fall off"/vignetting (I agree with Godfrey but most people use 'vignetting' to mean both issues now). I forget the reason, but it does tend to make a lens with a small amount of vignetting seem a lot worse.