ian_watts
Ian Watts
Epson UK returned my camera this week after taking it in to check out my drunken frameline issue. Their 'specialist' technician was of the view that the frameline alignment was okay. To be fair, he did supply a CD with jpegs of the shots he had taken with a 35 ASPH cron and a 52/2.8 Fed (which, showing quite pronounced barrel distortion, was an odd choice of lens to test with) and a set of hard copy print outs but I find it difficult to agree with his findings. In his view the framelines show a deviation of only +/- 0.3 degrees but I have found the deviation consistently more than this (more like 1.5 degrees if I line up an horizon with the top frameline). I guess it is possible that eye position may play a part in it and that my natural way of holding the camera is exacerbating a slight misalignment but I'm an experienced rangefinder user and I've never had a problem with wonky horizons before. In fact, reading the technician's report I can't help but wonder whether he has somewhat missed the point. He states that "there does seem to be with all RD1s that I have seen a tendency for the converging parallels to be more apparent in the image than is apparent through the view finder, this I believe is because of the view finders 1 to 1 ratio" (sic).
As my RD-1 seems to have perfect focus I think I will just learn to live with the frames as they are. Since I've become aware of the issue I've tended to semi-subconsciously correct for the misalignment by lining up horizontals with the rangefinder patch rather than the framelines. There are always workarounds to problems like this but I rather resent doing so having paid £2000 for the RD-1. I know that apples aren't the same as oranges but that amount of money can buy a lot of digital quality these days (the undoubtedly better built Nikon D2H costs less, and the equally better built Canon 1D II is not much more expensive). In the absence of another digital M solution I guess I'll make the RD-1 work for me but I can't help wishing Leica would get a move on and get their digital solution out into the marketplace ASAP.
By the way, if Phil (pfogle) reads this I wouldn't mind having a chat with you about this issue because I believe you have also been in touch with Epson UK about it and I wouldn't mind 'comparing notes'.
As my RD-1 seems to have perfect focus I think I will just learn to live with the frames as they are. Since I've become aware of the issue I've tended to semi-subconsciously correct for the misalignment by lining up horizontals with the rangefinder patch rather than the framelines. There are always workarounds to problems like this but I rather resent doing so having paid £2000 for the RD-1. I know that apples aren't the same as oranges but that amount of money can buy a lot of digital quality these days (the undoubtedly better built Nikon D2H costs less, and the equally better built Canon 1D II is not much more expensive). In the absence of another digital M solution I guess I'll make the RD-1 work for me but I can't help wishing Leica would get a move on and get their digital solution out into the marketplace ASAP.
By the way, if Phil (pfogle) reads this I wouldn't mind having a chat with you about this issue because I believe you have also been in touch with Epson UK about it and I wouldn't mind 'comparing notes'.
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