M lens performance on the SL

[lct]

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Your camera or lens needed some repair i guess...

[ramarren]

If you insist... Suggesting that an EVF is faster to focus than an RF is a good example of... auto-suggestion .

 

The debate over manual focusing between SLR and RF has been going on since the late 1950s. To my eye, the EVF-RF debate is the same thing. I doubt anything said here today is going to resolve it.

 

I know what works for me, that's all. 

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[Leicaiste]

If you insist... Suggesting that an EVF is faster to focus than an RF is a good example of... auto-suggestion .

 

Did you try the SL with M lenses ?

[lct]

Not yet but i don't believe in miracles sorry...

[uhoh7]

An easy and generally sufficient trick to check for centering is to flip the camera upside down and shoot the same scene.

Great point

 

As to focusing WA and UWA, RF vs EVF. The SL has a great EVF, so my experience with A7.mod may not apply.

 

But here it is: ZM18. SEM 21 and 28 Cron are much easier on the RF. The noise is so high when you magnify on the Sony, that you have to really study the pixels. No pleasant. Focus peaking is something you need to practice with, and it can be done pretty well, but it is terribly obnoxious to the rest of the image.

 

Eventually I hope we see a PNP mag which can be moved and peaking quick applied or not. Meanwhile the stepped mag levels of th eSL are a nice improvement to the sony system, and of course the EVF is in another league totally.

Edited November 27, 2015 by uhoh7

[cpclee]

Interesting. Which lenses wider than 50mm do you use if I may ask?

 

 

This is the problem...if you want the know the truth, you will have to ignore those that tested the camera in the store for a few minutes and posted their opinions, which likely were biased before they walked in anyway. I am able to focus just as quickly with all my lenses on either the M or the SL. I rarely use the focus aids on the SL...and when I do it its in conditions that would have been very difficult to focus with a rangefinder regardless. The SL is extremely fast to manually focus any of my M and R lenses. The only way you will know for sure though is to spend a few days with it.

 

Honestly I am finding much higher success rate (especially with Noctilux) with the SL nailing critical focus than I am with my M...mostly due to the lack of having to recompose after focusing with RF patch. 

[Peter H]

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This is the problem...if you want the know the truth, you will have to ignore those that tested the camera in the store for a few minutes and posted their opinions, which likely were biased before they walked in anyway. I am able to focus just as quickly with all my lenses on either the M or the SL. I rarely use the focus aids on the SL...and when I do it its in conditions that would have been very difficult to focus with a rangefinder regardless. The SL is extremely fast to manually focus any of my M and R lenses. The only way you will know for sure though is to spend a few days with it.

 

Honestly I am finding much higher success rate (especially with Noctilux) with the SL nailing critical focus than I am with my M...mostly due to the lack of having to recompose after focusing with RF patch. 

 

 

I can believe this. It's why, when I used to use DSLRs, I always preferred my wide angle lenses to be good MF lenses. 

 

It's also why a really good detachable EVF attached to an M will be such a perfect arrangement.

[cpclee]

Thank you this gives me a very good idea.  This flow is very similar to what I do on my Ricoh GXR M, except:

 

- on the GXR, the EVF returns to the magnified view after the shutter release automatically.  That saves one button pushing

- on the GXR, I've configured one button where my thumb rests to be the toggle switch for magnification on/off, and an adjacent button to it to be the toggle switch for peaking on/off.  (These are the Left and Right arrow keys respectively of a keypad.)  So these toggles can be reached easily during shooting if I want to -- I don't need to take my eye away from the viewfinder or move my hands. All it takes is a thumb tap. For example, while I'm magnified I may want to turn on/off peaking.

 

I may be wrong here but I think this setup is better than on the SL.  But Leica should be able to enable something similar in a future firmware update.

 

What I think can simplify the flow still further is if the magnification turns on automatically when you turn the focus ring and goes away when the ring is not moving.  I hope Leica will do something like that in a future M lens adapter for the SL.

 

I'm quite fine with the flow on the GXR M and think it's quite well thought out.  What I have never gotten over is that even with the magnified view lenses that are 28mm or wider are still not effortless to focus, and without the magnified view they are outright impossible.  I can focus my RF much faster but I now recognize that may just be me.

 

And btw I don't open up the aperture for focusing as I feel that has a negligible effect.

 

 

I'm still learning the SL so my workflow isn't entirely set yet.

 

However, with wide lenses like the 24mm, I find that focus peaking can be a bit distracting with some subject (too much illuminates to give you a strong indication of the correct focus point) so I usually just tap on the magnification button to bring it up and focus. Most usually, I have the lens set to f/5.6-f/8 and don't bother to open up unless the light is pretty poor because I can see well enough to focus very accurately with magnification alone. As soon as I half-press the shutter release, the magnification is automatically dismissed and aperture simulation is engaged, so I can see the full field of view for framing and the illumination is reflects the final capture. If every thing is fine, I release the shutter; otherwise I'll tweak exposure a little bit and then release the shutter. 

 

It's fast and fluid. With the SL, clear view -> information -> histogram -> peaking -> grid/level are display overlays that operate in rotation, they're all on by default. With the EVF active, a single tap on the bottom-right button switches to the next overlay so it's very fast to tap-tap to the overlay you want, almost instantaneous. You can set the configuration to remove displays too, so if you want just clear view -> peaking, you configure the camera for that so tapping the button just flips you from one to the other; takes no time at all. Magnification is always on the bottom left button so tapping that once gets you 4x, twice 6x magnification. Again, it's very quick and disappears when you half-press the shutter release so tap, focus, half press to frame, release. 

 

It's hard to illustrate how fluid this is when describing it, but with camera to my eye it's so fast I forget I'm even doing anything other than focusing and releasing the shutter. I spend more time fiddling with the focusing ring to align the images in a rangefinder than tapping magnification, turning the ring until what want is sharp, and releasing the shutter. 

Edited November 27, 2015 by cpclee

[ramarren]

Thank you this gives me a very good idea.  This flow is very similar to what I do on my Ricoh GXR M, except:

 

- on the GXR, the EVF returns to the magnified view after the shutter release automatically.  That saves one button pushing

- on the GXR, I've configured one button where my thumb rests to be the toggle switch for magnification on/off, and an adjacent button to it to be the toggle switch for peaking on/off.  (These are the Left and Right arrow keys respectively of a keypad.)  So these toggles can be reached easily during shooting if I want to -- I don't need to take my eye away from the viewfinder or move my hands. All it takes is a thumb tap. For example, while I'm magnified I may want to turn on/off peaking.

 

I may be wrong here but I think this setup is better than on the SL.  But Leica should be able to enable something similar in a future firmware update.

 

What I think can simplify the flow still further is if the magnification turns on automatically when you turn the focus ring and goes away when the ring is not moving.  I hope Leica will do something like that in a future M lens adapter for the SL.

 

I'm quite fine with the flow on the GXR M and think it's quite well thought out.  What I have never gotten over is that even with the magnified view lenses that are 28mm or wider are still not effortless to focus, and without the magnified view they are outright impossible.  I can focus my RF much faster but I now recognize that may just be me.

 

And btw I don't open up the aperture for focusing as I feel that has a negligible effect.

 

I had a GXR-M as well and that seems very close to how I had mine set up. The GXR-M was a complicated little thing, but it had these excellent tools ... 

 

The SL's options on the view display and the magnification are bottom-left button for magnification and bottom-right button for view displays. It seemed awkward at first but I've become quite accustomed to it now. These functions cannot be relocated at present, but perhaps in a future update; enough people have mentioned it that I think Leica knows what people want. I'd like it to be magnification on UL and peaking on BL, then my thumb could operate both easily without changing hand positions on lens, etc. 

 

The Ricoh EVF and LCD displays are several years behind the times compared to state of the art displays like the SL has. You might find it much easier to focus with the SL as a consequence. 

[Likaleica]

The EVF of the SL is pretty good for quick focus of moving objects without peaking or magnification.  This was shot using the 50mm Summilux M wide open at f/1.4.  She stopped briefly for this pose then shot off again.  

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[ericborgstrom]

Anybody wonder how the CV 15mm 4.5 ver.2 works on the LS? 

 

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As expected. Cornerfix fixes well. Adobe flat field plugin (Latest ver. 1.0.0.9) gives failure message.

 

/Eric

[ericborgstrom]

Here the SEM 18mm:

 

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/Eric

 

 

[ericborgstrom]

And here the Vario-Elmarit at 24mm for comparison:

 

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/Eric

 

 

 

 

 

[phongph]

Hi!

It is realy good topic. I may get the M Apo 50 f2 lens for my SL 601 + current SL 24-90 ASPH!

Thanks!