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Fun with the RX-1

John Kraus

New member
Philip,
Re: the wooden base, when it was mailed to me I was quite surprised there was no vertical grip component. I thought that was the whole point! But upon testing for a few days I was delighted with the actual functionality of the RX1 and grip in use. It just works, at least for me!

re: the lens, I love it, of course! Except I really do wish it didn't have that barrel distortion in it. I assume it was unavoidable to achieve other design considerations. I shoot RAW and work usually in Aperture, so no lens correction there. As the JPEG loads from the RAW, the preview JPEG shows first. When the RAW JPEG pops in, it's always a disappointment to see that barrel distortion show up. Often not obvious, but always better gone. I realize I can process in Capture One, LightRoom, or make the correction in PhotoShop. But I do wish the barrel distortion wasn't there at all.

Please forgive my remark about the wooden base, an attempt at humour, it simply looked incongruous to me at first blush. There is no doubt the camera benefits from more hand affordance and it's not like the weight is too high ;-) I am sure it will work fine...and we are lucky to have so many aftermarket options so early in the product's life.

What will they do next?

As it is fascinating watching the full strength of the camera work its way into the collective knowledge base of (let's say) the community of serious camera users.

It's a strange thought that this might be just the start for Sony in this market niche. A high level of acceptance of such a high end camera will help their overall camera business significantly - people will know what they are capable of.

I looked a bit deeper into the lens, it's an 8/7 elements/groups with 3 asph elements featuring 5 asph surfaces on them. That's a lot of correction and it shows in the corners especially, and in the consistency across the aperture range. Zeiss produced exactly what you want in a single lens 35mm camera, which has to be all things to its diverse users. Even its flaws are tiny quibbles.

There are not too many great 35mm lenses across all FF lineups..this is one of them.
 

racefan

New member
... I shoot RAW and work usually in Aperture, so no lens correction there. As the JPEG loads from the RAW, the preview JPEG shows first. When the RAW JPEG pops in, it's always a disappointment to see that barrel distortion show up. Often not obvious, but always better gone. I realize I can process in Capture One, LightRoom, or make the correction in PhotoShop. But I do wish the barrel distortion wasn't there at all.
PTLens is a lens correction plugin for Aperture that has a profile for the RX1. I use it on the few occasions that really need a fix and it works well.

http://epaperpress.com/ptlens/
 

biglouis

Well-known member
I looked a bit deeper into the lens, it's an 8/7 elements/groups with 3 asph elements featuring 5 asph surfaces on them. That's a lot of correction and it shows in the corners especially, and in the consistency across the aperture range. Zeiss produced exactly what you want in a single lens 35mm camera, which has to be all things to its diverse users. Even its flaws are tiny quibbles.

There are not too many great 35mm lenses across all FF lineups..this is one of them.
This is one of the reasons I have never seriously thought of Sony as a DSLR solution - no really high end 35mm lens. Yes, there is the 35/1.4G but that seems overpriced and not that great a performer. I don't know if Zeiss are limited by their contract with Sony not to release their manual glass in Sony mount but I wish they would. That way I would seriously consider an A99. As it is this is the only way to get a premium 35mm on a full frame Sony camera which seems a bit weird from a marketing point of view.

LouisB
 

W.Utsch

Member
Need more time to experiment and getting accustomed to the RX1.
Used the LR5 beta for this image. Perspective corrected with the new LR5 tool - works very good, no need to go to CS for corrections like that:


DSC03966.jpg by W.Utsch, on Flickr​
 

biglouis

Well-known member
The backroads of Bethnal Green.

My main schtick is urban landscape - especially the grittier side of London. I've been searching for the 'ultimate' urban landscape camera since selling my M8 and associated lenses back last year. That was a great piece of kit but aged and temperamental. Since then I have used a SWC and other 500CM to good effect but in turn it has taken a toll on my spine which is soon to enter its sixth decade of service. So far the results with the RX-1 have been very promissing. The lens is an absolute gem - even if somewhat prone to barrel distortion and a bit of fringing. (Actually, at f2 the lens is freakin' amazing but these pictures were all shot at f8 or thereabouts).

What I like so far is that pretty much what I see in the finder in terms of colour is what I get out of LR. In fact none of these captures seemed to me to need any processing about from a little recovery of highlights and some correction of the lens distortion in LR. The colours are just my kind of colours. I like my urban landscapes to be tending towards the surreal - which I normally obtain by boosting them in LAB space in CS. No need here.









 

Geoff

Well-known member
The backroads of Bethnal Green.

My main schtick is urban landscape - especially the grittier side of London. I've been searching for the 'ultimate' urban landscape camera since selling my M8 and associated lenses back last year. That was a great piece of kit but aged and temperamental. Since then I have used a SWC and other 500CM to good effect but in turn it has taken a toll on my spine which is soon to enter its sixth decade of service. So far the results with the RX-1 have been very promissing. The lens is an absolute gem - even if somewhat prone to barrel distortion and a bit of fringing. (Actually, at f2 the lens is freakin' amazing but these pictures were all shot at f8 or thereabouts).
+1. Curiously the barrel distortion seems much greater when shooting closer - two shots, both at f 5.6. The closer one (picture) is not good, the other one further away. Anyone have another explanation?
 

philip_pj

New member
Shot in 'native' format the lens shows strong barrelling, around 5% from memory. Sounds like a Samyang! After correction - either in-camera for jpegs or as a RAW file instruction ('half baked') included in its profile for use in the RC of your choice (LR, ACR etc.) it comes down to less than 2%. Actually many 35mm FL lenses struggle to beat 2%, the ZE/F 35mm f2 comes to mind, Leica's 35mm F2 Summicron-R also I believe. M lenses are easier to get right in this aberration in design.

This is more than acceptable, and is very common these days for even medium format cameras, as software distortion control impacts IQ less than what it would take to correct it in design. The RX1's rear element is very very close to its sensor...quite revolutionary in fact.

Expert opinion has it that in general less than 2% distortion is not noticeable. If you need to for special cases, you can dick around with it further in PS.
 

biglouis

Well-known member
I don't know if this is barrel distortion, or just a badly made wall!

Worth pointing out that as I am still running Windows XP, I have not upgraded to LR4 and therefore I am using both the Sony RAW converter and I do not have access to any lens correction for the RX-1 if it exists in LR.

 

Jay Emm

Member
Liking auto-ISO. When on Aperture priority it seems to do a decent job of delivering a clean image. (ISO 4000 here)
 

Adam L

Member
Hey Jay,

I agree with you on the auto-ISO. I've moved from Aperture priority to Manual because I've seen the majority of my Aperture shots set to 1/80th a second. In Manual I bump this up to 1/100 or 1/125 and let auto-ISO take over. I feel the focal length needs a bit faster shutter than the default and I've not yet found a way to change the shutter speed in the auto ISO settings.

I hope to post a few shots today. I was on a two day vacation but ended up taking mostly snaps. In the midday sun. They're not very good.
 
A few, mostly street, photos from New York with the Rx1.
Hadn't used the camera in awhile and it took me a bit of time to warm up.
Hope you enjoy these.



















 
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