Epson R-D1 Digital Range Finder

Do you long for the old days of manual focus, manual exposure, sharp range finder lenses, big nobs, and film cranks? Then we have a camera for you. Old world charm combined with high end technology.

Does the current trend of high digital cameras leave you longing for the past? Remember the days when you had to actually focus your lens, wind the film, calculate the exposure, and wait for the perfect moment to capture the scene. Back then burst rates were defined as how fast you could shoot, focus, and wind the camera back into the ready position. Some of you might of even had a range finder film camera made by Leica. You belonged to a club that discussed the precision optics and life long heritage of your camera. Today we talk about pixels, auto focus systems, zoom lenses and what’s new this year. If you long for the past but live in today then the Epson R-D1 may be the camera for you.

See the Epson R-D1 is the first range finder digital camera to accept Leica M mount lenses. Epson marries the nostalgia of the old manual film camera days with the technology of today. The R-D1 has 6 mega pixel chip and 235,000 pixel LCD. Take away the chip, LCD, and a few buttons the camera is built just like the boxy range finders of yester year.

With a price tag of $2995 from B&Hphoto this is a very expensive 6 mega pixel camera. But Leica fans have never seemed to complain about price. The price does not include a lense but I am sure that photographer who buys this camera already has a few just waiting to mount on the camera.

Beyond the basic 6 mega pixel chip this camera is very manual. The camera features no auto focus, no fancy 45 segment metering system, not even a pop up flash. It does have the old school exposure needles and needles to show how many pictures are left of the SD memory card. Plus you can finally use a non-dedicated x sync external flash again. The camera does offer some high tech features of today including two file formats RAW and JPEG, color balance, ISO settings of 200-1600, LCD screen, and a few others.

The bright viewfinder and cropping guides to adjust for the 1.5 multiplier of the APS sized CCD chip help the photographer always keep their eye on the subject. One of the benefits of the old range finder camer was that you never had to look through the dim light of your lens or loose site of the subject while the shutter and mirror fire in a standard TTL camera.

This camera is not about the high tech gadgets. It does offer decent resolution and accurate color rendition. We will likely see improvements if a second camera is released but for now old school photographers with Leica lenses should take advantage of this opportunity while it lasts.

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Posté par chad à 15:05, March 18 2005