My summer vacation with the R-D1

[Larry Kellogg]

Hello,
If anyone is interested, I have posted my vacation shots at:

http://web.mac.com/mac.hive/iWeb/Site/London.html

You can click on the names of the places at the top of the page to see the various photos. I don't think these scaled down jpg files do justice to the originals. Some of the photos look absolutely amazing on my screen.

Most of these shots were taken with a 35mm lux, some with a 25mm Biogon, and maybe a few with my 50mm lux.

My wife and I started out our trip in London, took the train through the chunnel to Lille, in the north of France. After that we visited Lyon, and traveled on to Aix, Cassis, and Nice. Once in Nice we took a daytrip to Eze and Monaco. The light in the south of France is amazing. We had beautiful sunshine the whole time we were there, it was such a relief after the wet weather of northern Europe.

I love traveling with the R-D1. The lenses and the camera are just the right size to take along. I won't be going back to an DSLR. My wife is happy to not have to help carry the backpack full of Canon 20D gear which we used to take on vacations.

Let me know what you think of the pictures. I like the ones in Cassis and Nice the best.

Regards,

Larry

 

[Mark Norton]

Interesting travelogue and proves beyond doubt the worth of a rangefinder with just a handful of lenses. Also proves how primes still have it compared to zooms, the sharpness of some of the pictures is very evident.

Did you take a laptop along with you to check for sensor dust or did you just hope all would be OK?

Sorry the weather wasn't better for you in London - wettest May (assuming this is when it was) for years!

 

[Larry Kellogg]

Interesting travelogue and proves beyond doubt the worth of a rangefinder with just a handful of lenses. Also proves how primes still have it compared to zooms, the sharpness of some of the pictures is very evident.

Did you take a laptop along with you to check for sensor dust or did you just hope all would be OK?

Sorry the weather wasn't better for you in London - wettest May (assuming this is when it was) for years!

Hello Mark,
Actually, we arrived in London on May 27th, so we missed most, if not all of that wet weather. Our London friends told us that it had been raining for about two weeks straight before we showed up. We had a great time in London although we didn't spend a lot of time there. We caught the show "Sunday in the Park with George" in the West End, went through the Tate Modern, the Victoria and Albert, and spent time with friends. We discovered that four of our friends live within a couple of miles of each other in West Kensington.

I didn't bring along a laptop, I brought along the Epson P-2000, which served double duty, playing films during the long plane flights (bring extra batteries!) and saving all of my raw files. The film playback is not perfect but it's ok. I finally figured out a way to get audio/video synchronized throughout an entire film. I'm happy with the P-2000, it is also the perfect size for traveling.

You're right, primes are amazing. My wife gets pictures that I can't get with her P&S digital (Panasonic DMZ-F75) with zoom but my shots with the primes, at full resolution, are breathtaking.

As for sensor dust, I guess I pretty much hoped for the best. Have you seen bad examples in the shots I posted? I was a lttle dismayed to find out about the firmware upgrade during the middle of the trip. I would have liked to have the 16x magnification on RAW but I was afraid to take a chance on upgrading the firmware. I would have been upset to miss all of the shots from the last week!

Regards,

Larry

 

[ducttape]

Hi Larry,

Nice shots. I visited London and Paris, both for the first time, pre-RD1. I did bring just an M7 and you are right, non-zoom is perfect for travel. Everything fits on a pocket, a pair of cargo pants or at worse a little shoulder bag.

I especially like the shot of the Thames bridge and the Cathederal. It fills the frame perfectly with no dead space or odd parts. Plus, the portrait of Catherine and Sabina caught my eye, before I read the caption. My mom's name is Sabina and I've come across maybe half a dozen in my life, so I thought that was interesting.

I was bothered (if I may, IMHO) by the converging lines at the begining of the London shots. (I haven't seen the others yet) I would try photoshop to see if a lot of them can be corrected.

I'm sailing for 3 weeks this winter and, yes, I'm bringing a dslr, but I am also bringing my M7. I've been using it less and less since the RD1 and dslr (it's a new Nikon D200) so I am looking forward to getting back to 'roots'

Thx for sharing,

David

 

[Larry Kellogg]

Hi Larry,

Nice shots. I visited London and Paris, both for the first time, pre-RD1. I did bring just an M7 and you are right, non-zoom is perfect for travel. Everything fits on a pocket, a pair of cargo pants or at worse a little shoulder bag.

I especially like the shot of the Thames bridge and the Cathederal. It fills the frame perfectly with no dead space or odd parts. Plus, the portrait of Catherine and Sabina caught my eye, before I read the caption. My mom's name is Sabina and I've come across maybe half a dozen in my life, so I thought that was interesting.

I was bothered (if I may, IMHO) by the converging lines at the begining of the London shots. (I haven't seen the others yet) I would try photoshop to see if a lot of them can be corrected.

I'm sailing for 3 weeks this winter and, yes, I'm bringing a dslr, but I am also bringing my M7. I've been using it less and less since the RD1 and dslr (it's a new Nikon D200) so I am looking forward to getting back to 'roots'

Thx for sharing,

David

Hello David,
Thanks for the comments. Ok, I will work on some of the converging line issues in the London photos when I get a chance. I didn't do any PhotoShop work on these photos, they're exactly how I framed them when I shot them. I use Capture LE (I think that's the name) to possibly bump the exposure a little, apply some minimal sharpening or change white balance, and then I convert them to JPG.

The pedestrian bridge shot is also my favorite shot from the London series. I'm glad you like it. I knew what I wanted the shot to look like as soon as I turned around while walking up the ramp but I didn't have a lot of time to take the shot because my wife and her friend were walking way in front of me and I was trying to catch up.

I also like the shot of the dancers in the air, although I know it should have been framed better. I took it on a whim because there were a group of dancers near Royal Albert Hall who were trying to use one of those P&S digital cameras to capture themselves in mid-air. Well, they kept failing miserably so I decided to see if I could catch them in mid-air with the R-D1. That was my only attempt and I got it. ;-) I should have told them I would take their pictures and send them the JPGs...


I don't want to make this thread into a DSLR bashing thread. ;-) I enjoyed my time with the Canon 20D, it is just that a rangefinder is a joy to travel with in comparison. I had the crazy notion last week that 1 should travel with a large format camera, something like a Wisner 4x5, but, lucklily, those ideas passed....

Have fun on your sailing trip. Where are you going?

Regards,

Larry