Epson R-D1s | First Day Out
Fresh air for a 17 year old camera, and fresh perspective for myself.
Note: All photos taken with the Espon (and all opinions written by me) in this article are unedited and straight out of the camera (brain).
I’m not the first person to buy an Epson R-D1 rangefinder camera, long after it was new. f you’re into old digital cameras, you probably already know about it.
I also will not be the first person to rave about the “film like” CCD sensor or the “experience” of shooting this beautiful, vintage tank. Though I do like the sensor and the experience isn’t overhyped at all. It’s neat.
I’m not even the first person in the last month to make a youtube video about the “obscure” Epson R-D1. I’ve linked the companion video to this article below.
But if you take a look across social media or YouTube, it won’t take long to find a recent but persitent trend to focus on the vintage/analog astetic.
It has made entire Instagram accounts and Youtube channels, it has even become the main marketing niche of certain camera brands.
Fujifilm has seen so much success in recent years, that even Nikon released (in my humble opinion) the half-baked challenger of a camera, the Nikon Z Fc.
Meanwhile the niche Ricoh GR community and its own film-sim culture grows in both number and algorithm reach daily.
I’ve fallen guilty of it myself. I bought, and fell in love with, my Ricoh cameras. I bought (and sold almost immediately) a Fuji Xpro3 in an attempt to reach closer toward that “film vibe”. Some friends of mine who also shoot Fuji also tested that particular Xpro3 and found it disappointing in build quality (a shutter button that wouldn’t work 1/3 of the time) and random but frequent software glitches. I saw what they liked about there cameras, but my particular model wasn’t it for me. Maybe I’ll give Fuji another chance again someday, but not today, or this year.
I even downloaded free and paid film profiles for Adobe Lightroom from the obscure corners of the internet.
Each of these attempts, while never really getting there, brought me closer to what I wanted. I have NOT gotten closer to perfectly emulating the look of Porta 400 film. I also haven’t wanted to. I don’t have a background in film at all.
I … admittedly … have only ever shot 2 rolls of film in my life (if you don’t count old disposable cameras). My family had neither the money nor the interest to focus on photography when I was growing up. So when I finally got into photography (2014), film was already gone.
I know some will argue film hasn’t ever gone away, but you know what I mean.
I was a starving college kid with a Canon Rebel DSLR. I could barely afford gas and food, I couldn’t even dream of paying for something that wasn’t instant or editable at that time in my life.
This article isn’t about the drawbacks (or merits) of film though.
My point is that I like the analog look because I like the analog look. I can’t say what film stock I like. I just like an older looking vibe.
I have spent a decent bit of time in recent months researching the science of why old film photos looked the way they did, and this has informed my digital editing. I understand better how to get closer to what I want, but that isn’t really a perfect emulation of film. It’s my own interpretation of how I remember film photos looking. In some ways, it’s about how I remember my life and world looking.
Anyways.
The Epson R-D1s, my Epson R-D1s with a Canon 35mm F2 Leica mount lens, has given me the closest roleplay experience to shooting a film camera, that I have come to want.
The analog gauges are super cool. The manual dials are sweet. The rangefinder focusing system is rad. Of course, the film advance lever action to prime the shutter, the party trick of the camera, it’s the neatest thing ever.
The 6 megapixel files are good enough to send to my friends on their phones. They can’t tell the difference between these photos and my 45mpx Canon R5 files anyways. They can however tell that the colors and “tones” look different, older, sorta nostalgic, right out of the camera.
And that’s kinda the point.
It’s fun to use, makes nice photos that look old automatically, and you “feel” like you’re shooting a film camera, without needing all the extra film stuff that comes with that.
Is it perfect for me then? Probably not. I still have my other cameras for a reason.
The Epson is overpriced, and underperforming, but its really really really really… *breathe* … really fun!
Sometimes photography is allowed to be (and should be) fun too.
I’ve been taking a break from writing and making content for a while. I think this break will continue a little while longer still, but the Epson has re-sparked my baseline enjoyment of photography again. We’ll see where that leads.
Cheers!
Elijah from WWYA
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