mrjrd Posted March 26, 2013 Share #1 Posted March 26, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) I have had my M9 for over a year now and love using my 50 and 35 summicrons. However I am feeling the urge to try more landscape photography using f22. Would anybody like to share their experiences of using such an aperture with their M9 and maybe recommend lenses? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Advertisement Posted March 26, 2013 Posted March 26, 2013 Hi mrjrd, Take a look here F22 on M9. I'm sure you'll find what you were looking for!
StephenPatterson Posted March 26, 2013 Share #2 Posted March 26, 2013 You might want to read up on diffraction. Are you interested in shooting at such small apertures for the increased DOF or do you feel it will result in sharper images? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjrd Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share #3 Posted March 26, 2013 The increased depth of field primarily Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
wattsy Posted March 26, 2013 Share #4 Posted March 26, 2013 Why not give it a try and see what you think? 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted March 26, 2013 Share #5 Posted March 26, 2013 (edited) The higher the resolution of the sensor, the faster diffraction will show. Diffraction is built into the lens as a relationship between focal length and diaphragm size. The other part of the equation is the roundness of the diaphragm. Hasselblad has a 5 blade diaphragm that shows. The more round it is rather than pointy connections, the smoother the bokek and the less diffraction there is. I have used a 50 3.5 Red Scale Elmar on film at F22 and I remember how sharp it was which really surprised me. The lens happens to be sitting on my desk right now and I am looking at the diaphragm . It is almost perfectly round. No other 50 mm lens I own is as round like this, not even close. Weather is improving today, and perhaps I will get a chance to try it on my M9. Perhaps you will want to use a tripod and the focus stacking available in Photoshop and other programs. You can get infinite depth of field with them. Edited March 26, 2013 by tobey bilek 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjrd Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share #6 Posted March 26, 2013 My lenses do not have that aperture available. I know their are leica lenses available with that aperture. Has anyone used them? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted March 26, 2013 Share #7 Posted March 26, 2013 Advertisement (gone after registration) look above. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
StephenPatterson Posted March 26, 2013 Share #8 Posted March 26, 2013 An ultra wide lens like the Voigtlander 15/4.5 Heliar II can give you some amazing landscapes with everything from 0.2m to infinity in focus. As a matter of course I try to shoot landscapes at f/8, only using the smaller apertures when I want a very slow shutter speed or to push the DOF to the max. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
tobey bilek Posted March 26, 2013 Share #9 Posted March 26, 2013 look above. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
asmith Posted March 26, 2013 Share #10 Posted March 26, 2013 Too much depth of field is one of the worst clichés of recent landscape photography. I think it looks unnatural. Alwyn 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hydeca Posted March 26, 2013 Share #11 Posted March 26, 2013 I just took some shots at f22,0 last week. The gear and settings I was using were as follows: - M9 - Elmarit 28mm - Focus at about 4 metres - ND10 filter (late afternoon) - ISO 160 - 12 seconds DOF covered the entire image which included subject matter from under 1 metre to infinity. The ND10 filter causes a bit of shift in WB and some reciprocity issues (i.e. red and orange a bit over-saturated), and causes the M9 to completely screw up the aperture guesstimate (i.e. EXIF shows f4,0). Shooting at f22,0 does introduce other problems but if you're wanting extreme DOF the IQ is still excellent. Normally I shoot between wide open and f8,0 as there aren't many scenarios where f22,0 makes sense, but in this case it worked brilliantly. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
hydeca Posted March 26, 2013 Share #12 Posted March 26, 2013 Too much depth of field is one of the worst clichés of recent landscape photography. I think it looks unnatural. Alwyn What utter nonsense 4 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Photoskeptic Posted March 26, 2013 Share #13 Posted March 26, 2013 I have to say those screaming diffraction as if you have it you are in photographic hell need to quit pixel-peeping so much. And just as bad are the ones who echo this talk without shooting a single frame to see if it really is true. Typical advice seems to be: Oh, you can't do that because Mister Photography said so on his blog. Gimme a break. Go out and try it yourself. I did and discovered there is life @f16 and beyond. YMMV 6 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
01af Posted March 26, 2013 Share #14 Posted March 26, 2013 I have had my M9 for over a year now and love using my 50 and 35 Summicrons. However I am feeling the urge to try more landscape photography using f/22. Would anybody like to share their experiences of using such an aperture with their M9 and maybe recommend lenses? There's a reason why most lenses for 35-mm format stop down to f/16 or f/22 and no further. These apertures are the best compromise between wide depth-of-field and loss of maximum sharpness through diffraction. Smaller apertures would yield more DOF but less sharpness. At f/22 and also at f/16 already, there will be some loss through diffraction but it's so small that most people will hardly notice. And the (substantial) gain in sharpness before and behind the plane of focus will outweigh the (minor) loss of maximum sharpness—when wide DOF is what your photograph needs. Whether it makes sense to limit the aperture range at f/16 or if it was better to allow stopping down to f/22 or even f/32, is debatable. After all, diffraction doesn't suddenly set in at a certain aperture. Instead, it's always there and slowly increases continually with the f-stop number. So if you need particularly wide depth-of-field for the kind of pictures you're having in mind then DO NOT let others keep you from stopping down your lens just because they are afraid of diffraction. Sure, diffraction is real—but often overestimated. The only problem is—most Leica M lenses will stop down to f/16 only, so you need to find those which can go to f/22. In the focal length range 35 - 50 mm, the Tri-Elmar-M 28-35-50 mm Asph comes to mind. I also have two Elmars (not "Elmar-M"!)—one Elmar 5 cm 1:3.5 from 1938, uncoated, with old-style aperture scale which goes up to f/18 but the aperture slider can go beyond that, to approx. f/22. The other is an Elmar 50 mm 1:2.8 from 1966 which has f/16 as the farthest click-stop on the aperture ring but also can go beyond that to approx. f/22. Also check out the current Zeiss ZM lenses. The Biogon 35 mm ZM, the C-Biogon 35 mm ZM, and the Planar 50 mm ZM all can be stopped down to f/22 (but not the C-Sonnar 50 mm ZM). When using the lenses at apertures beyond f/8 or f/11 then you might use about anything that can be slapped to your camera. In terms of image quality, there won't be any significant difference between a pre-war Elmar and the latest Asph lenses when you're stopping down to f/16, f/18, or f/22. 5 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
M9reno Posted March 26, 2013 Share #15 Posted March 26, 2013 With an M9 your biggest potential problem with shooting at small apertures is the fact that any dirt on your sensor will show up. For really small apertures, try one of the 'pinhole' lenses available for LTM or bayonet mounts - the result will look like an impressionist painting. Who says diffraction is necessarily bad? 3 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill W Posted March 26, 2013 Share #16 Posted March 26, 2013 I have to say those screaming diffraction as if you have it you are in photographic hell need to quit pixel-peeping so much. And just as bad are the ones who echo this talk without shooting a single frame to see if it really is true. Typical advice seems to be: Oh, you can't do that because Mister Photography said so on his blog. Gimme a break. Go out and try it yourself. I did and discovered there is life @f16 and beyond. YMMV That's the beauty of digital, you get to see if it works or not right away. If it don't, delete and try again and again and again till it does while the scene still has what you were looking for. 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mjh Posted March 26, 2013 Share #17 Posted March 26, 2013 I think one could make a case that in macro photography, it could be worthwhile to stop down to f22 or more and accept the blur. But in landscape photography? If you take a 35 mm lens, stop down to f16, and set the focus on infinity, any detail at any distance will show up in the picture as long as it is 2 mm or larger. Unless of course it is so far away that its image is much smaller than a pixel or it gets lost in the haze, in which case stopping down further wouldn’t do you any good either. What more do you want or need? 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
mrjrd Posted March 26, 2013 Author Share #18 Posted March 26, 2013 Thanks everybody, a lot of knowledge and strong opinions here. As Wattsy says, "Go and try it yourself"! I will! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
sblutter Posted March 26, 2013 Share #19 Posted March 26, 2013 I think one could make a case that in macro photography, it could be worthwhile to stop down to f22 or more and accept the blur. But in landscape photography? If you take a 35 mm lens, stop down to f16, and set the focus on infinity, any detail at any distance will show up in the picture as long as it is 2 mm or larger. Unless of course it is so far away that its image is much smaller than a pixel or it gets lost in the haze, in which case stopping down further wouldn’t do you any good either. What more do you want or need? I mostly agree with Michael here and would only add: -Use a skylight filter for said haze Suggestion: -Try every f:stop - you may well find you like the sense of distance an out focus foreground provides. Print 1 from every f: stop, put them on a wall and live with them for a week. I bet you'll find there are no rules in photography, there is no 'best' anything. Achieving your intent - that's the hard and fun part. Go play!! 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
MirekE Posted March 26, 2013 Share #20 Posted March 26, 2013 Would anybody like to share their experiences of using such an aperture with their M9 and maybe recommend lenses? Depending on your print size and quality of your sharpening, diffraction may impact your images at aperture numbers starting at around f/11 with M9, so many people will want to avoid shooting at f/22 if possible. Closing the aperture as much as necessary for the desired result, but not more, is a good idea beyond f/11. One way to decrease the need for very small apertures in landscapes is to focus at hyperfocal distance and not infinity. The idea is that if you focus at infinity, big part of your DOF reaches beyond infinity, which is not useful. If you focus at hyperfocal distance, the DOF ends at infinity and the whole band of sharpness is brought closer and becomes wider. The problem is though that the usual tables and charts for calculating DOF and hyperfocal distance are based on "Zeiss formula", where "sharp" is not sharp enough for larger landscape prints. There are calculators available (online and as mobile phone apps) that take camera resolution and/or print size into account, though. Another way to increase depth of field is obviously using a wider lens. For example, with M9, if you use hyperfocal distance with 35mm lens, you will get sharp focus from 12 ft to infinity (at f/11), with 25 mm lens it will be from 6 ft to infinity at the same aperture. This is using formulas that use the actual resolution of the camera as criterion of sharpness. 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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