Sony Impressions after 30 minutes with my new RX1R and EVF

Although much of this has been hashed to death, I'm feeling philosophical so here are my first observations just 30 minutes after the big, brown truck left!

Feel/Quality- AWESOME! The camera *FEELS* even more solid and impressive than I anticipated; lovely to hold and lovely to look at.

Manual- Magnificently UNimpressive! I've seen FAR more impressive manuals with a $39 electronic Chinese gizmo. At the price of an RX1R w/ELV they OUGHT to give you a mini-tablet with the owners manual and about 40 hours of instructional video onboard! LOL! I've noticed some car manufacturers doing this now and I'm GUESSING Sony could build or procure their own for <$100 per tablet. Just a thought. Somebody's going to (or perhaps already has) made a killing writing a top-quality "missing manual" for this camera! I'll be their first customer.

Fotodiox Pro Grip: Nice quality for the price and feels comfortable, and the "access cutout" works fine for the battery but my fat fingers fumbled for at least 45 seconds trying to grasp the SD card and get it out. It needs to be a few 1/1000ths wider slot! Or maybe I'll develop new SKILLZ!

Sony EVF- LOVE/HATE relationship in the first 3 minutes. LOVE the quality of the view but *HATE* the fact that it seems cheap and sits precariously atop the camera ruining the esthetics completely and looking and feeling as if it's going to be knocked off with the slightest glancing blow. I'm going to evaluate it but it's tempting to send it back immediately. It's hard to imagine EVER carrying the camera with the EVF attached and of course it wouldn't fit in the never-ready case with the EVF attached, though I haven't bought a case yet and may not. Keeping it in it's little mouse-house carrying case seems like a prescription for losing a $450 accessory and will be damned inconvenient to take out and install and remove and put away every time you want to take a photo. I'm not sure what Sony was thinking- other than a way to soak the buyer for another $450. We'll see. I was skeptical about it before ordering but it's actually far worse-looking, cheaper and more precarious than I could possibly have imagined. As impressive as the build/quality of the camera is, the EVF is equally UNimpressive in terms of quality, integration, fit and integrity. It looks like a cheap aftermarket product or at best a last-minute afterthought on Sony's part.

Some quick test images ARE impressive and I'm looking forward to exploring more- but as predicted the autofocus leaves a LOT to be desired compared to several other cameras I own or have owned. Hmmmm....

OK... that's it initial impressions. NOW I have to figure out how this little gizmo WORKS since the owners manual is obviously going to be of little to no help.

Whew! I'm through now,

Steve
 
have had the evf/rx1 over a month, have taken it everywhere: over shoulder with strap, in camera bag with another cam, in my coat pocket!! never never never had the slightest inkling of a problem or even had a thought about a problem with the evf attached. being an old hand at this, with ep2 and gxr m mount for years, dont give it a second thought. its presence adds immeasurably to the shooting experience. enjoy the view, its league leading by far, and dont stress the rest. itll be just fine.

funny, after all my years with different evfs, including the much touted oly vf4, my initial impression was exactly the oppsite: i thought the comparative quality was great, its sleek and fits on the cam great, it has no give in its articulability which imparts a quality feel, and the view is second to none, whether integrated or not.

thats what makes thw world go round! enjoy!
 
I like the fotodiox grip also, much better then the JLM one that I have w/ em5. I didn't use the evf w/ the camera but I used Oly optical viewfinder with it and no drops so far w/ it. I know the feeling from ep evf's. Sony nex evf has a screw luck which should be included with this also. Enjoy your new camera...
 
Just playing with the resolving power of lens/sensor. This was a quick test shot of our dog, since dogs and cats seem to be perennial favorite test subjects around here. LOL! This is the jpeg version cropped to roughly 1/3 of the original image size and changed, of course, to square. I just wanted to see what the nose and individual hairs looked like in the finest of pixel-peeper fashion. Auto WB, auto-everything in fact in later afternoon twilight north light with a mixture of several different Kelvin temperature incandescent lights overhead. It could obviously use a lot of PP work in raw, but that's not the point for now. BTW- this is a rather uncommon breed in the US, btw- a 5lb Bolognese. They look a lot like a nano-size English sheepdog.

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my evf was slid about 1 mm out one time after it tumbled off the back car seat and rolled under my seat.... lol. other than that i havent had any issue with it tho.

have you checked out the HOOCAP for it? i LOOOOOOVEEEEEET!

now go take a picture of an ugly tree and see how long you stare at how crispity crisp all the leaves are! thats what i did! it was the most glorious ugly photo of an ugly tree EVAR!
 
Just playing with the resolving power of lens/sensor. This was a quick test shot of our dog, since dogs and cats seem to be perennial favorite test subjects around here. LOL! This is the jpeg version cropped to roughly 1/3 of the original image size and changed, of course, to square. I just wanted to see what the nose and individual hairs looked like in the finest of pixel-peeper fashion. Auto WB, auto-everything in fact in later afternoon twilight north light with a mixture of several different Kelvin temperature incandescent lights overhead. It could obviously use a lot of PP work in raw, but that's not the point for now. BTW- this is a rather uncommon breed in the US, btw- a 5lb Bolognese. They look a lot like a nano-size English sheepdog.

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the dr of yer sensor must be off.. all i see is black/white! ;D
 

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The clip-on EVF is an interesting proposition. I have the Olympus VF-4 for my E-P5 which is as good an EVF as you can get, but I have to make a point of attaching it to the camera BEFORE I take it out because I am just not going to take it on and off as required. In the last few years I've learnt to shoot properly without an eye-level viewfinder anyway so it's not a big problem for me whether the EVF is there or not.
 
the Rx1 comes with a manual?????

Of COURSE it does Lucille.... I'm pretty sure it says "turn dial to A. Turn aperture ring to 2. Be sure camera is charged and turned on. Aim. Fire. Repeat the words 'oh my god it's gorgeous'. Repeat steps 4-6 until battery needs recharging."
 
Of COURSE it does Lucille.... I'm pretty sure it says "turn dial to A. Turn aperture ring to 2. Be sure camera is charged and turned on. Aim. Fire. Repeat the words 'oh my god it's gorgeous'. Repeat steps 4-6 until battery needs recharging."

I have my dial turned to 'H'........ and that's all the manual I needed daddy-o............ and the magic happens....... H is for HepKitty...
 
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