oldwino
Well-known
More stories (on the Pixii Facebook group) about the rangefinder being out of vertical alignment right out of the box, and Pixii being unresponsive to the problem. Does anyone here have that issue?
boojum
Mentor
I have not yet had a RF problem with the Pixii. I do find that it does not like to be hurried and will stumble occasionally when it is hurried. What happens is I get a bad exposure.
Pixii is a small operation and each member in it is a "one man band", regardless of gender. I am sure that when Barth has the time he checks the FB user group and the BBS's like this to see what is being said as well as reads his mail. He has a long list of things to do. He has eliminated many past problems. I am sure he will continue this way. All cameras have glitches. They are complicated and while it seems a simple "push the button" to us there is a lot going on to make that button push into a good photo. About the only camera I own not having users clamor about upgrades and firmware fixes is an old Olympus XA3. ;o)
Pixii is a small operation and each member in it is a "one man band", regardless of gender. I am sure that when Barth has the time he checks the FB user group and the BBS's like this to see what is being said as well as reads his mail. He has a long list of things to do. He has eliminated many past problems. I am sure he will continue this way. All cameras have glitches. They are complicated and while it seems a simple "push the button" to us there is a lot going on to make that button push into a good photo. About the only camera I own not having users clamor about upgrades and firmware fixes is an old Olympus XA3. ;o)
Godfrey
somewhat colored
The Pixii I had for evaluation had no rangefinder problems. And the folks at Pixii were very responsive to my queries through a horrible shipping experience with UPS and then when I decided it wasn't the right camera for me.
A rangefinder can go out of vertical alignment from being dropped or banged during shipment. There's little Pixii can do about that.
G
TL7
Member
What are you going to do..
Ship it back to France for every lil thing that goes wrong like RF adjustment?
Is the RF user adjustable?
Ship it back to France for every lil thing that goes wrong like RF adjustment?
Is the RF user adjustable?
bob_summers
Member
I understand the RF is easily calibrated at home. Vertical alignment issue I guess is back to the factory.
Yeah - I just had to get into the habit of checking the shutter speed in the viewfinder if it's set to A-priority. Which is not very often tbh. As mentioned, I'm an M2 shooter and like to do things the same way.
boojum
Mentor
When I returned my A1571 for the upgrade to A2572 PIxii sent explicit instructions and shipping label images to insure not getting charged for a return to maker for repairs. I have seen mention of some countries charging exorbitant fees for this turnaround. From my experience living in a Third World country this is an inducement for a bribe to "make it all go away." Were it me in that situation I would offer up the question to the "authorities" of whether or not there might be another way. There most often is.
Also, not all shippers charge the same rate. UPS held a gun to my head to extort their exorbitant fee. OK, they did not use a gun. But FedEx was cheaper and DHL may have been, too. Pixii returned the upgrade via DHL and dinged me US$50 for the shipping fees. Shop the shippers. If you can get US$100 round trip to Pixii it is a bargain.
This is not a perfect camera. It is a good camera. It is daring but it has had its problems. That said it gives me good images and that is all I ask.
Whitten
Established
Many courier companies charge a set fee to handle imports and exports. I've had FedEx charge me more in handling fees that the item was actually taxed.
The rangefinder mechanism is one of the tricky things to deal with. I must say I had a film M6 in the 90's and travelled the world multiple times and never had a problem. I bought an Epson RD 1s and had the rangefinder go out on me twice in a year, so ended up selling it.
I think these days you should have a local tech that can calibrate the rangefinder. As has just been mentioned, even if it is recalibrated by Pixii, it can be knocked out again during the shipping back to you.
The rangefinder mechanism is one of the tricky things to deal with. I must say I had a film M6 in the 90's and travelled the world multiple times and never had a problem. I bought an Epson RD 1s and had the rangefinder go out on me twice in a year, so ended up selling it.
I think these days you should have a local tech that can calibrate the rangefinder. As has just been mentioned, even if it is recalibrated by Pixii, it can be knocked out again during the shipping back to you.
boojum
Mentor
Yes, this the the vexing problem. I am a couple of hours from reddotrepair and have known Jadon, the chief, to be good, accurate and quite capable. So should I go up to him? The big question would be if he can get into the body without damaging it. I'll have to chat with him. But other than software/firmware mistakes I have made the camera has worked well for as long as I have owned it.
Whitten
Established
Because it can be an issue with all rangefinders, all rangefinders should make calibration relatively easy to do.
The problem with the Epson was that the mechanism was buried inside the body requiring quite a bit of delicate disassembly.
The problem with the Epson was that the mechanism was buried inside the body requiring quite a bit of delicate disassembly.
That's reasonable... it would be likely $300 from Chile and back. Also, it is hard for me to talk in Spanish and get my point across... I'm still learning. I would be very nervous that they would charge me taxes etc and then hold it hostage for a very long time while I iron things out in my bad Spanish. That said, I no longer care about rangefinders anymore. I am firmly an AF fan I have found. I care about small rangefinder shaped cameras more than the rangefinder mechanism. The Pixii is cool though and they've pulled off a minor miracle in my view.
ptpdprinter
Mentor
I should hope so. It cost $3000 and you have only had it two years.
Godfrey
somewhat colored
I've had Leica, Kodak, Fuji, and tons of other rangefinder cameras since 1969. In all this time, through however many cameras and rolls of film and travels I've made with these cameras, I have only twice had to have a rangefinder collimated and calibrated. I've had to have several cleaned over the years, which generally includes a calibration as part of the deal, but they didn't need calibration so much as cleaning.
These things are much more robust than what I hear being said on today's photo forums. Yes, they can be jiggered by rough handling, drops and bangs ... but these are the exceptional cases rather than the rule. Rangefinder mechanisms are, by and large, pretty simple little mechanisms and it takes a good wack or persistent high-frequency vibration to throw them out.
Or being handled by abusive and clumsy owners ...
As I said to the guy who bought a camera from me recently after he exclaimed as to how mint and perfect the camera was... "I just don't understand how or why most cameras get so beat up looking. I don't do anything special, I just don't treat mine like a basket ball."
G
These things are much more robust than what I hear being said on today's photo forums. Yes, they can be jiggered by rough handling, drops and bangs ... but these are the exceptional cases rather than the rule. Rangefinder mechanisms are, by and large, pretty simple little mechanisms and it takes a good wack or persistent high-frequency vibration to throw them out.
Or being handled by abusive and clumsy owners ...
As I said to the guy who bought a camera from me recently after he exclaimed as to how mint and perfect the camera was... "I just don't understand how or why most cameras get so beat up looking. I don't do anything special, I just don't treat mine like a basket ball."
G
Whitten
Established
It really depends on the camera. As I said, I never babied my film M6. I had it for more than ten years and never had an issue with the rangefinder mechanism. On the other hand, I had the rangefinder go out of calibration twice in 18 months with my Epson RD1s, and I was using it a lot less than my old M6.
bob_summers
Member
Having mostly shot Mono mode, I tried shooting colour at the weekend. Usual story with the random shutter speed in A mode - like one in every 10 exposures are just black squares with a crazy fast shutter. But the colours, I like. White balance can be way off. Stripey shutter caught me out on some indoor shots - I am still learning digital, and damn Darktable. Transfer to USB pendrive was flawless. The OOC jpegs look okay too, if a little saturated, you can save them to your camera roll to share before you get to a computer (not my thing though).
Still happy, despite some teething issues.
(ISO1600, manual 1/750, CV28 f/2, point and shoot haha)
Still happy, despite some teething issues.
(ISO1600, manual 1/750, CV28 f/2, point and shoot haha)
Attachments
boojum
Mentor
From what I have learned from David Barth, Standard 1 is your best color profile. WB works for me. You will get the banding indoors if an LED light source is around. LED's seem to band with all electronic shutters. I have not collected black exposures in Auto mode.
I like the color very much.
I like the color very much.
ranger9
Well-known
FYI... today I got my Pixii back from its tour to France, where I had sent it after I somehow managed to render it unbootable after installing a development software update. (Pixii has a slick web-based remote terminal tool that lets you watch the boot process in verbose mode; doing this I could see that the camera was actually starting up just fine until it came time to initialize the I2C bus, which was failing after receiving garbled parameters... my guess is that when I had done a "hard reset", aka remove/replace battery, during a startup, I had scrambled some of the setup strings. Incidentally, if none of the above means anything to you, you probably are NOT an ideal Pixii customer!) When I encountered this problem, the Pixii peeps told me that they could undoubtedly solve it immediately by reflashing my camera over the internet -- apparently there's another slick remote tool for that -- but I opted to send it in so they could make sure the underlying problem wasn't failure of some hardware component.
Anyway, since I was sending it back anyway (at Pixii's expense, BTW) I was invited to include a note of anything else I would like for them to look at, so I mentioned that the vertical alignment of the rangefinder image seemed a bit uncertain, and seemed unusually sensitive to keeping the eye perfectly centered behind the eyepiece... letting the eye drift even slightly out of position would lead to the vertical alignment changing or getting "cloudy." I had been willing to accept some pickiness as the price of the very compact dimensions of the rangefinder module, but I wanted to make sure it was set up as well as possible.
Anyway, as noted, the camera came back today (after several annoying UPS misadventures) and not only does it start up correctly, but the rangefinder is hugely better... I would almost go so far as to say transformed. I don't know what they might have done to it, but not only are the images perfectly aligned vertically and horizontally, but the eye-placement sensitivity is gone -- I can just pick it up and use it without taking any special care to center my eye, the same way I use my Bessa R3m or Epson R-D1 (my favorite RFs.)
I'll be able to give it a real wringing-out next week, since my workplace is in the middle of a three-week summer study program for which I typically shoot several hundred photos per day. I had to do the first week with my Fujifilm X-H2, since the Pixii was still on vacation, but I'll be very glad to have it back for the second week!
Anyway, since I was sending it back anyway (at Pixii's expense, BTW) I was invited to include a note of anything else I would like for them to look at, so I mentioned that the vertical alignment of the rangefinder image seemed a bit uncertain, and seemed unusually sensitive to keeping the eye perfectly centered behind the eyepiece... letting the eye drift even slightly out of position would lead to the vertical alignment changing or getting "cloudy." I had been willing to accept some pickiness as the price of the very compact dimensions of the rangefinder module, but I wanted to make sure it was set up as well as possible.
Anyway, as noted, the camera came back today (after several annoying UPS misadventures) and not only does it start up correctly, but the rangefinder is hugely better... I would almost go so far as to say transformed. I don't know what they might have done to it, but not only are the images perfectly aligned vertically and horizontally, but the eye-placement sensitivity is gone -- I can just pick it up and use it without taking any special care to center my eye, the same way I use my Bessa R3m or Epson R-D1 (my favorite RFs.)
I'll be able to give it a real wringing-out next week, since my workplace is in the middle of a three-week summer study program for which I typically shoot several hundred photos per day. I had to do the first week with my Fujifilm X-H2, since the Pixii was still on vacation, but I'll be very glad to have it back for the second week!
boojum
Mentor
Glad to learn it has all turned out well. My dealings with Pixii have always been good. I like the camera, I like the service, I like the upgrades. In appearance and color the Pixii images are wonderful.
bob_summers
Member
I'd be interested to read about your experiences in that second week. Wait, are you the youtube guy who works at an arts centre?
boojum
Mentor
Here is today's snap of the blinding sun here in Astoria. I am grateful we have excellent sunblockers available. LMAO We have an overcast and slight rain day. This is the Bertele at f/5.6 set to infinity. Summer is variable in the PNW.
