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Do you need an adapter ?I'm new to RX1 ownership and just received the Ricoh GW-3 wide-angle converter I bought to try with my RX1.
I'm replacing a Fuji X100S outfit and really liked the 35/28 combo I achieved using a WCL-X100 wide-angle converter and am hoping to come up with something similar for my RX1 outfit.
I must say that, so far, I am favorably impressed by the GW-3's performance ... see the attached photos of my next-door neighbor's house, which were taken at f8 and focused manually using the macro ring hack. The corners are a teeny bit soft, but the center looks to be decently sharp and most importantly, the RX1's essential character remains.
I don't know if the GW-2 will work, but I know the GW-3 does ... sort of. To my eyes, its performance is really only acceptable at f8, as any faster aperture causes a noticeable loss of resolution and some vignetting. On the positive side, it's quite compact and doesn't require an adapter, as its 49mm male thread screws right into the RX1's 49mm filter thread. They can also be purchased relatively inexpensively from overseas vendors (IIRC, mine was $180 delivered.)Do you need an adapter ?
Can you use the GW2 ?
Would the new Sony 21mm UW converter work ?
TIA
Thanks so much for your response. Much appreciated.I don't know if the GW-2 will work, but I know the GW-3 does ... sort of. To my eyes, its performance is really only acceptable at f8, as any faster aperture causes a noticeable loss of resolution and some vignetting. On the positive side, it's quite compact and doesn't require an adapter, as its 49mm male thread screws right into the RX1's 49mm filter thread. They can also be purchased relatively inexpensively from overseas vendors (IIRC, mine was $180 delivered.)
Yes, Sony's SEL075UWC .75X converter for the new 28mm FE lens can be made to work, but to do so, it requires several permanent modifications, including shortening the metal lens barrel by ~5mm and trimming the plastic lens mount bayonet, so it's probably not something the faint-hearted should consider doing or doing themselves. For those with the necessary tools and skills, however, it's a relatively easy job.
That said, I have modified mine so it will mount onto my RX1s -- see the photo below -- and it works great ... sort of. In my tests, I found it outperforms the GW-3 at apertures below f8 and is usable all the way down to f2.8, but my GW-3 very slightly outperforms it in terms of resolution at f8. (I only rarely use f/11 and never use f/16 or f/22, so I didn't bother testing at those apertures. And this could simply reflect sample-to-sample variability; i.e., my GW-3 is a better than average performer and my SEL075UWC slightly worse than average, but I'm not about to buy another pair of them to confirm or deny this.)
I didn't expect this to be the case and it actually causes me a bit of a dilemma, because I don't want to carry both converters around with me when I'm out and about. I bought my RX1s because I like to travel light, as the photo of my RX1 kit* below shows, and I don't have room in my small belt pouch to carry two converters, depending upon which aperture I'm using for any given photo.
Because I use f8 for more than half of my photos, I'm leaning toward keeping the GW-3 and carrying that with me most of the time, but since I modified the SEL075UWC, thus reducing its potential resale value, I'll probably keep it around as well, as it wasn't very expensive regardless. Interestingly, the GW-3 is about half the volume of the SEL075UWC because it has a removable rubber lens hood whereas the Sony converter's plastic lens hood is built-in and non-removable, but the two weigh roughly the same, so from that perspective, it doesn't matter which one you carry, even if you're obsessive-compulsive about keeping the weight of your outfit down (as I am.)
And since this thread is about RX1 photos, here are a few gratuitous ones from my recent NYC outing (the first two of which were taken with the GW-3 at f8 and the resulting barrel distortion was corrected adequately in post, and the third was taken with the RX1 naked):
* Not shown is the very functional and ultralightweight Benro C-0681T tripod and ballhead combo that I use when traveling (only 2.5 lbs and now NLA, alas, but the curious can see it here: (Benro C-0681 Travel Angel CF Tripod (Trans-Functional) C0681TB00. FWIW, NOS ones for sale can still be found if one searches around a bit.)
Thank you Vivek. I'm also a novice when it comes to monochrome processing. I just used the default monochrome preset and adjusted the ETTR slider to lighten/darken images as necessary. No other processing, other than cropping, in either AccuRaw or LR. I like the AccuRaw monochrome output and in particular the smooth tonality. The output size of exported tiff files from AccuRaw monochrome is 6024x4024 pixels for the RX1R.Carl, the first one in the above post is just lovely!
Me being a novice when it comes to PP (lack of effort I must say), may I ask what your general impression of the Accuraw output? Also how many pixels are getting out?
Thank you, Carl. I thought I read Sandy posting somewhere that you can read individual pixels. => 4x pixel output.Thank you Vivek. I'm also a novice when it comes to monochrome processing. I just used the default monochrome preset and adjusted the ETTR slider to lighten/darken images as necessary. No other processing, other than cropping, in either AccuRaw or LR. I like the AccuRaw monochrome output and in particular the smooth tonality. The output size of exported tiff files from AccuRaw monochrome is 6024x4024 pixels for the RX1R.
How would "4x pixel output" even be possible? Demosaicing a file doesn't change the number of pixels it contains, it merely changes their RGB values by mathematically recreating the color components that weren't sampled at each sensel.Thank you, Carl. I thought I read Sandy posting somewhere that you can read individual pixels. => 4x pixel output.