A sad farewell this week. I finally said goodbye to my dear, dear camera which I only knew for six months.
Rangefinder cameras had a recent renaissance when the buzz around this camera broke out a few years ago, but it really got turned up to a white hot buzz when the Leica M8 was announced. The Epson was also limited to a production run of only 10,000 units.
Rangefinders and rangefinder photography is hard wired into photographic history and there’s no one that contributed more to this than a gentleman called Henri Cartier-Bresson. From the early part of the last century until his death in 2004, he was synonymous with three things: an enormous body of legendary work, being known for the phrase, ‘the decisive moment’, and for using Leica rangefinders.
No one I can think of is as tied to a brand as strongly as HCB and Leica. And so, in 2006 (when I started to think about the Epson RD-1) one can’t help but be wrapped up in all the romance and mystique of what these cameras offer.
A unique shooting style (manual pre-focussing) and a unique way of visualizing (through a separate viewfinder that shops crops marks of the field of view) all make up an experience that is difficult to describe without having one in your hands for a while. And truly when I bought this camera, I really wanted to give this style of photography an honest, through work out.
But sadly for me, I can say that this style just didn’t work for me. And how much of it was to do with this camera is sort of a moot point, as there is only one other digital rangefinder alternative available, the Lecia M8, which at $5000 for the body was way too expensive to ‘try out’. And after owning my first camera (a Canon A1) I’m not going to go back to shooting with film again to fully experience rangefinders.
Despite the awkwardness of my experiences with the camera, I found it to be one of the most exquisitely designed objects I’ve had in my hands. It was a great design exercise in melding analog, manual controls into a digital camera body. The Epson designers even integrated fully working, chronograph style dials to display the available space on the memory card, the white balance and the image resolution.
Ironically, the final nail in the coffin was my last assignment for some intense photography. The chance to photograph all over two cities was challenging enough, but when faced with this pressured assignment, I chose my trusty Nikon d70 instead. I just cannot afford to have a camera without auto focus anymore.
My Epson is now in the hands of a new owner and I’m sure that he’ll cherish it ten times more than I ever could.
In memory of this beautiful, romantic camera, here are some of my favourite photos taken with the Epson RD-1.
