[Leica] was "Dodgy RD 1 focus" now more RD 1 focusing experience in Hong Kong

[cummer at netvigator.com (Howard Cummer)]

On Friday, Nov 26, 2004, at 23:20 Asia/Hong_Kong, 
lug-request@leica-users.org wrote:
> Date: Thu, 25 Nov 2004 19:39:07 +0000
> From: Frank Dernie <Frank.Dernie@btinternet.com>
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Dodgy RD-1 focus (was Nikon's profits tripled)
> Hii Ian,
> I suppose it could well be a duff example. Joseph Yao said there have
> been delays in supply and Howard's R-D1 which I saw in Hong Kong had a
> rangefinder which was off at infinity, and I believe he had a long wait
> for a replacement, but the pictures from it seemed great to me.
> Normally manufacturers check that their review items are at the highest
> possible standard before submitting them.
> The reviewer was really enthusiastic about the camera up to the point
> at which he was unable to reliably focus wide open.
> Perhaps I should take the plunge but haven't really got the heart for a
> return saga if I am unlucky.
> Frank

Hi Luggers,
To follow up on Frank's remarks I have received a replacement RD 1 for 
my original camera after a wait of 7 weeks. The replacement's 
rangefinder still had misalignment at infinity. I took it because I 
didn't want to wait any longer. It works quite well in the close up 
range with all my lenses especially if set at f2.0 aperture or smaller 
up to 90mm (except the 90 cron - see below).  The new RD1 focuses well 
wide open with the 35 Luxes - both Asph and non - Asph (although my non 
- asph 35 summilux is so soft wide open that determining whether an 
image is accurate at 1 meter is certainly in the eye of the beholder! - 
but I love that lens for its bokeh!
:-)). My 50 Lux has its good focus moments wide open in the close range 
- and sometimes its bad moments - depending on my operator error. 
Please remember I  am at the tri-focal glasses stage so I do have some 
trouble determining accurate focusing due to eye sight.

In terms of longer lenses my 90 Elmarit works without a problem, but 
the 90 Summicron is not accurate in the middle ranges at all. It just 
does not focus well - period. Of course, if raked over to infinity and 
ignore the rangefinder - it cuts beautifully clear images on the CCD. I 
think one of the factors that needs to be considered about the RD 1, 
and we all know about, is that the 1:1 rangefinder has a limited 
base-line (38mm) and fast longer lenses just do not have sufficient 
depth of field wide open to cover focusing errors. Certainly I had a 75 
summilux that would not focus accurately with my M6HM TTL - in my hands 
and with my eyes - despite sending the lens to Solms to be checked and 
finally having the rangefinder replaced in the camera - so I don't 
think we should expect focusing performance from the RD 1 which defies 
the laws of optics. The other aspect about checking focusing is that 
instead of waiting several hours for film to be developed and printed 
or scanned - the instant  feed back of digital makes it so much easier 
to verify at once whether a lens is in correct focus or not - just 
shoot the pictures and down load the card to your computer and look at 
the images full screen size. There is no possibility of being confused 
about your picture taking notes several hours after the fact!

With the help of instructions from Don Goldberg via Ed Schwartzreich ( 
of LHSA Catalogue editing fame) - thanks Ed - I popped the hot shoe off 
my new RD 1 (as I have done several times  with my Bessa R2 in order to 
adjust it for perfect focusing - both close up and at infinity) and 
proceeded to see if I could adjust the rangefinder to produce a 
coincident image at infinity and maintain accuracy also in close up 
focusing. In sum, after several hours and a couple of hundred pictures 
downloaded and examined - for my camera you have a choice: You can have 
accurate close up focusing without a coincident rangefinder image at 
infinity and quite accurate close up focusing with lenses of not more 
than 50mm focal length and apertures down to f1.4. In this adjustment - 
at infinity the coincident images can be adjusted to align horizontally 
but vertically the image in the rangefinder patch comes close to but 
does not quite match the stationary image in the finder. It stops just 
right of the stationary image. Alternately you can adjust the 
rangefinder image to be perfectly coincident - vertically and 
horizontally - at infinity but then ALL my lenses front focus by 
several millimeters at 1 meter. So you have a choice, especially if you 
want to shoot wide open most of the time, of either reasonably accurate 
close up focusing and a less than perfect infinity setting, or a 
perfect infinity and an inaccurate close up performance. For me, I 
chose better close up performance, and will just have to live with the 
lack of a coincident image in the rangefinder at infinity. This pains 
me because, as you all know, I am picky about perfect focusing. To add 
insult to injury - I was playing with Singapore Lugger Roland Tan's 
recently acquired RD 1 - which is just two serial numbers away from my 
camera - and its rangefinder performs perfectly - both in the CU range 
and with perfect alignment at infinity - so I know that the adjustment 
can be done - I just don't know how to do it!!
Until I picked up Roland's camera I thought the rangefinder had a 
design limitation but now I'm not so sure.

Another comment: the focusing patch remains stationary in the 
viewfinder and only the frame lines move to compensate for parallax in 
the close up range. This means that at one meter you are focusing not 
in the center of the image but in the upper left where the rangefinder 
patch has remained stationary while the frame lines have moved down and 
to the right. When you recompose after focusing this may contribute to 
focusing error - especially when using longer high speed lenses with 
little depth of field when wide open.

In summary, I still think Epson got much of its first digital 
rangefinder effort right. The electronics are great, the controls well 
thought out (for me anyway) the control of ISO speed, white balance and 
B&W filtering indicates that photographers were consulted in the design 
of the camera but - the rangefinder (or quality control) is clearly 
compromised and that is too bad - because with a better performing 
rangefinder the camera would be near to perfect as a first effort and 
that would have been wonderful. Now I guess we will have to wait for 
the RD2 model or see what the competition serves up from Zeiss and 
Leica.

In the meantime I am going to stop testing and adjusting and going to 
go out and take daytime pictures using my Panasonic LC 1 and reserve 
the RD 1 for night work with the 35 Lux Aspheric. At ISO 1600 and f1.4 
that is a combination! And I can focus it!

Finally - I am certain Chaussers D'Image got a bum sample and they 
should ask for another camera and run the tests again. Bad form for 
Epson not to have checked the camera before handing it over.


Howard ( frustrated in Hong Kong)