The EPSON R-D1 digital rangefinder camera (march 6, 2005)
Introduction
Many years ago, all Japanese motorcycle manufacturers offered a four-cylinder inline bike, so alike in performance and appearance that the concept of Universal Japanese Motorcycle was coined. The UJM conquered the world, killing the British traditional bikes and forced Harley Davidson and BMW to rethink their future. Reviewing the current scene in solid-state photographic apparatus, we may have a deja-vu: the universal digital camera has arrived, in two tastes, the single lens reflex with classical viewfinder screen and the prosumer compact all-in-one concept.
The UJD, the Universal Japanese Digital camera is loaded with features that will fill pages of text just to sum it up. Purists will note that we do not need all these features to create great imagery. They also claim that the provision of all kinds of automatic correction programs will kill the creative urge and distract from the focus on the essence of imagery. Indeed, every image depends on a few variables, the shutter speed, the aperture, the moment of pressing the shutter and the picture-taking angle. Japanese manufacturers however, note that consumers choose with their feet and that a feature-loaded camera attracts more buyers.
Son of Voigtlander
The Epson R-D1 is not a mainstream camera and certainly an anti-UJD. The list of what is not provided is quite long: you will not find: AF in three versions, incorporated flash with umpteenth balancing options, program automation, motor drive, multimedia capabilities, electronic viewfinder, monitor viewing during picture taking, image manipulation options before and after making the picture, USB connection to the PC, burst mode for a sequence of pictures, WLAN transfer, etc.
The Epson R-D1 is basically the Voigtlander Bessa with a solid-state chip located in the film gate. The designers did a remarkably good job in keeping the classical appearance and incorporating the basic features of a digital camera. Space is cramped inside the body after inserting the circuitry of the chip and the battery compartment. There is just enough room for inserting an SD card, but no place for a PC connection. You need to put the SD card in a card reader of your PC to manipulate and distribute the images. The film transport lever has a very short throw and just cocks the shutter. There is no resistance of film to overcome and the movement of the lever is very light, even on the brink of feeling nothing, which gives an uneasy throw at first.
The shutter is the familiar metal bladed vertical device with speeds from 1 second to 1/2000. There is audible noise and many UJD sounds quieter.
The shutter is fired as soon as you press the release button: the annoying time lag of almost every UJD is completely absent and you may enjoy the idea of capturing the scene in real time. In addtion there is a RAW buffer that allows you to shoot several pictures in a row, while the software is writing the data to the disk. It takes about five seconds to get a full data transfer in RAW mode. There is no warning signal that tells you wenn the buffer will overrun and you have to experiment yourself to find your personal shooting sequence and frequency.
The AE mode (aperture priority exposure) works fine and a plus/minus 2 stops compensation is provided with the normal shutter speed dial. Manual exposure is available too. The provision of a standard X-synch flash outlet is very nice as you can plug in every studio or external flash you want.
The Epson does have a LCD monitor that can be inverted and rotated and can be used for reviewing the pictures and setting the camera functions. It has the now standard two inch diagonal viewing area with 235000 pixels.
The layout of the user interface is very simple and effective. The film transport knob is the main selector jog and has an pull up and a normal position. On top of the camera body you have a display with needle (analogue) indicators. The needles indicate the num,bers of pictures left on the memory card, the state of the battery, the resolution of the picture and the white balance options. Using the jog dial and a selection lever changes the needles. This is well done: you do not need to use the display to set these vital options and it can be done very quickly. The needle display is the analogue version of the usual LCD display, but with fewer options of course. The classical Nikon compact camera had this feature too.
The LCD monitor allows you to choose colour or monochrome and within the monochrome option you may specify a green, yellow, orange or red filter colour. The settings for image type (edge sharpness, saturation, noise reduction, contrast and tint) are limited: you have a default setting for an image profile and there are three optional film settings, where the user may specify his preferred settings. The selections are not as full featured as with the UJD, but for me it suffices: I prefer to make pictures in RAW mode and adjust the image parameters with the software, when needed. ISO speeds can be set with the shutter speed dial from ISO200 to ISO1600. The picture quality at ISO200 and at ISO1600 is quite comparable: noise is remarkably absent at ISO1600, but the pixel artefacts are more numerous. The Sony CCD with 6.1 million pixels is the same as the one used in the Nikon D70 and in that camera the chip functions quite well. I would use the ISO400 and ISO800 settings without much reservation.
The instruction manual indicates that the JPEG compression ratio is 1:4. But in reality the ratio is 1:11 or 1:12. The file size on the memory card is about 2 million pixels, but when expanding the file to its full potential. It has a size of about 24 million pixels.
Viewfinder
The viewfinder: for a Leica M user the finder is very familiar: a clear finder with frame line indicators and a 1:1 magnification combined with the rangefinder patch. Other users may find it difficult to use at first. The viewfinder mechanism is optically and mechanically very elaborately constructed. In use the finder is quite clear, but not so bright as the M6/7 finder. The rangefinder patch is flare free, but does disappear when you look at the finder at oblique angles. The rangefinder base of 40mm is smaller than the competition offers, including the new Zeiss Ikon, but the 1:1 magnification does help: the rangefinder does not snap into focus and there is a small margin of insecurity when searching for the exact focus position.
The manual frame selector has focal lengths of 28, 35 and 50mm. With the 1.53 correction factor the framing masks become 43mm, 53.5 and 76.5mm. The frame lines allow for a quite large security margin and the resulting picture area is larger than the frame lines indicate.
There might be some confusion how to interpret the correction factor of 1.53. I did the following test: I used a test chart and put the Epson on tripod in front of the chart. The Leica Summilux-M 1:1.4/50mm ASPH was used as the lens and pictures were made such that the 50mm frame line just encompassed the test chart. Compared to the M7 this frame showed the identical subject area as the 75mm frame in the Leica. Therefore the Epson scene selection covered the 75mm frame lines. The lens used is a 50mm and has the same magnification ratio, irrespective of the frame masking. I then photographed the same scene at the identical distance with the celluloid based M7. The colour negatives were scanned with a Nikon Coolscan 5000ED at 4000dpi and compared with the Epson RAW images. The Epson file has a resolution of 3008 x 2000 pixels and a file size of 18 million bytes. (14 bit depth). The colour negative has a resolution of 5944 x 3700 pixels and a file size of 63 million bytes. I resized the colour negative to the same resolution as the Epson image and selected the same area. The resulting images are identical in size and scale. Top is the Epson image, bottom is the M7 image
You my thus conclude that the correction factor of 1.53 gives you the same magnification of the subject as the original 50mm lens, but it will simply show less image area. When you say that that the original 50mm lens will become a 75mm lens, this is only true for the scene framing, not for the focal length. There is no magnification of the scene as will happen when you replace the 50mm lens by a 75mm lens.
Image quality
This is the most important issue of the Epson R-D1. The main question concerns the recordable image quality. I used the Summilux-M 1:1.4/50mm ASPH as this lens represents the best performance one can get in the 50mm range. The related question concerns the issue whether the sensor performance can match the inherent optical performance of the lens.
The test chart used has the well known bar line patterns which allow the measurement of the resolution and the analysis of the edge sharpness.
The Epson starts with an ISO value of ISO200. It is reasonable to use a negative film of ISo200 too as a comparison. I selected the new Kodak colour neg film line. Pictures were made on tripod, carefully focused and repeatedly photographed to select the best sharpness. Let us start with the lens. The new Leica lens easily resolves 100 linepairs per mm with excellent micro contrast and edge sharpness. On film and under the microscope I could resolve 88 lp/mm on the negative. That is the 2.2 pattern in the test chart. The magnification ratio for the test was -40 times. And so 40 times 2.2 equals 88 lp/mm. That is quite good for a colour neg film.
Then I scanned the negative with the Nikon Coolscan 5000ED at 4000 dpi and the result is as shown below (left). The 1.6 pattern is just detectible, but to be honest, the 1.4 pattern is more realistic. So the film/scan combination results in a resolution of about 55 to 60 lp/mm. The Epson Raw format scaled to the same size brings 44 linepairs on the screen (middle). Note the very low contrast and soft image. Enhancing contrast (right) gives somewhat better quality, but note the soft edges.
One may conclude that the Epson low pass filter is not very effective. Too many unresolvable high frequencies are blurring the overall image. The raw image file needs additional sharpening to enhance the sharpness impression. This of course does not improve the basis image quality or resolving power. The results above are quite interesting.
The cut-off frequency of the Sony CCD in the Epson environment delivers a good 40 lp/mm, which is certainly good enough for many applications and with some Photoshop manipulation can produce very fine print quality. I did the same series of tests with the JPEG option and noted only a very small reduction in performance. For most practical situations the JPEG option at maximum pixel size would be the preferred setting.
The basic performance is too low to exploit the image quality of current Leica lenses, as can be seen on the basis of the film comparison. As has been noted in my reports often: it is the excellent reproduction of the high frequencies that gives the Leica lenses their enviable edge in today's photographic world. With the Epson CCD, this quality edge is partly lost. Whether this is a problem for the photographer can be decided only individually and depends on the aims and goals of the picture maker.
Conclusion
The Epson R-D1 has been designed to offer the speed and convenience of digital capture in combination with the familiarity and simplicity of classical filmbased photography. The ease of use, the very intuitive and simple interface, the provision of effective facilities for digital capture and manipulation, the solid body and the decent performance are very positive points. If you would not know, the camera could be loaded with film. The R-D1 is clearly not designed for the photographer who wants or needs a full-featured camera with a wide range of options and automatic support for most picture taking situations, including fill-in flash and high speed motordrives. For the price of the Epson body one can buy a high end digital SLR and a rational decision would certainly point in that direction, if you wish to employ all the convenient features of a high-tech camera body.
The R-D1 plays its (emotional) cards when the photographer wants solid state imagery and wants to take pictures with a minimum of automatic support and a maximum of personal decision making. It may be the best digital camera for the classical style of reportage and art photography now on the market. Especially the combination of a very sensitive sensor that can be used noise-free at ISO800 and a high speed 1.4 lens and an uncluttered viewfinder predestines the camera for the art of the snapshot under all circumstances.
The simple and clean interface allows the user to concentrate on the essence of photography and the rangefinder principle forces one to interact directly with the subject. Epson draws attention to the analogue roots and the fact that this camera stands for pure and creative photography. It seems that Epson is trying to seduce fine art photographers and Leica users to jump into the R-D1 world. The R-D1 certainly has the potential, but to be really seductive a better performance is required.
The final image quality is somewhat disappointing, because of the operation of the lowpass filter that controls the high frequency response, and rather soft pictures are the result. The softness can be corrected by a careful use of image manipulation software, but there are limits to the sharpening and edge contrast options in a technical sense and certainly in a philosphical sense. Every photographer has its own approach and limits in this area. Where photography ends and image correction/manipulation starts is a topic for the digital age.
The R-D1 proves that one can combine a classical photographic style with solid state imagery. For the person who wants state of the art technology to support his/her stream-of-consciousness approach to photography there is no alternative at this moment. One may wish that Epson will develop this line of cameras to its logical conclusion and continues to bring a breath of fresh air in a world that is ever more governed by a relentless increase in electronic gadgetry to compensate for a lack of basic photographic knowledge.