zeiss 21 on the R-D1 vf question

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morgan

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I'm heading off to Vienna in a week and I was thinking of renting the Zeiss 21mm. My usual R-D1 kit for travel is the cv 35/1.2, 15mm, and sometimes a 50. But sometimes the 35 isn't quite wide enough. How's a 21mm on the R-D1 without an external viewfinder? I could opt for the 28, but still wondering if there's enough of a difference between the 35.
 
If you mean the 2.8, it will block around 1/4th of the vf with the vented square hood on. Without the hood, it will block about 1/9th of the finder. What i do is to pick the 50mm framelines and then frame with both eyes open, imagining the 50mm framelines as the center of a 9 rectangles area, it will give a pretty good field of view matching the lens'. The 21 is really nice on the r-d1, i too was missing having a wider fov. If you mean the 4.5 zeiss.. Well then i'll leave it to someone else for impressions :)

Cheers
 
Thanks. I do mean the 2.8. Did it take a while to get accustomed to composing in that way? And do you mean that rectangle formed by the 50mm framelines was the center square of a 3x3 grid?
 
I don't know for zeiss, but I do use my CV21mm without external finder. some people do the 3x3 frame with 50mm frameline as the center of the frame, but I do 28mm framelines + add some extra space on the outer side.
it take for a while to get used to it, but now it's easy for me to correctly compose 21mm on RD1.
it's always good to compare directly what you see and what you get, so you know where is the border of the "invisible" frame, and adjust your way of seeing it.
for me myself, 21mm on RD1 is a nice FOV (more than to use 28mmx1.5=42mm), as I mostly use DA 21mm on my Pentax DSLR (it has the same crop factor as rd1).
 
With renting, I'm not really going to have time to get used to it. I wonder if I should just opt for the 25/2.8 instead? That would probably be fine with just using the whole vf.
 
I like the 25mm so far here in Vienna, although framing has been a little tough. It seems wider than the viewfinder. I love how it handles and feels, it's a quality lens.
 
morgan said:
Thanks. I do mean the 2.8. Did it take a while to get accustomed to composing in that way? And do you mean that rectangle formed by the 50mm framelines was the center square of a 3x3 grid?
Click to expand...

sorry for taking long to answer, i was travelling.

well, it did take a little effort to get used to this method, but the 1:1 viewfinder really helps it, so it shouldn't take long. Yep, i mean the 50mm rectangle being the center one of a 3x3 grid. it works quite well, but as it's an estimate, it's not as accurate as a 35mm external viewfinder (even so, the 21 would become a 32, so wider than the framelines on the external vf).
 
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