RD-1 underexposure

[boilerdoc2]

Just received the new Rd-1s. Testing in AE mode and the histograms indicate ~1 stop underexposure. Have to compensate with +1. Trickier to do in manual exposure obviously. Am I missing something here? Anyone else have any issues with this? It seems to be biasing towards underexposure to protect the highlights. 😕 thanx
Steve W

 

[fgianni]

Shoot raw and don't compensate.

 

[rvaubel]

Shoot raw and don't compensate.

Thats what I've been doing too. But I wonder if I am giving up some dynamic range.

Rex

 

[Bob Parsons]

Just received the new Rd-1s. Testing in AE mode and the histograms indicate ~1 stop underexposure. Have to compensate with +1. Trickier to do in manual exposure obviously. Am I missing something here? Anyone else have any issues with this? It seems to be biasing towards underexposure to protect the highlights. 😕 thanx
Steve W

If you look at the shutter blades when the shutter is cocked you can see they are divided into 3 horizontal regions. The top and bottom are gray and the middle third is a white strip. So the exposure meter is full frame averaging with a heavy bias towards the subject matter across the center of the frame. I don't know exactly how the meter is calibrated in terms of absolute exposure but the shutter markings give you an idea of how the meter "weights" various parts of the frame.

Light colored or bright objects in the center will cause underexposure unless you compensate for them not being the equivalent of 18% (or is it 12.5%) gray. Also a very bright sky area will cause underexposure. If that's the case with your subject it's best to point the camera downwards and use the exposure lock before recomposing and taking the shot. The important thing is to understand the distribution of tones in the subject and how they are metered and apply compensation if needed.

The camera of course could be faulty. One way to find out would be to photograph a frame filling uniform white wall and see what RGB values you get. Since we don't know how the meter is calibrated you would need others to try the experiment (with same custom settings or raw conversion) and compare results.

Hope this helps, Bob.

 

[Steve L]

Many have seen this, but as Bob says, it is scene dependent, although people have said before, and I have found, it is more bottom weighted than center. It works fine for even or "bright sky, dim/normal land" pictures, but if the bottom is bright (e.g. sunlit landscape with dark trees in background), you have to bump the histogram typically 2/3 (+ or - 1/3) stop.

And just shooting RAW isn't the answer - even in RAW, you want the extra dynamic range on both ends, not just to rescue the shadows, I'd say....

 

[boilerdoc2]

Wow! Lot of info here. I will try under varying conditions and see what shakes out. I also would worry re losing the shadow detail, even in RAW, if the meter biases towards underexposure. Gonna be fun playing with this toy! Thanx for the help, and to you also Sean Reid.
Steve W

 

[chenzhaohy]

Congratulation.

Congratulation.

Congratulations to get a nice new toy. Enjoy it.

Can you tell us more about the r-d1s? Seems not so many R-D1s in the forum. Does it has the rangefinder misalignemnt? Does it has a serial number?

Thanks!

 

[sreidvt]

Hi Steve,

You're welcome. Basically, a healthy R-D1 tends to meter about 2/3 stop under indoors (incandescent lighting) and pretty close to dead on outdoors. It's a fairly simple metering system but it works quite well despite (or because of?) that simplicity. You'll learn to tweak in different light but it's pretty consistent.

Cheers,

Sean

 

[furcafe]

Bottom weighting is my experience as well w/my R-D1, presumably biased in favor of landscape shooters (not unusual for similar metered bodies like the Hexar RF, Kyocera Contax G2, &, presumably, the various Cosina Voigtlander Bessas). I would prefer a simple spot-type metering pattern like on a Leica M6/M7, but once you know the pattern, you can work around it.

Many have seen this, but as Bob says, it is scene dependent, although people have said before, and I have found, it is more bottom weighted than center. It works fine for even or "bright sky, dim/normal land" pictures, but if the bottom is bright (e.g. sunlit landscape with dark trees in background), you have to bump the histogram typically 2/3 (+ or - 1/3) stop.

 

[boilerdoc2]

Thanx. The Rd-1s is nice. The Raw/jpeg is cool. Rangefinder seems dead on, altho not sure how you tell otherwise. Sean says it normally reads dark indoors, which is where I tested the meter (how did he know that?). Waiting on a 2 Gig card to see if that works. I bought Camera One and JFi profiles for Raw processing. Not sure if the JFI profiles installed or not. Where do you find them in CR1, Sean? And I need to go back and re- read Seans's articles in Luminous Landscape and ReidReviews.
Steve W

 

[Scott209]

Epson R-D1 underexposure

Epson R-D1 underexposure

Just received the new Rd-1s. Testing in AE mode and the histograms indicate ~1 stop underexposure. Have to compensate with +1. Trickier to do in manual exposure obviously. Am I missing something here? Anyone else have any issues with this? It seems to be biasing towards underexposure to protect the highlights. 😕 thanx
Steve W

Steve,

I have also recently purchased an RD-1 and discovered the same "problem". At first, I thought that I'd completely lost my skill for compensating exposure. Then, I decided that it must be something wrong with the camera!

Finally, I tried shooting a Kodak grey card (18% grey) full frame under indirect daylight in monochrome mode. In the Epson PhotoRAW the card has RGB values of 80-82, with +1/3 EV RGB values of 84-86, with +2/3 EV RGB values of 90-92, with +1 EV RGB values of 101-103. I made no changes to the contrast, curves or exposure compensation in the Epson PhotoRAW program.

The Grey card, properly exposed, should have RGB values of 90. This leads me to believe that the camera does indeed underexpose in comparison to my previous film cameras. Although, I must admit that I've never tested them in this way.

Also of interest, when I saved these same images as TIF files and looked at them with photoshop they became even darker! 18% grey fell somewhere between the +1 and +1 1/3 stop EV images. So, just as you have concluded, I believe that we'll have to learn to correct by approx +1 EV stop when using this camera. Yet, it's such fun to use, that I won't mind spending the time to get it right!

I suspect that the others are very correct in their assumptions that this exposure setting is intentional in order to prevent the loss of highlights. However, to severely underexposure and then correct in the RAW file is far from ideal as well. In my experience it is best to exposure properly and perhaps err a bit on the bright side without clipping highlights and then make minor adjustements to the RAW file. Overall, I'm happy to discover that my camera isn't the only one that works like this.

Also, my thanks to everyone who contributes their thoughts and ideas. I've just recently started reading this forum and have found it to be very informative and helpful in regards to my new R-D1. Best wishes and happy shooting to everyone.

Scott

 

[boilerdoc2]

Misery loves company so they say. Now that I discovered this is 'normal' i can quit worrying about it. Just dial in + 2/3 in AE and go with it. Will be tougher to do in manual exposure tho since the RD-1 doesn't have + compensation for manual metering and changing EI won't work....Got to think re this for awhile. RFF is great for all those who seriously enjoy photography of all kinds, Tons of info here. Spend way too much time watching the various threads.
Steve W

 

[rvaubel]

Just a word of warning about evaluating bracketed exposures, don't forget to turn off the auto functions at least in Photoshops Camera Raw. By default my copy of CR2 was trying to set the exposure values and other values to compensate for my under and overexposure tests. My bracketed photos all looked the same!
Since then, I turned of Photoshops attempt at correcting my photos . Now my underexposed shots look underexposed and my overexposed photos look overexposed. This is particularlly important when you are in a "lightbox" mode. In the auto correct mode everything will look "OK" . It was driving me nuts .

Rex

 

[boilerdoc2]

Exactly. Found I had to download the new Camera Raw for CS2 to open the d-1s ERF files. The shot I took of a friend at 1600 EI was exceptional, even at A3 size!