Review of my new Olympus 35RD on my blog

Eric Rose · Feb 28, 2012

http://blog.ericrose.com/?p=517

Check it out and leave a comment on the blog if you feel inclined.

dehk · Feb 28, 2012

Done.

Eric Rose · Feb 28, 2012

Thanks Derek. Hey I really like your blog as well. Some really excellent photography there. Like the book idea.

dehk · Feb 28, 2012

Eric Rose said:
Thanks Derek. Hey I really like your blog as well. Some really excellent photography there. Like the book idea.

Thanks a lot Eric, now i have to bookmark yours, give me something to read when i am bored, which happens a lot, Cheers!

chuck94022 · Mar 1, 2012

Nice review and photos, Eric. I have a 35RD too, carry it everywhere, and just love it. One thing you didn't mention is its extreme low light capability - I ran a roll of Tri-X 400 through mine, exposing at 3200 (set the camera at ISO 800, under expose two more stops manually). The shots that I properly exposed came out great, after souping in Rodinal 1+100 for 2 hours stand dev. My talented "D" photog friend said he didn't think his Pentax K5 would produce images as clean at 3200 as mine came out.

One question, not to step too close to the "D" line here, and not to open a can of worms - how did you conclude you could get 64megs out of your 35RD? I always assumed 35mm film was able to resolve the equivalent of somewhere between 14megs and 20megs of information.

-chuck

Jeff Kubach · Mar 2, 2012

Looks great! Thanks

Jeff

mbsmith · Mar 2, 2012

Nice little write-up, and thanks for the example photos. I'm waiting to get my 35RD back from the shop so your post has me even more excited to shoot with this baby.

One thing... I notice that in your post you refer to it as the 35RC and on the images.

Thanks for sharing!

BrianL · Mar 3, 2012

Olympus had a great series for both the 1/2 frame and full frame market. They supported the rangefinder market longer than most in terms of making high quality non-slr cameras. Their lenses were 1st rate; they learned how to gind and make excellent lenses from their 1/2 frame designs and that quality still is here today.

The RD is one of those few cameras that just seemed to have it all right in terms of handling, features and results. I too liked the meter lens being within the filter coverage; especially when I needed ND filters or wanted to use a polarizer.

Eric Rose · Mar 3, 2012

mbsmith said:
One thing... I notice that in your post you refer to it as the 35RC and on the images.

Thanks for sharing!

Darn I thought I got them all :confused:

thuggins · Apr 8, 2012

chuck94022 said:
One question, not to step too close to the "D" line here, and not to open a can of worms - how did you conclude you could get 64megs out of your 35RD? I always assumed 35mm film was able to resolve the equivalent of somewhere between 14megs and 20megs of information.

-chuck

With the modern, fine grained films, a remarkable amount of detail can be recorded.

http://www.thermojetstove.com/Tonality/

chuck94022 · Apr 9, 2012

Calling Ralph Lambrecht! ;-)

With the modern, fine grained films, a remarkable amount of detail can be recorded.

http://www.thermojetstove.com/Tonality/

I'd like to believe this, but it seems to fly in the face of every other discussion about true resolution of 35mm film that I've ever read, even our own Ralph Lambrecht in his book Way Beyond Monochrome, (which I love by the way if you're reading this Ralph.)

I would agree on the issues of color capture and bayer, but it isn't as simple a conversion (100 to 400) as your note suggests. For one thing, luminance is captured at every pixel, but as you state, color is interpolated across pixels. This does create problems in certain cases (those small very red berries might be hard to capture cleanly in the d* world, and might get interpolated away color-wise, but their luminance would be captured I believe).

Not to defend that, or belabor a d* discussion, but I think I'd get slapped down pretty hard trying to claim that my Oly 35RD was equivalent to a 400 megapixel d* camera, or even 100 mp.

Ralph if you are reading, any thoughts?

thuggins · Apr 11, 2012

While I appreciate your scepticism, both the scan and the microphotograph show the same detail. The point to the posting is to illustrate subtle texture that is recorded in the image. So it depends on what you are looking for. There is one answer if you're looking for straight lines, and another answer if you're looking for smooth, continuous texture.

Review of my new Olympus 35RD on my blog

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