How to manually fine-focussing a Leica M?

[TankWart]

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Hi guys,

 

I am completely new to Leica but understood the understood how to focus using a rangefinder camera.

 

BUT:

The focus field being equally small and not adjustable and even more the optical viewfinder is not able to magnify the view: How can I focus on little details when the lens is wide open???

 

Say you wanna focus on an eye half open and want the eye but not the hairs in focus

How does the selective focussing works on a rangefinder??

 

 

Thanks a lot for shedding some light into this!

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

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[Rick]

FAQ:  http://www.l-camera-forum.com/topic/216580-leica-m8-m82-m9-m9p-mm-mtyp240-faqs-questions-with-answers/?p=2464049

 

Lot's of good stuff there to keep you reading for hours.

 

Good luck and welcome,

 

Rick

[algrove]

Thanks for answering Rick, but I am no longer doing that due to Exodies vulgar comments.

[TankWart]

Thanks Rick for the link.

 

But is there a more starter-friendly answer on my question? My question was very specific and as said I understood the principal on how to focus a Leica.

 

I don't understand how to differentiate small details and bringing them into focus by using the focussing patch in the viewfinder (its size being really small...).

 

Any suggestions? Is the key really only this magnifiers?

 

thanks

[jaapv]

This is the starter-friendly answer. The rest is:practise, practise, practise. It really is useful to read the FAQ.

 

Question: I come from an autofocus camera background. What is the best way to get good focus on the M9?

 

The M9 works the same way as any rangefinder camera, the central patch in the viewfinder is your focusing tool.
It is important to look through the viewfinder in the optical axis. Looking into the camera skewed will result in inaccurate focus.

The first thing to do is to ascertain that you can see the rangefinder patch properly. A correct match between the rangefinder and your eye is even more important than it is using an SLR.
Leica sells corrective diopter lenses. Determining which one you need - if any- can be done by going to your optician and holding his try-out lenses between your eye and the viewfinder. The one that allows you to see the rangefinder patch and framelines sharply is the correct one. Order the nearest value from Leica. In a pinch you can use over-the-counter reading glasses for this test. If your eyes need special corrections, you can use your spectacles, provided you can see clearly at 2 metres distance ( the virtual distance of the rangefinder patch). Note that the background will be at background distance,so your eye should ideally be able to accomodate over the distance differential. However, there is some tolerance here.

For special cases there are viewfinder magnifiers. They can help, especially with longer and fast lenses and they can give confidence, but they can also be not very useful; they cannot correct errors in the focusing mechanism or your eye, in fact they magnify them.
Also, one loses contrast and brightness.
Leica offers a 1.25x one and a 1.4x. These need diopter correction like the camera, but often of a different value than the camera viewfinder.

There are also third-party magnifiers, sold by Japan Exposures, that include a variable diopter correction. 1.15x and 1.35x. For patent reasons they cannot be sold in the USA and Germany for use on a Leica camera, but they can be purchased for use on for instance a rifle scope.
Basically, for an experienced user, magnifiers are not needed and will only lower contrast and brightness, but many users do like and use them.

Once the viewfinder is corrected optimally, there are three methods of focusing, in ascending order of difficulty aka training.

1. The broken line method. Look for a vertical line in the image and bring it together in the rangefinder patch to be continuous.

2. The coincidence method. Look for a pattern in the image and bring it together to coincide. This may lead to errors with repeating patterns.

3. The contrast method. Once you have focus by method 1. or 2. a small adjustment will cause the rangefinder patch to "jump" into optimum contrast. At that point you have the most precise focussing adjustment.

Side remarks:

If you try focusing on a subject emitting polarized light like a reflection it may happen that the polarizing effect of the prism system in the rangefinder will blot out the contrast in the rangefinder patch, making focusing difficult. In that case rotate the camera 90 degrees to focus.

[IkarusJohn]

I take it you're referring to "wide open" because you want to take pictures with a very shallow depth of field (unlike SLRs with through the lens focusing and automatic diaphragms, the rangefinder's focusing patch is unaffected by the selected aperture).  The first issue is to identify what you want in focus, and to make sure you get the whole subject in focus by selecting an appropriate depth of field (a portrait with just the hairs on the subject's nose in sharp focus is not very appealing); then select a vertical object with high contrast which lets you get the plane of best focus aligned.  This may involve rotating the camera.  You can also focus on something off centre, and recompose - but, be warned, moving the camera off the central axis will result intake focus, so you will need to move your head back slightly to maintain sharp focus if you have recomposed.

 

If the details are too small, then I recommend you try a magnifier (depending on what focal length you are using).  For everything from 50mm and longer, I use a 1.4x magnifier, and it works very well for me.  Others here (notably, one of the moderators, Jaap) don't like the magnifiers as they say they reduce brightness and contrast, making focusing harder.  That doesn't match my experience, as I have been using 1.25 & 1.4 magnifiers for about 4 years (notably with my Noctilux), and they have worked very well.  I like to know my lenses and rangefinders are accurately calibrated, so I do test them everyone and then with a focusing chart or ruler (set your camera up on a tripod at 45 degrees, and focus on the centre of the ruler or chart on a table at 1 metre - you will see very quickly if your camera and lenses are properly calibrated).  Then, just practice - get used to making fine adjustments with the focus, forward and back, until you are confident you can reliably nail focus.  It's odd at first, but once you're used to it, it is generally faster and more reliable that most AF.

 

You don't mention which M camera you have - if it's an M(240), you do have magnified focusing in Live View.  I don't have one of those, so I can't really comment.  Tim Ashley wrote a very good article on his blog site, recommending how to get best focus using live view - as I recall, he suggested focusing wide open first, then stopping down before you take your shot.

 

Hope this helps.  Just remember, whichever M camera you have, the focusing patch (whether in Live View or in the optical viewfinder) is always in the centre of the imaging screen - sadly, the rather lovely focusing screens of the Nikon F3 and that era are a thing of the past.

 

Cheers

John

 

PS - Jaap beat me to it (complete with the comment about contrast and brightness - note, this is not a universal experience).

 

I meant to add that with practice, if your lens has a focusing tab (a great invention), you will get used to the feel of where the focus is from the location of the tab.  This helps a lot with fast focus.  Also, get used to not using the lens wide open all the time - those other apertures are there for a purpose.

[Jeff S]

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Unless you have a film M or the M60 digital, you of course can always check your work after the fact, in magnified view, on the screen.  With practice, you eventually won't need to do that.

 

Jeff

[earleygallery]

 

Say you wanna focus on an eye half open and want the eye but not the hairs in focus

How does the selective focussing works on a rangefinder??

 

 

Cheers,

 

Martin

 

Are you using a Noctilux?

 

You focus on what you want to be perfectly in focus, so in your example, you line up the rangefinder on the eye. How in or out of focus hair will look depends on the aperture of the lens, depth of field and how close the hair is to the eye. 

[Mornnb]

Unless you have a film M or the M60 digital, you of course can always check your work after the fact, in magnified view, on the screen.  With practice, you eventually won't need to do that.

 

Jeff

 

It's a wise precaution even with experience. Focus misses happen, on any camera. Rangefinder or autofocus. Another point is that a shot that is slightly out of focus may look fine on a 4 x 5 print, but for larger prints you need to ensure focus is absolutely precise for best results.

 

 

In terms of precise focusing, a human eye shows up well and clear on the focus patch. With practise you should have no issue precisely focusing on a persons eye, rather than something else that is near by.

[Peter Kilmister]

We all get shots slightly out of focus ... and ditch them. It is a joy of digital cameras that we have that option rather than waiting for a lab to develop the negatives only to find that they are useless.

 

You can adopt a machine gun approach if you like: take as many shots as you like and adjust the focus ring on each shot. At least one will be good.

 

Before cameras, rangefinders were used on warships to work out range for their guns. They could focus on a vessel and then set the exact distance. The results could be incredibly accurate and only surpassed by radar.

 

Mind you, it is far easier to focus on a vessel 1 km away than it is to focus on a display of roses 1 meter away. Confusion of the exact subject can be a problem ... so many rose petals, so little time.

 

It needs work. As jaapv wisely says, it need loads of practice. Persist, and it is worth it.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

Personally i find it far EARIER to do selective focus using a rangefinder than any AF camera. Especially on the eye. I don't know how many times i've had an AF camera lock on to the eyelashes instead of the eyeball. With the RF it's easy to see which is which and if you're too far away to see the difference then DOF gets them both anyway.

 

Once upon a time I had a big bag of Canon cameras with L glass. My shooting partner and I had a rule that with the 50mm 1.2 and AF only 1 in 10 would be perfectly focused so we overshot like crazy. It didn't help that the focusing screen in modern DSLRs mostly simulate a DOF of 2.2ish so you can see the effect of setting your lens wider than that anyway. The Canon 50mm L is the reason I moved to Leica. A well calibrated RF is surgically accurate at 1.4 with a 50mm.

 

Of course with the fast lenses (on any system) even breathing can shift the focus too and fro.

 

Gordon

[thighslapper]

Martin ...... from your post I suspect you don't have an RF camera or have never used one.......

 

2 minutes with an actual camera will teach you all you need to know ..... it is intuitive and simple ....... find a store that has one and try it .

 

If you do have a RF Leica and are having problems with focussing then I suspect this type of camera is not for you ....... you either take to this like riding a bike or you will give up in frustration 

[jip]

Since you say you know the basics, there isn't much more you can do than... practice... 

 

There is no such thing as a trick or something really for REAL precise focus... it's just watching closely and practice... I usually focus with the lens, then move my head (and camera) forward/backward a bit to finetune the focus... 

 

Just practice and shoot... 

[pop]

Yes, there is one trick. Make sure that both the camera and the lens are properly adjusted if your application requires such accuracy.

[lct]

[...] 2 minutes with an actual camera will teach you all you need to know ..... it is intuitive and simple ....... find a store that has one and try it . [...]

 

+1

[Mornnb]

Personally i find it far EARIER to do selective focus using a rangefinder than any AF camera. Especially on the eye. I don't know how many times i've had an AF camera lock on to the eyelashes instead of the eyeball. With the RF it's easy to see which is which and if you're too far away to see the difference then DOF gets them both anyway.

 

It's quite doable on a 5D Mark III, with spot AF mode you can control the area measured for focus to a very fine point.

 

Once upon a time I had a big bag of Canon cameras with L glass. My shooting partner and I had a rule that with the 50mm 1.2 and AF only 1 in 10 would be perfectly focused so we overshot like crazy. It didn't help that the focusing screen in modern DSLRs mostly simulate a DOF of 2.2ish so you can see the effect of setting your lens wider than that anyway. The Canon 50mm L is the reason I moved to Leica. A well calibrated RF is surgically accurate at 1.4 with a 50mm.

 

 

 

Haha, I know what you mean. The 50mm L 1.2 is junk. Significant focus shift with aperture, and unreliable autofocus. Even if your autofocus is perfectly calibrated and micro-adjusted the focus errors of the 50mm L 1.2 are well in excess of the depth of field. This lens simply doesn't have the precision that f1.2 requires. For a Canon set up one is better off with the 35mm Sigma and the 85mm 1.2 L. The 85mm 1.2 will definitely show any autofocus calibration problems with the camera, but it's consistent behaviour means you can calibrate it with micro-focus adjust without issue.

The nice thing about Leica is the lenses and bodies out of the factory are generally free of calibration issues and are well tested, compared to Canon where it's always a coin toss. The disadvantage with Leica however is that if the calibration is off you send it back to the factory, with Canon as it's an electronic focus system you can calibrate it yourself through menus on the camera.

[FlashGordonPhotography]

It's quite doable on a 5D Mark III, with spot AF mode you can control the area measured for focus to a very fine point.

 

 

Haha, I know what you mean. The 50mm L 1.2 is junk. Significant focus shift with aperture, and unreliable autofocus. Even if your autofocus is perfectly calibrated and micro-adjusted the focus errors of the 50mm L 1.2 are well in excess of the depth of field. This lens simply doesn't have the precision that f1.2 requires. For a Canon set up one is better off with the 35mm Sigma and the 85mm 1.2 L. The 85mm 1.2 will definitely show any autofocus calibration problems with the camera, but it's consistent behaviour means you can calibrate it with micro-focus adjust without issue.

The nice thing about Leica is the lenses and bodies out of the factory are generally free of calibration issues and are well tested, compared to Canon where it's always a coin toss. The disadvantage with Leica however is that if the calibration is off you send it back to the factory, with Canon as it's an electronic focus system you can calibrate it yourself through menus on the camera.

I had an 85L for 20 years. My v1 was my first and favourite L. I did try a v2 but it was still slow. I think I could focus any Leica lens faster than my v1 would AF.

 

I need a 50. I've bought and sold several 35's over the years (Canon and Leica). I forced myself to shoot with a 35 'lux for 3 months. Straight back to my 50. Back then Sigma didn't have an art series and the Nikons were boring. And while I'm sure the 5D3 is significantly better at AF (although I either had lenses that focused, like the 135L, or didn't, like the 50L, 24-105L, 24L) I'm still never going back to Canon. My shooting partner still shoots Canon and my focus ratio is better than his 1Dx, no matter whether it's with my Leicas, Sony's Fiji or Olympus. I don't need the AF speed of a top end DSLR. I just need accuracy. I taught myself to do tracking focus of a bride walking down the aisle with a 90mm Leica lens. That's all I need.

 

And as a 50mm guy there's simply no better place to be than Leicaland. How many other manufacturers have 5 50's to choose from plus another 2 or three from third party manufacturers? It's heaven for me.

 

Plus, on the AF side I'm kinda hooked on the Zeiss lenses available for Sony. I'd never shot Zeiss on 35mm before the A7. I got the 135mm Sony and an adaptor for the A7 and was blown away. Now that's going the be my AF set. 25mm Batis, 50mm Sony, 85mm Batis and 135mm Sony. All hooked up to an A7R2. I also have an a99 and 70-400 for long lens work.

 

Gordon

[wda]

Martin, focus roughly for the distance you want and then learn to rock back and forth for fine focusing.

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[bab]

Unless your using a tripod and focusing on a cadaver and then check the image on a large screen you won't well most probably won't get the eyeball vs the lash wide open without rocking and making at least three exposures. Sharp tack in focus images come with the experience of shooting front, middle and back of your focus point you see in the range finder just because you see it doesn't mean you nailed it. Even shooting three images at wide open depending on the lens and where you place the focus point also because of the curvature of focus field in the lens also is a crap shoot. But the Leica rangefinder is like no other camera you will ever use, proud to carry and make images with commanding respect from the subject because of their curiosity of the pre war look of the instrument...is that a film camera is what I get asked. I love shooting with my Leica but as you notice from seeing rangefinder images few are tack focus its just the nature of the beast.

[Bill Livingston]

Excellent post