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Auto-Magnification with M & R lenses


lct

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Manual focusing aids (magnification and focus peaking) are switched on and off in the menu. My preproduction unit had some difficulty in that department but this will be sorted out in the final version of the firmware.

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Manual focusing aids (magnification and focus peaking) are switched on and off in the menu. My preproduction unit had some difficulty in that department but this will be sorted out in the final version of the firmware.

 

Do you mean that one cannot keep the eye on the finder while triggering manual magnification?

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Here is the entry on page 215 of the Manual

 

 

Setting the magnifying function

1. In the menu's SETUP section, select Live View,

2. in the submenu, Manual Focus Aid, and

3. switch the function On or Off.

When the function is switched on, you can call up magnifications of

a central section of the image frame by pressing the BL button.

The first press results in a 4x view, the second press in a 6x view,

the third press brings back the unenlarged view.

You can move the enlarged section using the joystick.

Setting the peaking function

1. In the menu's SETUP section, select Live View,

2. in the submenu, Focus Peaking, and

3. switch the function On or Off.

Setting the peaking color

1. In the menu's SETUP section, select Capture Assistants,

2. in the submenu, Focus Peaking, and

3. in the respective submenu, the desired color.

Calling up the peaking function

Press the BR button (see also p. 182).

When the function is switched on, all subject details in focus are

identified by their edges being highlighted in the selected color.

Edited by IkarusJohn
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Here is the entry on page 215 of the Manual

 

Thank you John. So we have to press a button on the bottom left ("BL button") to call up magnifications according to the manual. Hence the necessity to remove the left hand from the lens if i understand well. My Fuji X-E2 and (seemingly) the Sony A7 allow to do the same with the right thumb by comparison. Unless other buttons can be used for the same purpose, this will be a deal breaker for me i'm afraid...  :(

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Jono's review indicated the left lower button was the default for focus magnification. He found it convenient. I wonder if this function can be customized to the joystick? 

 

Like him, however, I tend to focus at the normal magnification if the EVF is good. Assist modes are more for special needs. 

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Thank you John. So we have to press a button on the bottom left ("BL button") to call up magnifications according to the manual. Hence the necessity to remove the left hand from the lens if i understand well. My Fuji X-E2 and (seemingly) the Sony A7 allow to do the same with the right thumb by comparison. Unless other buttons can be used for the same purpose, this will be a deal breaker for me i'm afraid...  :(

 

 

It looks like that is right.  Someone (I think it was Jono?) said it was the joy stick you push in, but the manual does say bottom left.  If you're holding the camera with both hands, and you can't reach the bottom left button with the camera to your eye, I can see this would be an inconvenience.

 

If I recall correctly, the Nikon F5 allowed you to fine tune the AF focus manually (you can't with the Q, but I'm hoping you can with the SL), and one of the Sonys (A7r? maybe?) automatically zoomed in the selected area if you moved the focusing ring on the M lens, or maybe it was the T ...  Anyway, I'm with you that if I have the camera to my eye, I don't want to be fussing over which button does what - I want to be about to focus, magnify the focus area using M lenses and manually focusing AF lenses, set aperture and shutter speed, change the EV compensation and zoom without having to bring he camera down and see what's happening.   ISO, not so much.

 

It always takes me a while to get intuitive with a camera.  Whenever I bought a new camera, my father would tell me to try to understand the controls, but more importantly to shoot through lots of rolls of film initially to get my head around how the camera worked in practice.  Good advice, I thought.

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Why can't it sense an oof image and automatically activate...I could be wrong, but I thought the A7s did this with my M lenses.

 

 

Interesting indeed. Would you mind to check if this is true?

 

That never worked on my A7. I had a function button customized to initiate focus magnification. 

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[...] I'm with you that if I have the camera to my eye, I don't want to be fussing over which button does what - I want to be about to focus, magnify the focus area using M lenses and manually focusing AF lenses, set aperture and shutter speed, change the EV compensation and zoom without having to bring he camera down [...]

 

+1. Hard to believe that a $7K+ body does not allow that. 

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The magnification is initiated by the bottom left button (as John noted above in the citation from manual).  With the joystick the magnified area can be moved around - that is what Jono referenced in his review.  Currently the ONLY way to initiate the magnification is the bottom left button or via menu diving.

 

This is something that needs to get changed ASAP.  It's a pretty easy fix (in theory).  The joystick's default function when pressed is to initiate auto-focus when an AF lens is attached.  So the "fix" is - add a conditional to check if an AF lens is attached.  If no AF lens found, then trigger the magnification mode and successive magnified views as the user sequentially presses the joystick.

 

I've already brought this up to my dealer who is in Germany and he said he passed along the feedback.  He thanked me of course...  It's probably going to take alot "helpful consumer feedback" to get Leica to do the right thing here...  Hopefully they've already seen the error in their ways and firmware update is in process...

 

Most of the published reviews did not address this because they were testing with an AF lens.  Ming specifically called this out, Jono kind of glossed over it.

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