Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/11/10
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Ah, but the difference here Ian is that you actually wrote a review that appears to be *above* a grade school level. Having never owned the camera I can't pretend to know if the guy was right or not, but I can laugh at the way he said it! ;) Dave On 11/10/05, Ian Watts <i.watts@virgin.net> wrote: > > > 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. > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information > >