Reviewed by Bruce Haley
I'm a film guy. Everything that you see on my website was shot on film. With manual exposure and manual focus, besides. Oh, and no cropping. However, lest one think otherwise, I am definitely not vying for any sort of "purist" badge of honor—this is simply how I have always worked, and what makes me comfortable. Nothing more, nothing less.
However, sometimes age can prompt a change in working methods—or a desire for that change, where none existed previously. I'm 56, and have been doing this for over a quarter-century. I've worked in 35mm, medium format, large format, and panoramic; I've lugged equipment all over the world, in extremely demanding conditions. I still keep in good shape, I still hike and climb, I still do rigorous photographic assignments—but did I mention that I'm 56? No matter how much I would like to think so, my body is not what it was when I was 31 and in the Hindu Kush mountains, running with the Afghan mujahideen (and believe me, it was very difficult to keep up with them even then!). Oh, and the "fuzzy 50s" are here too—my vision is no longer 20/20. And I won't even go into what it's like transporting film around the world these days.
So from the back of my Luddite cave I've seen change a-comin', and contemplated it for quite some time. In 2012 I exhibited my most recent long-term project at a museum in California and a gallery in Manhattan—and all of this work was shot with a big, boxy, clunky old metal panoramic camera that I customized, modified, drilled and hammered upon, etc., and then perched atop a huge, heavy tripod. I joked that I was going backwards, in some sort of meaningless protest against modernity. And while I love the results from that huge panoramic negative, I had to admit that I was tired of hauling that big outfit up and down a bunch of mountains, and that I could use at least a short break from it. But how could I complain when my photographic idol, Josef Sudek, lugged his big Kodak Panoram around with only one arm...?
Well, there’s only one Sudek, and I’m not him. And after years of digital avoidance, I pulled the trigger on a Sony RX1. What I had read made it sound perfect for me, like some faint beam of light finally penetrated to the back of my aforementioned Luddite cave. Then the package arrived, and I stared at the box. Then one day I opened the box, picked up the camera for a minute or so, and immediately put it back into the box. It sat in the closet for another week before I took it out and handled it again. I still didn’t shoot it, though. I didn't want to just snap a few shots around the house—I was waiting for a day when I had the time to give it a proper test run. I was sort of excited by the prospect, until one day when I took the RX1 out of the box again and really began trying to get the feel of it—and my hands just seemed to swallow the poor little thing. I have large hands and long fingers, and the teeny beastie just seemed lost in there. I didn’t like what I felt, and I seriously wondered if I had made an expensive mistake....
Mato Nanji by Bruce Haley, Sony RX1
But I wanted to like it...so I decided to damn the torpedoes and use it for an upcoming shoot with Mato Nanji, the phenomenal guitar player from the band Indigenous. A quick Google search will tell you about Mato—his name, pronounced "mah-TOE non-GEE," translates to "Standing Bear," and he was born and raised and still lives on the Yankton Sioux reservation in South Dakota. He is held in extremely high regard as a blues/rock guitarist, and besides his band and his many recordings, he has been part of the "Experience Hendrix" tour for years, and has shared the stage with other guitar wizards from Buddy Guy to Carlos Santana.
Mato was on tour in support of a newly-released record and was making a north-south run down the West Coast. Normally he plays every night, but he had one day open between his San Francisco and Los Angeles gigs, and arrangements were made for me to shoot some promo stuff with him on that day. As I am a huge blues fan, I had already been listening to him for years, so I was excited for the shoot.
Mato is very quiet, very reserved, and very humble about his incredible skills—there's no ego, no rock-star attitude, nothing of the sort. However, along those same lines, he's also not crazy about posing for photographs. Two days prior to the shoot, I had met him backstage after a gig. I had just watched him blow away the audience with his fretwork, but backstage he was quiet and a bit shy, with body language to match. I said to him, "I bet you hate getting your picture taken," and he replied, "Yeah," with a bit of a grin and a little chuckle.
Two days after that, we met for the shoot (which I dubbed the "New Record / New Camera" shoot). We loaded Mato's Stratocaster and his Fender head amp into the back of my Jeep and took off. Since much of my work is considered somewhat post-apocalyptic, and Mato's new record is titled "Vanishing Americans," I took him to some abandoned areas where there were no people (we saw no one else during the course of the shoot). It was just Mato and me and Jerry (Mato's tour booker, who helped lug that heavy amp around—thanks, Jerry!), so we could travel light and fast. Over a period of three hours we drove to four different locations and set up and shot in eight different areas. No hair, no make-up, no wardrobe, no artificial lighting, no umbrellas, no reflectors, no creatives, no managers, no publicists—just a fun, whirlwind shoot. And Mato was a real trooper—he squeezed into a derelict building past big rusty exposed nails, sat among broken glass, climbed onto a big concrete cube at a construction site and balanced on its narrow edge (the inside was hollow), climbed down into an empty swimming pool full of garbage and discarded furniture, and so on.
In describing this shoot you may have noticed that, despite this being something of a camera review, I never mentioned the RX1—and really, that's the point of this entire article: it's like the camera wasn't even there! I'm no techie, I'm no gearhead. I fully live by the famous Don McCullin saying, "I only use a camera like I use a toothbrush. It does the job." And boy, did that little Sony do the job! I went against everything I've done in the past: I set it for Aperture Priority, I let it do its autofocus thing, and then we packed as much into those three hours as possible. For the most part I forgot all about the fact that this was a new and unfamiliar camera—I just shot.
There are a lot of in-depth feature-by-feature reviews of this camera, and I don't need to add to those. I'm coming at this from a different perspective, and one that is decidedly non-tech. The bottom line is that this camera just sort of melted into me during the shoot, and I was able to concentrate entirely on getting a great deal of work done. My earlier trepidation about the way it felt in my hands went away very quickly. It was so light and unobtrusive that I left it around my neck even when we were driving between locations.
What are the downsides to the RX1...? Many people say that it is too expensive for what you get—but I think it's worth every penny. Great full-frame sensor, fabulous Zeiss glass, and so small and light you could carry and shoot with it all day and all night. The files are spectacular, and I haven't even gone into the RAW versions yet. Many people also don't like the fact that it's a fixed lens, but I love the 35mm prime, and in this format I would use it for over 90% of my shots anyway. So the fact that the camera was engineered around that amazing piece of fixed glass is just fine with me.
There are, however, a few things that I should add before I start sounding like a shill for Sony. I really would not want the RX1, and certainly would never use it in any sort of professional capacity, without the electronic viewfinder (EVF)— but perhaps that says as much about my shooting style as it does about the camera. The EVF itself is a wonderful design, it blends right into the effortless operation of this camera, but it’s also not cheap and thus adds to the initial purchase expense.
And then my biggest complaint: the location of the "Movie Button." Come on, it's on the right-hand grip, for pity's sake! In the short time I've spent using this camera, I've accidentally tripped this thing four or five times. The first time it happened I glanced at my display and wondered how and why in the hell I was shooting video of the ground. Seriously, what were they thinking? It's such a well-designed camera that the placement of this button just baffles me. I'm hoping that there will soon be a firmware update that allows me to disable that blasted button (something I believe Sony has done with other models).
So there you have it—my non-techie initial impression of using the RX1 in a real-world pro shoot situation, with almost no time under the hood of the camera prior to the shoot. As you can tell, I'm sold on this little beastie, and am singing its praises. Of course I'll still be using my film cameras and my big heavy rigs too, but for right now I'm psyched about that "light, unfettered" feeling I get while shooting the RX1. Mato and his manager were very happy with the results as well, so it was a good three hours all the way around. And I got to hear great blues stories from Mato over dinner, after the shoot.
Oh, and I'm no longer at the very back of my Luddite cave—I've now officially scooted a few yards toward the entrance....
Bruce
(P.S. For those interested in Mato's music, I would recommend these to start with: "Indigenous Featuring Mato Nanji" from 2012; "Vanishing Americans"—the new record, 2013; and "Indigenous Live at Pachyderm Studio 1998.")
[Ed. Note: A new variant of the RX1 has just been announced, the RX1R, which has no anti-aliasing filter. The two cameras are otherwise identical and are priced the same.]
In 1992, when he was at Black Star, Bruce Haley was nominated by The Baltimore Sun for a Pulitzer Prize for helping to break the story of the famine in Somalia. His clients include Time, LIFE, U.S. News and World Report, The London Sunday Times Magazine, Stern, Paris Match, GEO, Aperture, Esquire, Georgia-Pacific, and the Chevron Corporation, and his work has been profiled in American Photo, (French) Photo, B&W magazine, Artworks, and Arts & Living. He received the prestigious Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the Burmese civil war.
Text and pictures ©2013 by Bruce Haley, all rights reserved
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
GH: "Hi, Bruce. Great shots and review. I wanted to mention that you can disable the movie button on the RX1, so that it only activates when the mode dial is set to movie mode. This function is there in the menus. I also wanted to mention just how great using an OVF is with this camera (I use a Voigtlander, rather than the official Zeiss.)
"I expected to primarily use the EVF, but I also got an OVF for fun, and I like using the OVF so much more that, surprisingly, I got rid of the EVF altogether. The OVF stays permanently on the camera. You'd think that a "dumb" OVF wouldn't be useful, but, since the AF and metering of the camera is so accurate, and there is no horizontal parallax, my hit rate is very good. I occasionally use the rear LCD, if it looks like a particularly difficult AF or metering situation, but it's rare. In fact, I find that I'm at least as accurate as I am with my X100's hybrid OVF, since the Fuji has to deal with more parallax."
Bruce Haley replies: Many thanks, GH, for your comment regarding the movie button. I found what you were referring to, and disabled the button—quite easily, I might add. And I certainly should have discovered this option on my own, but the light is rather dim in my Luddite cave, and for now I still find in-camera menus and massive 300-page user manuals to be somewhat daunting (to be honest, I don't even know how to use most of the features on my cheap cell phone). I did look through the RX1's menus and manuals, apparently (and not surprisingly) missing this entirely, and even did a quick Google search, where I found the notion that it needed a firmware update to accomplish the task. Ignorance on my part collided with ignorance on the 'Net, giving birth to misinformation. At any rate, I'm quite pleased to have been wrong in this instance, so thanks once again for leading me out of the darkness.
Rob: "I have had my RX1 for nearly six months, and I am still astonished when I see its RAW files open up on my monitor. How could such a small gadget produce such excellent images? Some users have complained about slow autofocus, but I have rarely found this to be a problem, even in low light. Furthermore, focusing in dead-on accurate. I have the EVF, which is better than I expected, but in bright sunny conditions it is no match for an OVF. At such times, I just use it to frame the image and depend on the camera to deliver the goods, which it always does."
Over $3000 and there's no IS.
Personally, I'd rather have a 43mm or 50mm lens.
Posted by: Bill | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 01:18 PM
That's a mighty cool camera and a really well written review but a glance at the Amazon page of this modern day Contaflex clone (fixed lens, leaf shutter, exquisite quality & similar price tag) makes me thing of this poster with camera gazing in place of star gazing, alas...
http://store.schlockmercenary.com/v/vspfiles/photos/P-Stargaze-2.jpg
Posted by: William Barnett-Lewis | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 01:33 PM
Suddenly I'm starting to think this little camera makes a lot more sense than it appeared when it was announced. It's not because I love the 35mm focal length (I don't), but it dawned on me that small sensors have unsurpassable dynamic range issues, which became even more conspicuous after I started shooting film with an Olympus OM-2n and compared the results with what I got with a Micro 4/3 camera. Now I'm a believer: full frame is the only way to go.
With the RX1, Sony proved it was possible to implement a full frame sensor in a small, compact body (which in itself was no mean feat); now it's just a matter of making it possible to swap lenses.
Mr. Haley's photographs are a case in point: not only they're beautifully executed - that was expected, anyway -, but they show how useful full frame's dynamic range is: highlights are so right, and detail under the shadows so clear... this is what we need. It makes me feel like all makers of APS-C and Micro 4/3-based mirrorless cameras are wasting their time. (And ours...)
Of course, full frame is expensive. Just like a V12-powered car is more expensive than a 4-straight, or even a V6. Does it have to be so much so, though? My hope is that one day mass production makes 36X24 sensors less expensive. After all, wasn't full frame the norm in the days of film, and smaller formats like APS and 110 the exception?
And this review is based on JPEGs taken with the RX1's anti-aliasing filter. Can't wait to see Sony's RX1R's raws!
Posted by: Manuel | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 01:52 PM
Love that second photo of Nanji. Awesome. It's refreshing to hear a pro photographer's perspective on the RX1, especially the part about just leaving it in AP mode, letting it do its thing and concentrating on composing the shot. Thanks!
Posted by: Brentwhopkins | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 02:13 PM
Thanks to Bruce for the column/user review. I have been resisting getting one of these, as it would be a change in the way I work, but as I read, I recalled a period during which my main day to day camera for unplanned shooting was a Plaubel Makina 670, due to the great looking negatives with the fixed 80mm Nikkor. I forgot about its quirks [of which there were many]. So much for the fixed lens issue, at least for me. This article tended to get that back into perspective, although I get the impression it's may cost me...
Posted by: Norm Snyder | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 02:21 PM
Exactly the sort of camera non-review review I love, from a pro who simply wants equipment that doesn't get in the way. And I learned about a musician I never heard of before, to boot. Thanks, Mr. Haley!
Posted by: Rick D | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 02:23 PM
Is there an optical viewfinder available for this camera? (Forthose of us who can't adapt to electronic vf's.)
Posted by: BH | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 03:38 PM
That was a great "review"!
Thanks Bruce, thanks Mike.
Posted by: Fred | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 04:19 PM
That was a pleasure to read.
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 04:50 PM
I'm a total gearhead, but I love reading about people who get gear that does what they want then ignore it and just focus on the shoot. That's what gear is for after all, enabling our visions. And those are some good looking pictures in the article.
I hope you try the raw versions, the tonal control and better handling of strong colors is worth it.
Personally, I think an EVF is really necessary, especially in sunny weather like this. I'm not old, I have decent eyes and in hard sunlight it's a pain trying to look at a rear LCD and figuring out the details.
Posted by: Oskar Ojala | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 04:50 PM
Interesting to have Bruce Haley write about the Sony. He is a Photographer in what I consider to be the true sense, using tools to record what he sees and feels. His website confirms the significance of photography in any age. My only comment about the Sony is my feeling that Sony(and other companies) uses a lot of software to achieve the camera-lens-digital file effect. This is why these days, Leica and Fuji start making statements like "lenses optically corrected" which of course costs more.
Posted by: ben ng | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 05:59 PM
I'd like to see more articles like this, because it's great to see how other photographers work.
Posted by: Mandeno Moments | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 09:34 PM
WOW. 5 shots and I still don't know what the guy looks like.
Posted by: james wilson | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 09:39 PM
One of the best camera reviews I've read. And, for obvious reasons, one of the few utterly lacking in (mostly silly) comparisons with other digital cameras. I was wondering about the viewing situation, until the end when the EVF appeared. Makes complete sense to me. Probably won't check out the camera (I'm into m4/3), but might check out the music.
Posted by: Marc Rochkind | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 10:00 PM
Your film shots are amazing. They have realism,dimension, depth & soul.
I am now a fan of your work.
Your digital shots lack all the above.
Posted by: g carvajal | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 10:21 PM
After I read the review I clicked the link to his website to get an idea of his work (you know, understand the reviewer...) and, um, I was humbled and felt like I lead a pampered life playing with my cameras in comparison to the real and important work done with a camera on display at his website. A camera review from a man who uses a camera as a tool and not a toy. Well Done.
Posted by: fred | Monday, 01 July 2013 at 10:33 PM
Excellent review for a camera that continues to fly under the radar.
I've had mine for several months and find the Sony RX1 to be the
closest thing to a 'baby M6'...solid, sturdy, with files that i find
reminiscent of my 35mm film days. Photography has become fun again! The thumb grip from Sony, though expensive, greatly improves the camera's ergonomics as does the L-bracket/front
grip from RRS. Interestingly, the step-down ring (49mm-37mm)
from Sensei makes a nice, unobtrusive lens shade. Plan to get the
28mm OVF from Voigtlander to round out my Sony RX1 add-ons.
Posted by: Robert Stahl | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 02:48 AM
Afghan mujahideen? Did you get to meet bin laden? It was OK under Reagan. But today, with all due respect, I wouldn't mention Afghan mujahideen in any positive / neutral context.
Posted by: Yger | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 02:51 AM
Ben ng, from distortion, to CA, to vignetting, to color shift, all of the camera/lens companies are correcting some aberrations in-camera, including Leica and Fuji.
I've used the M9+35/2 asph, X100 and RX1 quite a bit, and the RX1's lens is as good as people say. It is sharper across the field than the Leica, and it blows the X100's lens away. The only negative aspect of the RX1's lens that I can think of is that it has some barrel distortion, but it is easily correctable, if need be. Sometimes, when I have people's faces away from the center of the frame, I prefer not to correct the distortion, as it flattens them out a bit. Distortion, vignetting/color shading and CA are all correctable in-camera, but you have the option of turning them off/on. I just leave it all off and worry about it in raw.
Posted by: GH | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 09:48 AM
Mato Nanji much better with hipstamatic.
Posted by: hugo solo | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 10:56 AM
I know the focus here is the Sony RX1, but I can't resist plugging Haley's 13 Million Tons of Pig Iron portfolio. I bought a copy of it a several years ago and continue to enjoy viewing it to this day. If you like industrial or "urban decay" photography as much as I do, then it's a must have...
Posted by: JG | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 11:50 AM
Nice to read a non-techy review - the camera does sound very nice to use, but still seems to expensive to me. I actually like an SLR size camera when shooting - probably habit I guess. Nice work by the way!
Posted by: Chris Renton | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 12:56 PM
The photos really aren't that great examples... too distant, very harsh, no intimacy.
[You should bear in mind you're not really seeing the pictures as they were meant to be seen. The blog software restricts our illustrations to 800 pixels in width, and in most cases even those "opened" illustrations are somewhat darker and have slightly lower sharpness and DR than they do on my monitor. Given that the original pictures are 6000 pixels wide, you need to make some allowances. --Mike]
Posted by: Pat Trite | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 01:49 PM
Can't afford the camera (although, if it came with a 24 mm...), but thanks for the introduction to Mato Nanji. Sold!
Posted by: stephen | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 02:19 PM
@GH: You say that you use an OVF with the RX1. Could you please explain how you achieve focus, as there is no connection between the OVF and the camera? Are you focusing and metering with the rear LCD first and then using the OVF for composing?
I find the greatest strength of the EVF (other than being able to see it in bright sunlight) to be the live histogram. It takes all the guesswork out of metering and virtually eliminates the need for bracketing or taking he same shot over and over to get the correct exposure.
Posted by: Rob | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 04:23 PM
Good review, thanks. The RX1 sounds like it delivers much the same experience as my Leica X2 does, despite the difference in format. It just gets out of the way and let's me shoot, concentrating on the subject. There's great value in that. Image quality is a given with either camera.
I use both the EVF and an OVF. They are best in different shooting circumstances.
It's nice to see real use being given to these great cameras.
Posted by: Godfrey | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 07:48 PM
@GH & Other RX-1 users, I too am interest in the RX-1 with OVF. I just can't adapt to EVFs. I use Sigma DP's - pre Merrill - and zone focus. But the smaller sensors give more depth of field, and they are easy to use in that way because of their dedicated focus wheel, which the RX does not have.
Do you pre-focus on the approximate center of your OVF, and re-frame your shot? If so, how fast is the focus? Or do you have some other technique?
Thanks in anticipation.
Bear.
Posted by: Bear. | Tuesday, 02 July 2013 at 10:36 PM
Since this is my first (and perhaps only?) guest article on TOP, and I know that Mike and Ctein and others respond within the comment section itself, I wanted to come in here and take a quick drive-by and write out sort of a blanket reply to everyone. I am packing for some work-related travel and am in a bit of a rush, so my apologies that I'm not referring back to individual comments and addressing you by name; also, this will be my only chance to respond, as I will be without internet access for a while and upon my return this piece will be buried and forgotten, deep in the TOP archives.
To those who responded positively, thank you for your kind words. To those who responded negatively, thank you also for taking the time to read and express yourself. It is always interesting to see what does and does not resonate with viewers. When you work the photo room you find out that it's a tough crowd, but if everybody liked everything that I did, it would probably frighten me - or at very least make me think that I was doing something wrong...
I put about 20 images from the Mato shoot up on my website ( here: http://tinyurl.com/kb3ca7h ). Mike noted that the photos he selected for TOP only open to 800 dpi width; on my site you can see more of them, and also embiggened (I still haven't been into the RAW files yet, though). I don't usually put this sort of thing on my site, but in this case, since there were so many click-throughs from TOP, I thought I would put them up at least for a while. For those who thought the examples were too distant, etc., you can see some closer shots there, and get a better idea of the overall shoot.
On this same note, since several mentions were made regarding the subject distance in the examples that Mike selected to run with the piece: management usually gives directives, or at very least some specific ideas on what they would like to see and have, and often this translates into shooting their subject in a way that is different from what is already available to them in their artist archive. There is a certain look and feel that they're after, and it's my job to deliver that. In this particular case, it wasn't supposed to be about headshots or extremely tight close-ups, and the clients are very pleased with the results. As I try to give every client 150% of my abilites, I'm really happy when they're really happy. This was a recent shoot, and they've already used a few of the images for an interview with Mato, as well as putting some of them up on the Indigenous Facebook page; one of the images is being used as their Facebook "cover" image, and a photo of Mato smiling has gotten 400+ "likes" and 20 comments since yesterday... yes, I realize that Lady Gaga could post a photo of her morning bowel movement and it would have 250,000 "likes" before noon, but everything is relative... in my mind, in a perfect world, Mato's guitar playing should garner more Facebook followers than whatever it is that any of the Kardashians do, but that's just me....
To the reader who mentioned the mujahideen - yes, that was 1988 and things were much, much different then. Without getting too political here, historical hindsight often bears out the fact that the old adage "The enemy of my enemy is my friend" often leads to policy decisions that later come back to bite you on the ass.
I don't know what to say about the Hipstamatic comment - somehow I don't see anything Hipstamatic in my future...
I really have to go finish packing now, but let me say that I'm a big TOP fan, it was really fun to do a piece here, and my thanks again to everyone who took the time to read and comment.
And for those who may have discovered Mato's music and bought a CD or two, know that you're helping to support a really nice guy who also gives 150% with each performance!
Cheers,
- Bruce
Posted by: Bruce Haley | Wednesday, 03 July 2013 at 02:58 PM
Bear, there are couple of different ways of focusing with the RX1's OVF (I use a Voigtlander.) When in manual focus mode, the camera displays a focus distance scale on the LCD, although it is a bit rudimentary, but you can set your focus distance from there. The biggest issue is that the camera returns focus to zero when shutting the camera down, so you have to refocus every time you start up the camera, which I hope is fixed in a firmware update.
Personally, I use center point AF most of the time. The AF of the RX1 isn't super fast, but it almost always locks on, and you can "feel" the AF moving in your hand, so you know when it locks. Since the OVF is directly above the lens, you only have to deal with a bit of vertical parallax when the subject gets close, and it is easy to visualize with a day's practice. I also de-link the camera's exposure from the shutter button, so focusing and recomposing doesn't cause exposure issues. The camera's metering is so good that I feel more confident in my exposure using the "dumb" OVF than I did with my M9.
I certainly didn't expect to like the "dumb" OVF, but it's permanently attached to my camera, now. My hit rate is surprisingly good.
Posted by: GH | Wednesday, 03 July 2013 at 04:32 PM
You can deactivate this terrible movie button:
http://docs.esupport.sony.com/dvimag/DSCRX1_guide/en/contents/04/04/18/18.html
Posted by: Martin | Saturday, 06 July 2013 at 04:36 AM