I finally found a digital camera that matches my kind of photography. It is the Epson R-D1.

In general, my favourite cameras at the moment are the Leica M6 and the Hasselblad 500CM. The quality of medium format is amazing, but of course, it is not always practical. I do miss the lightmeter on the Hasselblad. So I have been using my Leica mostly. But in many situations, shooting on film is not practical, for example during the Magnum workshop in Barcelona, I spent a lot of time going to the lab and having my negatives scanned. I also realized that for me, the reason I shoot with my M6, is not just a case of digital versus analog, but also colour versus black and white and rangefinder versus SLR. I simply do not like dslr's that much. Not that they are bad, but I prefer either the silent, compact rangefinder, or the MF Hasselblad if I want maximum quality.

My panasonic LX3 turned out to be a really good camera, so I used that one a lot for the excercises during the workshop, but it does have it's limitations.

I wanted a digital rangefinder, the digital equivalent of the Leica M6. Of course, there are the Leica M8, M8.2 and M9. I would love to have a Leica M9, but it is very expensive. I was looking at the M8's, they are dropping in price, but still quite expensive and they have the IR issues. Also not necessarily a very compact or quiet camera.

Then I came across the Epson R-D1. Tried bidding on it before, and this time I got it.

And I love it. It was a lot cheaper than a M8. It is not that small, it is actually a little bigger than my Nikon FE2 SLR, bigger than my M6 but smaller than the D200. It's quiet, not as quiet as the M6 but a lot quieter than the D200. Part of it is thanks to the fact that you need to manually recock the shutter with the lever. It’s a sturdy camera and it has a Leica M mount. AE mode, iso up to 1600 and a lovely user interface with a wheel and dials.

That is the first thing I love about the camera: it looks and handles like an analog RG camera: lever to cock the shutter (so I can avoid some noise), beautiful analog dials showing the state of battery and card, no connectors, display can be folded away which I do, iso mode is set in the wheel. But it is a digital camera.

Of course it is not the newest sensor, it's a 6 Mpixel sensor (more than enough), which was also in the nikon D100, but it actually has good high iso performance and good colours. Metering is a simple centreweighted. It has a small buffer and the dynamic range is not comparable with for example a nikon d700, but quite good nonetheless.

The disadvantages: 1.5 cropfactor, small buffer (only 3 images RAW), no support for SDHC, only SD (so max 2G cards), small RF patch (but it has a great 1.0x RF), no framelines for 90mm.

But all of those things I can live with. It is quiet, it works with my Leica lenses, with the lenses it is a reasonable compact set, has good high iso performance, and is simply a joy to use. After some frustrating experiences with labs who do not develop my film that well, or damage my negatives and with troubles scanning my negatives with noise and clipping, I am very tempted by this camera to go digital.

And of course, what matters are the photos.

Tags: photography