Sony RX1 landscapes - query

adam

Regular
Location
Birmingham UK
Name
Adam
I love my RX1. I am using it to take cityscapes, street photography and rural landscapes.

I do find in rural landscapes where there is lots of distant foliage, trees etc that RAWS can show mushy detail "when viewed at 100%" I usually process in LR5 and tend to sharpen at the following levels when taking rural landscapes : This helps to alleviete this.

Amount - 50 to 60

Radius - 8 to 9

Detail - 50 to 70

I understand that Tim Ashley who reviewed the RX1 uses these levels.

Do you concur with the above.

I realise that the RX1 is perfectly adequate for rural landscapes but would a Nikon F/Frame 36mp camera say with the Sigma ART 35mm lens produce more sharpness / details in rural scenes.

I'm just curious about your opinions.

Thanks very much ........ Adam
 
There are more detailed cameras than the RX1 - the D810 (36mp, no AA filter), any of the Sigma foveon models, etc. Assuming the lenses can resolve as well as the sensors (which the Sigma Art certainly would). But I'd suggest if the RX1 isn't sharp enough for you, you're spending an awful lot of time looking at foliage at 100%. I personally loved the landscapes from the RX1 - the lens is so sweet and 24mp, even with an AA filter, is plenty detailed for anything but the largest murals viewed way too close. Here are a couple of shots from Italy when I had the camera - the focus is much closer than infinity in both so the most distant foliage is soft simply because it's not in focus, but I think you can see plenty of detail in anything, including foliage, that's within the range of focus. You can view these at 100% if you click through to Flickr... I don't know what the sharpening is - I generally just sharpen to taste rather than a specific formula...

9218902374_a601ba136c_h.jpg
Capri RX1-150-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr

9297615275_cbad37d5cb_h.jpg
RX1 Ravello-Amalfi-36-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr

On this one, the focus does appear to be at infinity and if you look at the second most distant hillside, I think the foliage is as sharp as you could want given the distance and the focal length...

9216090829_610a6e0bdb_h.jpg
Capri RX1-177-Edit
by Ray, on Flickr

-Ray
 
I was looking at new dxo lens report for Sony 90mm 2.8 Macro, which might be the sharpest FF lens tested (31.9MP on 36MP~88.6%), since most of Otus lenses on the graph were tested on D800. However I saw that RX1R has 20.4Mp (85% of 24MP) and RX1 has 18.1Mp (75% of 24MP) vs Sigma 35mm 1.4 has 23.2MP on D800 and Sony 35mm 1.4 has 23MP on A7R (~64% of 36MP). So upgrading will give you some boost but not a big jump. RX1 lens might be the one of the sharpest 35mm lenses though the sensor is 3 years old, but still not outdated with current tech. Newer A7R II or Canon 5D's might give more resolution but again the lenses will be limiting you eg you will get more diminishing returns... You can check the dxo graph and lensrental 5D report:

Lenses Database - DxOMark
Canon 5DS and 5DS R Initial Resolution Tests
 
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