EVF2 with the M240 Makes me sick...

[swamiji]

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A good friend came by and let me use his M240 with an actual Leica EVF2 for a short time. The lens on the camera was the 90mm Elmarit-M. So I sat relaxed trying to focus on various objects, and I noticed a sense of Nausea come over me. I tried 1x, 5x, 10x. It did seem to become more extreme with higher resolution. So I put on my 24mm Summilux and tried the same process over again. It still made me sick, though less.

 

I am not normally prone to motion sickness, but I have had issues with my old iPad (V1), playing some old games using the quake engine (Doom, Wolfenstein), where I cannot play for long without nausea. It might be the refresh rate, or the resolution. I am not certain. I don't have this problem with optical viewfinders, and I did not have this issue with my old V-Lux 1.

 

I asked some of my close friends who have the M240 and a EVF2, and they have no issues, nor have heard of any one who has.

 

What could cause this?

[BerndReini]

My first guess would be that the EVF wasn't set for your eyesight. I haven't worked with one but usually on EVFs there is some kind of near/far adjustment that optimizes the optics for your vision. It was possibly not set correctly for you but your eyes were able to compensate for it, but it could lead to this experience. Kind of like when you hold a newspaper so close that you can still read it, but it is uncomfortably close to focus for your eyes.

[swamiji]

Possibly, I noticed he did have a diopter on his optical view finder, but it did not give me any problems. Just a touch soft.

 

But why would EVF be any different than Optical? If EVF gave me an issue, would not Optical?

[jaapv]

As an aside- you are better off focusing the Elmarit 90 through the optical viewfinder. For the rest, no I did not have the problem, even focusing a 400 mm lens.

[swamiji]

I don't normally have problems focusing. Using either a Visoflex III and a 560mm or the normal rangefinder with a Nocti. I have a 90mm Apo-Cron, I use every day with my M9/MM.

 

I didn't have a problem focusing with the EVF, just my stomach...

 

This was an experiment to see what I thought about the M240 with the EVF. The lens choice was what we had on hand. We were just sitting around a tea house, and he offered for me to use his M240. I don't normally carry around my 400mm, as it's not very pocketable.

[algrove]

Not had your problem with EVF. That said I normally use a tripod with longer lenses as I know my hand holding abilities have gone down hill of late. Tripod no problem. Hand holding just too much jiggle for me while using the EVF with longer lenses. Wides OK hand held.

[farnz]

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It might be of use in the future: if you have problems with motion sickness eat ginger to eliminate the nausea (preferably in a palatable form such as ginger ale, Gingernut biscuits, or ginger cake rather than root ginger).

 

Can't suggest the cause of your EVF problem because I'm fortunate not to suffer it with my M240's EVF.

 

Pete.

[ayewing]

Swamiji,

it does sound like a form of motion sickness. I find the the jiggling about of the unstabilised image at larger magnification disconcerting though it does not induce nausea. I am more comfortable with the stabilised magnified image in the EVF of my Olympus OM-D E-M5 when using longer lenses.

 

As algrove suggests it would be worth trying tripod mounting and see if this would prevent nausea as well as improving the sharpness of the image.

[dlc43]

Check out recent reports of nausea experienced by a certain number of people with the new iOS 7 on iPhones. It's attributed to the wiggling motion of the icons. May be some relationship, though obviously it's a rare problem.

[BerndReini]

Haha, I think you confirmed my theory. The EVF is completely separate from the optical finder. If your friend has a diopter on the optical finder, it means he has probably adjusted the EVF to his eyesight. The EVF, like many SLR finders, probably has an adjustment dial built in.

[dlc43]

Here's the link for my comment above:

Why iOS 7 is making some users sick | Technology | theguardian.com

[swamiji]

Haha, I think you confirmed my theory. The EVF is completely separate from the optical finder. If your friend has a diopter on the optical finder, it means he has probably adjusted the EVF to his eyesight. The EVF, like many SLR finders, probably has an adjustment dial built in.

 

Yes, they are separate, but should they not both affect me similarly? Meaning, if the optical viewfinder does not affect my inner ear, why would the EVF if all other is equal?

[swamiji]

Check out recent reports of nausea experienced by a certain number of people with the new iOS 7 on iPhones. It's attributed to the wiggling motion of the icons. May be some relationship, though obviously it's a rare problem.

 

This is an interesting report, and may have some barring on my problem. My iPad is stuck on IOS 5, but my iPhone is on IOS7. I don't have the problem with IOS7, but I might if It were on my iPad. I do have the problem with certain 3D games on my iPad (Doom, etc.) but not on my iPhone. This is why I thought it might be a sensitivity to slow refresh rate, causing jerky motions. My old iPad's graphics are certainly not as smooth as my iPhone 4s's.

[BerndReini]

There are a lot of extra things going on that add to the problem with an EVF, one being contrast, another refresh rate. With the optical finder, everything is in real time. The EVF I think is 60fps, which your brain ties together to a continuous moving image. The EVF is also a backlit screen, which is very strenuous on your eyes to begin with. Think of reading on a labtop in a dark room.

 

And this is where I might be wrong, but I think that with the optical finder, your eyes are looking at the actual image through a window, meaning they are focused far to the actual subject, whereas on the screen, your eyes focus on the electronic representation, which requires close focusing of your eyes. So the diopter on the optical finder compensates for nearsightedness, whereas the EVF adjustment compensates like reading glasses would.

[swamiji]

There are a lot of extra things going on that add to the problem with an EVF, one being contrast, another refresh rate. With the optical finder, everything is in real time. The EVF I think is 60fps, which your brain ties together to a continuous moving image. The EVF is also a backlit screen, which is very strenuous on your eyes to begin with. Think of reading on a labtop in a dark room.

 

And this is where I might be wrong, but I think that with the optical finder, your eyes are looking at the actual image through a window, meaning they are focused far to the actual subject, whereas on the screen, your eyes focus on the electronic representation, which requires close focusing of your eyes. So the diopter on the optical finder compensates for nearsightedness, whereas the EVF adjustment compensates like reading glasses would.

 

I thought, (and I also might be wrong), that in the optical viewfinder your eye is focused on the patch, which I believe is 1 meter. I am not certain about the corrected distance for the EVF.

 

One thing I know I am sensitive about. I had cataracts, the replacement lenses are corrected from about 1 meter to 10 meters. So within this range I don't need glasses. I also can pass the drivers test without glasses (but use them anyway), but I do need them to read.

[swamiji]

Swamiji,

it does sound like a form of motion sickness. I find the the jiggling about of the unstabilised image at larger magnification disconcerting though it does not induce nausea. I am more comfortable with the stabilised magnified image in the EVF of my Olympus OM-D E-M5 when using longer lenses.

 

As algrove suggests it would be worth trying tripod mounting and see if this would prevent nausea as well as improving the sharpness of the image.

 

This is the direction I am leaning toward. Not just that image is not stable, it's refresh rate of 1/30 of a second makes it worse. My understanding that the new EVF4 has a 1/60 of a second refresh, which might help. Of course sensor based stabilization would also help, and for Visoflex/Bellow using a tripod would also help. It is my understanding that the final refresh rate is sensor based not EVF based. If this is so, I might have to wait until the next generation of M to proceed.

 

I can see that the fact that the Diopter was not set correctly for the EVF I was using, which it would result in a headache, but not nausea, but it might have exaggerated the effect.

 

All in all, a very interesting experiment. I can see I need to try again with a different set of variables. At best, I might be able to make it marginally tolerable. At worst, I will have to wait until the next sensor/EVF is released.

[hoppyman]

The variable diopter on the EVF can be easily displaced in handling. I think I will tape mine. When set very wrongly for your eye it can certainly cause discomfort which can be accompanied by some nauseous sensations. That is so for anything optical. Possibly the effect could be exacerbated in the magnified settings where you might strain more to see the image. I don't think that stability or movement is related to this condition. Try putting on spectacles with a markedly wrong prescription for your vision.

[swamiji]

What happens if I wear the wrong prescription. If I am sitting and reading I get a headache, if I am walking I get nausea and a headache. That's why I think the refresh rate is also an issue, it distorts movement.

[farnz]

Geoff,

 

I had the same problem with the Megapearls diopter and rather than glueing, which could cause a problem later on, I adjusted mine to its correct position and put a tiny dot of white correcting fluid (Twink, Cover-It, Liquid Paper, Snopake or whatever brand name) at top dead centre of the rim and it didn't take long before it became second nature to check it automatically and put the dot back to the top. The dot can be removed or placed elsewhere easily.

 

Pete.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[paulsydaus]

There are a lot of extra things going on that add to the problem with an EVF, one being contrast, another refresh rate. With the optical finder, everything is in real time. The EVF I think is 60fps, which your brain ties together to a continuous moving image. The EVF is also a backlit screen, which is very strenuous on your eyes to begin with. Think of reading on a labtop in a dark room.

 

And this is where I might be wrong, but I think that with the optical finder, your eyes are looking at the actual image through a window, meaning they are focused far to the actual subject, whereas on the screen, your eyes focus on the electronic representation, which requires close focusing of your eyes. So the diopter on the optical finder compensates for nearsightedness, whereas the EVF adjustment compensates like reading glasses would.

 

As I understand it, your description is 100% spot on.