RD-1 sensor characteristics ?

gelmir

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Dear RFF members,

I've been into film for quite a long time now, but most of the time black and white (b&w films are cheap, fun and easy to develop). I seldom shoot color film because of the cost and because I'm often unhappy with the lab. But when I shoot film, I mainly use Kodak Portra 400 (love this film !).

I've recently been considering buying a RD-1.
How would you describe the RD-1's sensor ? Are the pictures warm, soft, neutral, cold ?
Is it possible to have pictures that have warm tones (like the Portra 400) without too much tweaking in photoshop ? Most of the pictures I've seen that have been retouched and adjusted give some kind of fake feeling I don't like at all.
 
gelmir said:
How would you describe the RD-1's sensor ? Are the pictures warm, soft, neutral, cold ?

Well, since it's digital you can set that according to your preference. For example on all my digital cameras I tend to set the white balance to "cloudy" most of the time because I prefer the slightly warmer rendition. Of course, I shoot raw so I can change it later if I choose to.

The RD-1 also has various film modes and B+W filter modes, but I haven't really looked into those (and I shoot RAW anyway).

j
 
If you can do photoshop, it's very simple to shoot RAW, and save an action in PS to give the film look you like... you then run it in batch mode and all your pix will have the film look as the starting point. It's quicker than going to the lab!
 
gelmir said:
Most of the pictures I've seen that have been retouched and adjusted give some kind of fake feeling I don't like at all.

Are you talking about photos taken with an R-D1 or are you talking about digital images in general? When the latter, I agree as most (as in 99%) digicams are digital P&S. When the former, I must disagree. The images from the R-D1 are different from film, yes, but they don't look plastic-fantastic at all. They are closer to film than anything I've seen.
 
Gelmir,

A large part of what creates the various looks you're talking about is the lens. The look of R-D1 files changes quite a bit according to the lens one is using and there are a lot to choose from.

Cheers,

Sean Reid
 
I agree with Sean.

Here are some shots to illustrate the point.

The first two shots were taken with a 1950's f/3.5 50mm elmar in tungsten light at 1600 ASA, with the first at about f/4 and the second at 3.5 with lower light.

The third shot was taken with a current 35mm f/2 ASPH also at 1600ASA with mix of tungsten and skylight.

I pick the elmar when I want to travel really light, don't need a wider view, and want the older leica look. By comparison, the 35mm f/2 asph is simply the sharpest lens I use on the R-d1 and acts like an old 50 on an M. (These shots were taken on my old R-D1, not the R-D1S, but the results are similar with the new camera.
 

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By the way, I haven't posted much here in the way of photos and don't know what the optimum files for uploading should be, so these are a little small. Can someone post the process for converting an RD-1 file from jpeg to correct size for uploading (same with a raw file)? And if anyone wants me to resize the shots I just posted, let me know how large they can be and I will do it and upload again.
 
Hi, edlaurpic -- At full original size I'll do all the editing like rotation, skewing correction, color, contrast, spotting dust/lint, etc, until it looks the way I want. Then in the scaling window I make sure it's set to 72 pixels per inch, and that the proportional scaling option is checked, then type in the number of pixels I want the long side to be. Here in RFF that has to be less than 800 pixels for the long side, so I may type in 798. On Photo.net, the width must be less than 512 pixels, so I'll often do vertical shots at 511 for the width. Once scaled, I add a little bit of sharpening and a 2-pixel border and call it good. Save this edited copy, but don't over-write your original file! Each time I want a different edited copy, say if I learn how to do it better or want a different size, then I always start from the original file again, since successive editing of a jpeg results in image deterioration. Good luck!
 
Thanks for the clear instructions.

Attached are resized files of the above photos.
 

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