RD1 in low light

[jlw]

Alot of you guys seem to be getting excellent results in low light from the RD-1, judging from the attachments. Has anybody printed any of their shots to a reasonable wall-hanging size? Possibly comment on the results?

I've got a print of the color photo in my gallery (see below) made on 11x14-inch paper (the largest I normally keep around), which I framed behind glass and hung in my office for a while. I'm probably biased, but I think it looks nice. The dark areas are somewhat "speckled," but I don't find it objectionable; it's hugely better than what I used to get shooting at EI 1600 on color film.

I use an Epson Stylus Photo 1270 printer (still saving up for one of the new pigment printers) and generally make my wall-display prints on Epson Matte Heavyweight paper. The fact that this paper isn't glossy helps (I suspect) break up potential aliasing between the image pixels and the printer's ink-dot pattern. Slap it in a frame, put a sheet of glass over it, and you've got a nice-looking display image.

Actually, you can get away with a lot with prints made to hang on a wall -- the larger they are, the farther away people generally stand when they look at them, so the amount of detail you need for a good-looking image is probably no more (and maybe less) than you'd need for an 8x10 print that would be held in the hand and examined closely at reading distance.

In fact, one time I printed one of my R-D 1 images at about 24x36 inches on one of the wide-format HP Designjet 5500 printers we have at work (I told the boss we needed to check the printer calibration) and have gotten a lot of compliments on the result. People tend to look at a print this big from a couple of arms' lengths away, and at that distance it looks plenty detailed and has lots of impact.

Here's my gallery image, and the detail crop is attached below:

 

[Ted Witcher]

Excellent shot. Thanks for the answer. Yeah, I was just wondering what a 6MP camera at the 1600 setting might do if you were trying to take a serious photograph... but I guess you're right when you say it can't be worse than 1600-speed film. I have to remember not to compare to some mythical standard in my head, but rather to what is actually available to use.

 

[Jim Watts]

Jim, I find I'm using EPR for b/w conversions and RSE for colour, and also for the Canon files. My question; is the nice grain you speak of a product of EPR? It seems the Epson software has less noise reduction. What's your usage?

Phil

Phil,
I'm not sure I said 'nice grain' , just more film like. BTW if I'm going to have noise/grain my preference is for sharp rather than mushy.

Although I can appreciate some of the qualities of EPR I usually use Adobe CR for both and the comparisons of my R-D1 to 20D were made with that, which means the software was consistant for both at least. B&W conversion is done in Photoshop (various methods) rather tahn desaturating in ACR.

I must though give EPR more of a try out to see if I can get the gains others have talked of for B&W conversions.


I tend to agree with Furcafe about that the sensor type makes makes the biggest difference. I have seen plenty of files from Nikon D100, D70, D200 and the noise results are generally higher than the 20D (even from the D200 I think) and very close to the Epson. Again although noisier I prefer the look of these files at at high ISO's, but perhaps my 20D is a bad example when it comes to banding the noise and this is what I find most annoying. Still the 20D hasn't seen that much use since I've had the R-D1.

 

[Jim Watts]

Phil,
I see following the above that Pixmantec have now been taken over by Adobe so I expect we will have either the best (or worst ) of ACR & RSE combined in the future.:

"In preparation for this integration, the Pixmantec RawShooter Premium product is being discontinued, though the free RawShooter Essentials product will continue to be available until the Lightroom public beta program is completed. Existing Pixmantec customers will continue to be supported by Adobe and will be provided with an upgrade path to the Adobe digital imaging product family".