Author: Peter | Prosophos

The Sony RX1, revisited.

Inspiration, Teaching point

Sony RX1

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Back in September 2012, on the day Sony announced the revolutionary RX1, I weighed in with my opinion and made a prediction concerning its image quality.  Of course, I was as uninformed as anybody else, but I went on record based on a hunch.

Months and months later, after analysing countless images produced with this camera, I can safely remark that the RX1 produces the best image quality of any “full frame” camera I’ve seen.  Yes, that includes any full-sized and conventioanl DSLR, and even my beloved Leica M9.

And yes, the RX1 sports a CMOS sensor.  Sony gets full credit for taking this CCD diehard and making him “see the light”.

The fact that this camera is also tiny is a testament to the technical prowess of Sony‘s engineers.

Putting aside size considerations, if the new Leica M(240) sported this Sony sensor, I’d be all over it in a heartbeat.  I’d like to be able to use my Noctilux 50mm f/0.95 with this sort of sensor, and I’d accept a larger-than-RX1 camera if I could do that.  But in this brave new world of lenses and sensors being customized for each other (and where both, ultimately, are destined to be disposable), it remains to be seen whether any manufacturer other than Leica would, in the future, bother optimising a sensor for Leica M lenses (yes, I know Ricoh did it with the Ricoh GXR with A12 M Module, but it was in the context of a small APS-C sensor).

I’ll tell you one thing though, I’m very tempted to pick up the RX1.  What Sony and Zeiss (let’s give credit to the lens designers too) have accomplished with respect to image quality is simply inspiring: the dynamic range, the sharpness, the micro and macro contrast… ohhh!

(I write this from the perspective of a photographer, not a techno-geek.)

I realise the RX1 is not a rangefinder, and thus cannot mesh with my brain the way rangefinders do, but I really want to reward Sony (and Zeiss) for what they’ve done.  Who knows, maybe I’ll be rewarded too.

Suffice it to say, I know Sony has a full frame interchangeable camera in the works.

It’s only a matter of time.

Hmmm…

—Peter.

Aperture is back.

Q&A, Teaching point

Aperture

Last year, I abandoned Apple‘s Aperture after it crashed while I was editing a client’s images.  I couldn’t restart it no matter what I tried and I spent the better part of a day trying to make it work to no avail.  As a last ditch effort, I installed the copy of Adobe‘s Lightroom that shipped with my Leica M9 and it worked like a charm.  Despite some of the operational differences I had to get accustomed to, I haven’t looked back.

Well, today while evaluating Lightroom‘s slideshow abilities for a client’s needs, I realized that there is only one image transition feature available.  Besides being limiting, it’s boring too because all it does is transition from one image to another in a static fashion (I guess they’re not lying when they refer to it as a slideshow — it’s simply just that).

So, off I want to the App Store to find the latest copy of Aperture (CAN$79.99) and — sure enough — it was there.  However, my iMac‘s older operating system didn’t support it!  I had to update the OS to Mountain Lion (CAN$19.99) which took me a few hours (it’s over 4GB in size and then there’s the installation time on top of that).

Don’t you just love computers?

When all was said and done, however, my beloved Aperture (with all its enhance slideshow features!) was back.

And, it’s working perfectly with my Nik plug-ins.  As an added bonus, the new OS runs quickly despite my aged iMac.  Finally, the enhanced features Mountain Lion brings to the desktop are a welcome addition.

The only thing I have to get used to is the “opposite direction” mouse scrolling for navigating page content.

—Peter.