Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/11/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> David C. Mason" wrote: > > My favorite bit is learning that a "movie mode" is a "handy feature". > No wait, my favorite bit is the reviewer admitting that he/she just > doesn't "get it". I think the reviewer makes it clear that he is not a fan of the rangefinder concept. That prejudice runs all the way through the review. However, apart from a few factual errors, I don't think his review of the RD-1 is that wide of the mark. As somebody who put his money where his mouth is (about a year ago to the day) and bought one of these things, I feel I can legitimately add my tuppence worth to this discussion. I tried hard to like this camera and persevered with it until only three or four months ago (almost to the exclusion of my M cameras), but my conclusion is that the RD-1 is pretty much a dog. Image quality is decent for a 6mp class sensor (with some M lenses, though not all) but the camera itself is quite poor. Personally, I was never bothered by the wind lever nor it's notoriously small RAW buffer but the RD-1's other quirks left much to be desired. The viewfinder is bright but the framelines are woefully inaccurate and, on my camera at least, at an angle in relation to the sensor. My camera also suffered from a random problem of an unresponsive shutter release which was totally unrelated to the camera's 'sleep- mode' (ideal for shooting those decisive moments). I fully agree with the reviewer that the exposure metering could be much better (consistent would have been nice). Some have commented that Epson probably made the RD-1 underexpose deliberately to avoid blown out highlights but I think it is probably just a piss-poor implementation by Epson. Strangely enough, my camera never really suffered from the focus problems many have reported (although, if I'm honest, it did front-focus with my 28/2 and the rangefinder patch never quite lined up properly at infinity). To use a popular American analogy, Epson hit less a home run with the RD-1 and more one of those hits that goes flying back into the crowd. Ian Watts.