Has the Sony DSC-R1 been discontinued?

[film-user]

I do not see the DSC-R1 on Sony's web page, although accessory lenses and

filters are still listed. The R1 I have used has fabulous optical quality.

What happened to the rumors of an R2 model? Thanks!

[mars c]

Yup! It is discontinued. ( I dont have a proof but it is apparent)

 

What do you mean what happened to the rumors?

 

Rumors are just rumors, One should never count on it.

 

As for the R2, No, There will be no R2 this year. In the same way there is no F829 following the F828, If ever Sony will make another big EVF, it will be a different beast altogether.

[godfrey]

I agree: the R1 is discontinued, Sony has chosen to move forward with their DSLR range for

the present instead.

 

I'd personally love to see an R1+ ... take the same basic camera, add a huge amount of

buffer, much greater speed, improve the AF responsiveness and give it an even nicer fit and

finish. It would be a very compelling camera.

 

Godfrey

[dmanthree]

One of the biggest disappointments for me was that Sony let the 828 die without an upgrade to address noise and image quality. That camera was the best "swiss army knife" camera ever. Great movies, nice design, laser assisted focusing, IR, night framing/night shot, etc. Loved it. What a damned shame Sony never followed through on it.

[trex1]

Hey, I wouldn't expect too much from Sony. Sony used to make every product with an

English menu and instructions. For some reason, they insisted on releasing the Japanese

market R1 with a Japanese only menu. It would have been easy to allow and English menu

on it, but they insisted on being bloody minded and left it off. I bought mine here in Tokyo

with a Japanese only menu, because I would have had to pay an extra 200 dollars for the

"export" model, to get an English menu. Sony are tone deaf, they have some great

engineers and people working for them, hence the wonders of things like the Trinitron tv,

the R1, and other great Sony products, but somewhere in there is what we call in Japan, an

Oyaji, who is determined to throw the "sabot" in the works. If they can clean out their Oyaji

and hire some more brilliant young engineers, then they will be revitalised, but as long as

the Oyaji are sucking them dry, forget it.

[jean-louis llech]

Yes, unfortunately, the DSC-R1 has been discontinued. But many can still be found new on several websites.<br>

I bought one a few months ago, just <u>after</u> I learned that it was discontinued. Why ? because I considered that it was really a great camera, and that it corresponded exactly to my needs. I was so enthusiastic about this camera that I bought three weeks ago a second one for my wife to replace his 3 years-old Olympus C-5060-WZ.<p>

 

First, the DSC-R1 has an outstanding Zeiss lens, (it was designed specifically for the DSC-R1, and made up of 10 groups of 12 elements, four of which are aspherical). This lens alone is worth the price of the camera. <br>

For my needs, (and probably for many other photographers) the 24-120 focal range is excellent.<br>

The camera has a very large CMOS sensor, nearly like many DSLR, a 10.3 Mpix resolution and a 5.49 micron pixel pitch : image quality, outstanding design and construction.<br>

I also like the fact that it has all manual controls, like its smooth zooming ring and manual focusing ring.<br>

Most of the time, I use manual focus and aperture priority. Nothing fully automatic, no "12 fps burst rate", no video. A dream. <p>

 

Ergonomically speaking, the DSC-R1 is very well conceived : all controls easily fall under the fingers. The EVF has a a large exit pupil, a large rubber eyepiece, and even with glasses, it is very comfortable to use.<br>

Another example : the diopter corrector lever concealed under the EVF is protected against accidental changes. The rubber eyepiece is largely protruding and the nose is not stuck on the back of the camera. The position of the LCD screen on top avoids also nose prints on it.<br>

The zoom and focusing ring are simply smooth, "unctuous" to use. The grip is also a real pleasure to hold.<p>

 

A professional website wrote : <i>"The Sony Cyber-shot DSC-R1 is arguably one of the biggest revolutions in consumer digital photography in recent years"</i>. <p>

 

So, why this camera has been discontinued ? IMO, it simply does not correspond to the criteria of the current "fashion" cameras. <br>

Some explanations : for many people, "the zoom lens does not go far enough" : 200 or 300mm would have been better... and 24mm (even distorsion-free) is too wide, 28 or 35 mm would have been better. <br>

Most people ignore that a narrow focal length range offers a better optical and image quality. A 36-430 is probably much more "appealing"... whatever the image quality...<p>

 

"The DSC-R1 has no image stabilization" : but a 24-120mm zoom does not need an image stabilizer. That's totally stupid. <br>

I use lenses from 40 mm to 250/500 mm on Rolleiflex 6x6 SLRs, 58mm to 400mm on 6x9 and 4x5" folding camera, very often handheld and I don't know what "image stabilization" means.<br>

All my Rolleiflex medium format cameras, TLR or SLR have a waist level folding viewing hood. Thus I immediately "fell in love" with this LCD screen on the top of the DSC-R1. And once folded, it is totally protected. Many DSLR do not have it.<br>

(I often think that people look stupid with extended arms to see through the LCD screen on the back of their cameras).<br>

The DSC-R1 has a waist level finder, no mirror release, no shutter noise : this camera is one of the very few ones which can be operated totally silently.<br>

Another advantage : both electronic viewfinder and LCD screen are very accurate and show 100 % of the recorded image.<p>

 

The DSC-R1 is a new class of camera by itself, and to some extent a "disturbing camera" : many innovations, like its large CMOS sensor, the LCD on top, the high quality fixed lens, and many other characteristics.<br>

Many tests were trials, as the DSC-R1 was not compared with other equivalent so called "bridge cameras", but with digital reflex DSLR cameras. It was compared with the EOS 350D, the Olympus E500, the Canon EOS 5D, 20D and the Nikon D2x ! <br>

IMO, that's totally stupid, as were many "arguments" against this camera : <br>

- No video recording (it doesn't make cofee neither...)<br>

- "10 megapixels really doesn't give that much more resolution than 8 Megapixels"<br>

- One of the best ones : "Non-interchangeable lens !" <br>

- "lacks some features of DSLRs" or "it still is a digicam and therefore lacks some of the features that DSLR users take for granted"<br>

- "An optical viewfinder would've been really nice" Why not also a mirror ? The choice was the 24mm focal length or a TTL optical VF. An optical viewfinder would have completely upset the design of this camera : size, weight, noise... Stupid too.<p>

 

For a "film photographer" like me, who has been using since many years large and medium format cameras, in 4x5", 6x9, 6x7, 6x6 and 4 1/2x6 film formats, (and of course 24x36) this camera is an ideal complement.<p>

 

Don't forget that a DSLR equivalent to the DSC-R1 (with a lens having the optical quality of the Zeiss 24-120 Vario-Sonnar) would cost three or four times its price.<p>

 

Sony probably decided to promote their new Alpha 100 DSLR, and to sacrify the DSC-R1. Undoubtedly, discontinuing this great camera is a fundamental marketing error. Not the first one, not the last one... <br>

[mike_pallas]

I bought one last Autumn and can confirm it's a great camera. The 24-120 lens is all I need. Would have preferred better macro facility but you can't have everything. Image quality is amazing. Not really suitable as an action camera but for static or slow moving subjects it's fine. The articulated viewfinder is a real plus allowing shots you would struggle to get with an SLR. Look out for bargains if the remaining stock is to be sold off. I'm not surprised the R1 is ceasing production I think the design is a little too radical for many people. Having used SLR's for 15 years I can say the R1 is the best camera I've used so far.

[kevin_duncan]

Hopefully sony can make us another model, the R1 is very unique in it's characteristics.

 

Live Preview is great, and the moveable LCD monitor has 1000 uses.

 

too bad sony didn't make a decent flash for it, I found the HVL-F32X ate batteries, had painfully slow recycle time, and i couldn't mount it on my stroboframe because the cord was too short. I ended up using a Metz flash but then the AF Assist Lamp doesn't work which made focusing in the dark very tough with the EVF.

 

If sony made an alpha with live preview lcd that was moveable I would buy it in a second. or make a R2 with anti-shake and support for the alpha flashes.

 

I don't think we've seen the last high end live preview camera from sony.... at least I hope not.

[trex1]

While we are on the topic of the R1, I thought I'd make sure to remind people to absolutely

not buy their ringlight! It is a piece of useless junk. It is not a flash, but a bunch of white leds

that stay on and do not even provide much light, and then they chew up the batteries after a

few minutes of use, amazing! It would be nice to find a decent ttl flash for this camera,

especially a ring light for macro shots.

[mike_pallas]

I posted a warning on the ringlight a while back. I think it's meant to also be used on a video camera hence continous light and not flash. Funnily enough I am finding my sony ringlight useful on a Panasonic FZ10. This camera doesn't have an af lamp and has problems in low light. So I use the sony ringlight as a focus aid for close ups indoors and a ringflash to take the photo. Otherwise the ringflash is junk and well overpriced for a glorified battery lamp. This sort of thing must damage Sony's reputation.

[wolf_rainer_schmalfuss]

Hi Jean-Louis!

 

I am 200 percent (!) behind you!

 

Cheers

[mac_west6]

The R1 is a wonderful tool , when I heard it was being discontinued I bought another one as a back up.

[john_spray]

I discovered the now discontinued R1 recently while looking for a backup while my 350D is at Canon being recalibrated because it front focuses. At first I couldn't believe that SLR cameras could do that, but after reading this post http://www.fredmiranda.com/forum/topic2/241524

I realized SLR cameras have a dirty little secret. They are 'open loop' with respect to autofocusing and therefore can be out of calibration.

 

It gets worse. Even if you get Canon to perfectly calibrate your SLR camera and lens, it's still only designed to be as accurate as your depth of field (by a first approximation) unless you have an F2.8 lens or wider, when it becomes 1/3 DOF.

 

It gets even worse. The DOF is defined such that your photos will be out of focus by up to 0.02mm at APS-C sensor. That works out pretty close to 3 pixels! I often view my photos at 100%, either because I have cropped heavily around a small subject such as a bird, or because I just like to see all the little details my camera picked up that I never saw at the time. So I am a real pixel peeping Tom. 3 pixles of blur is just not good enough for me. I want 1.5.

 

That's where the R1 comes in. I started looking for an SLR quality camera that uses contrast focusing, read that 'closed loop' using the actual sensor that will take the photo. IMHO that is inherently a better system. It may be slower, but I personally would far rather have perfect pixel focusing.

 

I studied quite a few sample photos in the different reviews. While I didn't do this scientifically, I'm pretty sure I never saw a single R1 photo that wasn't pixel perfect, but I saw plenty of SLR photos that were soft. I also studied quite a few photos taken by a friend's Nikon 5700 and that also blew me away with its pixel perfection on every last photo, not just the hand picked ones. Looked at getting a Nikon 8800 for a while but it doesn't have the noise performance of the R1.

 

I wondered if anyone else thinks the R1 has an advantage over SLRs in its autofocusing accuracy? Discontinued or not, I'll be buying an R1 soon. Its a classic camera design that will one day return when the current SLR fashion runs full circle.

 

Final note: I can't believe the new 'live view' SLRs coming out now don't offer contrast focusing already, as an alternative when the mirror is up. It's only software after all.

[Tim_Lookingbill]

I'm a pixel peeper as well, John. I was looking at getting the R1,

but couldn't seem to find it in stock anywhere at a reasonable

price. I agree it can really take some sharp images based on

examining the R1 galleries at pbase.

 

I had to settle on the Pentax K100D which doesn't fail in this

regard even in shots of objects taken ten feet away. The perfect

haloless stairstep pixel edge quality as seen in zoomed view of

the full rez version of the PDI color target became the gold

standard for me in regards to sharpness of images shot at

similar distances. That target was shot with an expensive

scanback.

 

The Pentax comes very close. The Nikons just as well from what

I saw at Stevedigicam. The Canons, however, had a slight soft

feel as you've mentioned.