R-D1 lens test

Hi Brian,

Yes, someone else was taking about that preflashing idea yesterday. Interesting comment about the detectors.

Cheers,

Sean
 
With respect to the list of how different lenses work with the R-D1, I can add the following:

Canon 28/2.8: high resolution, low contrast, beautiful B&W lens; very little vignetting

Canon 35/2.8: high resolution on center, low contrast, beautiful B&W lens My example of this lens is soft in the corners at wider apertures. This lens is particularly impressive when working in B&W outdoors in contrasty sunlight. very little vignetting

Voigtlander 28/1.9: very high resolution across the frame, slightly lower contrast than many modern lenses, very little vignetting. I think this is one of the best contemporary lenses made, esp. for B&W.

I tried a Canon 50/1.8 Serenar but the example I bought over the net has a front element with scratches and so it has to go back. Can't judge contrast well because of the scratches but the resolution was excellent across the frame even wide open.

Sean
 
Phew, excellent article and what a superb thread this one is becoming, serious stuff here.

Just wanted to say thanks for all this info Sean and JLW !!!!
 
Brian Sweeney said:
I'm just getting over the flu so my brain is not all there but:

All detectors require some level of light to register an image at all. A certain number of photons must hit it before it produces electrons. Veiling flare would serve this purpose. A lens that is completely free from flare and other "false illuminations" (brain malfunction) would lose the darkest portions of the image to the detectors threshold.

Back in the early '70s a company produced some prototype modified film cameras that used "tiny lights" to illuminate film the instant before the shutter opened. This illumination served to put the film at its threshold before the image was taken. It was very different from other techniques such as using chemical vapors (Mercury?) the day before use to super-sensitize the film.
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Yup, that was the "concurrent photon amplification" I mentioned reading about back in the '70s. I think Norman Goldberg of Pop Photo thought up the idea.

I've been thinking about it again, along the same lines as you have. It should be easier to implement now, with electroluminescent devices and exposure systems that can measure the whole image area.

Imagine a digital camera with a ring-shaped electroluminescent panel around the inside of the lens mount. This would be able to flood the whole imager with controlled, non-image-forming light.

When you took a picture with this camera, the AE system would peg the exposure to the lightest areas, to avoid blowing them out. Then it would calculate the amount of "flash" exposure needed to bring the shadow areas up to just above the sensor's threshold, and turn on the ring-shaped light for the appropriate period.

Then the camera would post-process the imager data to map the darkest areas back to the appropriate black points, producing a final image with a normal tonal range -- with good detail throughout and less noise in the shadow areas.

So if this is such a great idea, why hasn't someone done it? There's probably some reason, but I dunno...
 
Sean Reid said:
And for now, the only way for a digital shooter to exploit those unique characteristics is to use an R-D1! (Neener, neener, EOS-boy...)

Not quite true. It's the best and most flexible camera for this kind of experimentation but digital EOS bodies can also use a wide range of older and newer lenses via adaptors. It's a little alkward but, for example, I use Zeiss lenses with my 1Ds.
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But, Zeiss SLR lenses or Zeiss RF lenses? I would think the old Contax lenses wouldn't have enough back focus to work on an SLR for anything except macro use (okay, you could probably adapt a 180/2.8 Olympic Sonnar if you've got one cluttering up the shelves in the utility room) and I wonder if the SLR optics retained the same design philosophy. I've never shot with a Contarex, so I wouldn't have any way of knowing.

...I do have fond memories and old negatives from a 50/1.5 Opton Sonnar, and would love to be able to try out one of those on the R-D 1...
 
Deja Vu All over Again. Cute kid on Cover.

"A New Way to shoot Tri-X at EI1600 and get Top Quality Results", Bob Schwalzberg, Popular Photography, June 1976.

"Concurrent Photon Amplification", Mel Cole of Danvers, MA.

I bet that modified Nikon F (Apollo version, prism finder) is a valued addition to someones collection...

Today: Set up a little PIC processor and multi-color LEDS... But that would be for a mechanical Film camera.

Digital Camera: could of course incorporate it in.
 
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There used to be a slide copying machine with a 45deg glass plane between the slide and the lens. The glass plane could be flashed at the moment of exposure to reduce the contrast when copying slides. Some available light shooters would also hang their film in the darkroom and give a fogging exposure to .10 above base density load it film cartridges for their shooting. It would help salvage shadow detail right on the edge.
 
Zeiss SLR lenses...the R-D1 is clearly in the best position (among digital cameras) for lens experimentation but digital EOS owners also have room to experiment with other lenses via adapters such as these: http://www.cameraquest.com/inventor.htm

That said, the broad range of lenses the R-D1 can use is one of its key strengths.

Sean
 
jlw said:
...I do have fond memories and old negatives from a 50/1.5 Opton Sonnar, and would love to be able to try out one of those on the R-D 1... [/B]
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Great thread here.

I own the Zeiss 50 f/1.5 in LTM as well as Contax RF mount. The LTM version, c. 1939, is the pre-WWII design, slightly different than the post-war W. German version. However I've never been able to see any differences between the two in actual photographs. For its time the Sonnar was a high-contrast lens, keeping in mind that "its time" pre-dates lens coating. (The LTM version is coated, though, and is among the earliest production coated lenses extant.) By modern standards the lens is moderate in contrast stopped down and on the low side wide open.

I've found the Sonnar works great on the R-D1. It gives me images with a broad tonal range. Resolution is high stopped down and good enough for crisp photos wide open (taking into consideration the shallow DOF at f/1.5).

Following up on various comments made so far in this thread I've included links to a pair of images. Both are versions of the same photo. I used the Sonnar wide open at ISO 1600 on the R-D1 and converted from RAW to 16-bit monochrome TIF in Epson's PhotoRAW app. The first image, other than being cropped to a 3:4 aspect ratio and scaled down for web display, is straight from the converter. No USM or other tone/contrast tweaking.

http://home.twmi.rr.com/davesden/Graphics/Dad01_R-D1_pre.jpg

The second image shows what I decided to make the photo look like using Photoshop CS. I adjusted local & global contrast, set overall levels and added a mild warm tone. I also applied a slight amount of USM to add zip to the point of focus.

http://home.twmi.rr.com/davesden/Graphics/Dad01_R-D1_post.jpg

IMO I used a fairly light touch here. But because the original is flat tonally there's plenty of raw material for more extreme adjustment if I'd wanted to go that route. This is the nice thing about starting with a low-ish contrast original. As long as local contrast is high enough to record a sufficient amount of detail you have total control over the look of your final photo. And you don't have to do any extra work to reveal shadow content or recover blown highlight info.

-Dave-
 
These shots do a great job of showing what I remember liking about the f/1.5 Sonnar. Where it's sharp, it's very sharp, and where it isn't sharp, the image breaks up in a nice way. And although full-aperture contrast is lowish, it's nice and even -- kind of like a slight early-morning fog.

(sigh) Something else to start watching for on eBay, I guess!
 
I really enjoyed your two articles on LL.

Will you be able to compare the Voigtlander 24mm, and the Leica 24mm??? (FOV- 35mm)

Also, do you feel that the blend of classic, and new controls makes using this camera more complex than either a true modern design, or a classic design???

Thanks again for the great articles. Are you planning any additional articles??

Martin
 
Hi Martin,

Do you by chance mean the Voigtlander 25? I may not get a chance to compare it with the Leica 24 but I have seen samples from the latter. Based on those, I think the Leica 24 is probably a better choice primarily because it's rangefinder coupled. If I get a chance to test it I'll certainly do that.

Using this camera is not complex at all but it requires some tradional skills such as being able to focus manually with a rangefinder mechanism. (Despite the moniker this web site has attached to me, I've actually spent many years working with rangefinders). So the camera is really not much more complex than, say, a Leica M6. What it lacks is not simplicity but automation; it definitely is not a "point and shoot".

I have one more article planned and it will be about the design of the R-D1, following the image from lens to sensor.

Cheers,

Sean
 
Sean Reid said:
(Despite the moniker this web site has attached to me, I've actually spent many years working with rangefinders).
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:D

You can change that in your settings.

Put some words in user-cp -> Update Profile -> Biography

Happy new year, I'm off to a party!
 
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Hi Sean -- I just traced out the route to where you can change from "Just learning to focus a rangefinder camera" to "RF Guru" or whatever you like... :)

At the top of any page there's a line of buttons; third from the left is "User CP"... click that.
In the resulting page there's a line of links below the line of buttons; second one from the left is "Edit Profile". Click that one.
Halfway down the resulting page there's a profile item called "Custom User Text". This is the title that appears beneath your name on your posts. There's a text entry box over at the right, below the display of your current title.
You may enter up to 25 characters.
Hit "Submit Modifications" at the bottom of the page, and you're done.
 
Hi Doug,

"Custom User Text" does not appear in my profile. Maybe the crux of this is that one has to make a certain number of posts before this option appears. Thanks anyway. As I said above, it isn't a big deal - I'll look at the moniker from a Zen perspective <G>.

Cheers,

Sean
 
Something very fishy, Sean... Notice several posts above where stevew left a message, and his title is "Old photog-New camera" which I expect is not generated by the site, yet he has fewer posts than you, at 27... Maybe a PM to Jorge could answer the issue.
 
lilredspy had this problem but eventually was able to get to the custom text and make changes.
i don't know what the heck is going on there.

joe
 
It's not worth bothering Jorge about. As I said, I'll make it a Zen reminder that every day I'm re-learning how to focus a rangefinder. To be sure, each day I'm re-learning what to focus a rangefinder upon.

Happy New Year (almost)

I'm home tonight because we have two young daughters and the baby sittter plans fell through. Nothing like children to keep one living the wild life <G>

Cheers,

Sean
 
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