Blew Posted January 16, 2010 Share #1 Posted January 16, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) Dear Leica fans, I'm new to Leica and to this forum. And I don't understand too much about photography in general either. So please be gentle? From my new D-Lux 4's manual I get that in A-mode I can choose between different aperture-settings with the up and down arrow's. In practice all I can choose is the lighting-setting. There's an aperture-value of f2.2 projected on the screen. I'd like to take some pictures with a sharp subject and faded background. Who can explain to me what I'm doing wrong? Thanks very much, Blew Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted January 16, 2010 Posted January 16, 2010 Hi Blew, Take a look here D-Lux 4 aperture settings (stupid novice question). I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
h00ligan Posted January 16, 2010 Share #2 Posted January 16, 2010 That effect - small depth of field - is going to be hard to accomplish with that camera unless taking a close up macro photo. As it is with any small camera due to the size of the sensor. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
pop Posted January 16, 2010 Share #3 Posted January 16, 2010 First question: Did you remember to select "A" on the wheel selector on the top of your camera? From your description, I rather get the impression that it is set to "P". Second question: Did you use the correct pair of arrow keys? (Not owning a D-Lux 4, I can not test the behaviour of the different keys). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blew Posted January 16, 2010 Author Share #4 Posted January 16, 2010 <<That effect - small depth of field - is going to be hard to accomplish with that camera unless taking a close up macro photo.>> Dear Edward, it says so in the manual. One can choose between different aperture-settings (lower settings make the background more vague, higher settings make it sharper). Thanks! Blew Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blew Posted January 16, 2010 Author Share #5 Posted January 16, 2010 First question: Did you remember to select "A" on the wheel selector on the top of your camera? From your description, I rather get the impression that it is set to "P". Second question: Did you use the correct pair of arrow keys? (Not owning a D-Lux 4, I can not test the behaviour of the different keys). Dear Philip, definitely 'A', (not the A with the white background, because that's for Automatic). About the arrow-keys I'm not shure I'm afraid. Is the reason for posting here at all... Thanks! Blew Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
elgenper Posted January 16, 2010 Share #6 Posted January 16, 2010 .....From my new D-Lux 4's manual I get that in A-mode I can choose between different aperture-settings with the up and down arrow's...... You got it wrong (or rather, the manual is less than crystal-clear): it´s not the arrows that control the aperture, it´s the joystick. Push it straight inwards to activate, then push it down or up to change the aperture. Push it to the left to change over to controlling exposure compensation. Push to the right again to return to aperture. It does take some practice to make it work smoothly... Also, I second H00ligan´s comment that even wide open, there´s not much of selective focus to be had. Besides, going over f/5.6 will lose a lot of definition due to diffraction. These two factors make the A mode rather pointless on ALL small-sensor digicams in my experience; better to stay with P, really. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Blew Posted January 16, 2010 Author Share #7 Posted January 16, 2010 Advertisement (gone after registration) You got it wrong (or rather, the manual is less than crystal-clear): it´s not the arrows that control the aperture, it´s the joystick. Push it straight inwards to activate, then push it down or up to change the aperture. Push it to the left to change over to controlling exposure compensation. Push to the right again to return to aperture. I've found it! Thanks very much for your help! I'll do some experimenting and see what I find. Lovely pictures already in standard mode. Great camera, great fan community! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
regedit Posted January 18, 2010 Share #8 Posted January 18, 2010 Hi there! Here is another tip. If you want to the shortest focus area zoom to max and get as close as possible to the focus subject (sometimes you need to enable macro focus to extend focus area, or even better to switch to manual focus). If the difference between subject and background is consistent you will get blur effect on background. Using manual focus it's a bit harder on DL4 but you have visual control over your DOF (red bar) which is important if you are looking for that kind of pictures. at max zoom with 2.8 A you'll get at 0.3 meters (min focus distance) a very short focus area and the bluriest [sorry for this non-english word] background. hope this will help. enjoy your camera! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
AlbertoDeRoma Posted January 18, 2010 Share #9 Posted January 18, 2010 Hi there! Here is another tip. If you want to the shortest focus area zoom to max and get as close as possible to the focus subject (sometimes you need to enable macro focus to extend focus area, or even better to switch to manual focus). If the difference between subject and background is consistent you will get blur effect on background. Using manual focus it's a bit harder on DL4 but you have visual control over your DOF (red bar) which is important if you are looking for that kind of pictures. at max zoom with 2.8 A you'll get at 0.3 meters (min focus distance) a very short focus area and the bluriest [sorry for this non-english word] background. hope this will help. enjoy your camera! Great advice! Alberto Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rudiotter Posted January 22, 2010 Share #10 Posted January 22, 2010 You got it wrong (or rather, the manual is less than crystal-clear): it´s not the arrows that control the aperture, it´s the joystick. Push it straight inwards to activate, then push it down or up to change the aperture. Push it to the left to change over to controlling exposure compensation. Push to the right again to return to aperture. It does take some practice to make it work smoothly... Also, I second H00ligan´s comment that even wide open, there´s not much of selective focus to be had. Besides, going over f/5.6 will lose a lot of definition due to diffraction. These two factors make the A mode rather pointless on ALL small-sensor digicams in my experience; better to stay with P, really. thank you, for pointing me in the direction of the joystick; i recently bought a Dlux4 and these arrows were driving me nuts. no wonder they were not controlling the manual mode!!! Rudi Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
regedit Posted January 22, 2010 Share #11 Posted January 22, 2010 just another tip: don't forget to push the joystick to gain quick acces to some critical functions that otherwise have only one button (at your choice to control) - and I'm talking here about film mode, metering mode, focus mode, white balance, iISO, ISO, iExposure, image size and LCD screen contrast. My favorite for fn button where you can assign one is focus mode (but don't ask me way) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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