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Manual focussing at night


jaapv

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M lenses have no automatic focus aid. This is with native lenses (in this case the 55-135)  I tried to shoot fireworks. AF does not work in that case, obviously, so one has to try and focus manually. What happens is that you lock exposure on some house in the street or such, recompose and try to focus on the fireworks - or something at the same distance. As soon as you rotate the focus ring exposure simulation gets disabled and the screen goes dark... :(  This is made even more difficult by the absence of a focusing scale in the viewfinder - in that case one could scale focus near to infinity.

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I found it next to impossible. As soon as I turn the focus ring exposure simulation is cancelled and the EVF blacks out. What am I -or Leica ;) - doing wrong?

Were you in AF, with the shutter half-pressed or in MF?  Was Auto ISO in effect, as that tells you when you have to override it, by making the screen go dark outside its limits?  Just now, inside a dark-ish house, I see brightly while focusing a TL zoom in MF, but the screen gets dark when I half-press.  Auto-ISO.

Edited by scott kirkpatrick
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Yes, I used half-press to lock exposure on a highlighted area, then recomposed and tried to focus manually, ISO was 3200 fixed.  I did not try if it did the same in manual exposure, probably should have, but it looked like the camera cannot do focus magnification/peaking together with exposure simulation. Setting magnification to zero did not help either.

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We know that half-press stops any focus magnification, but allow focus peaking.  Who knows what else it does?  It seems the main effort was to allow manual override focus with the AF lenses while holding the exposure measurement.  Also, auto-ISO limits the range of shutter speeds and leaves the screen dark when you do exposure simulation under conditions outside the auto-ISO envelope.  That's what I saw this morning.  It could be the same in AF and MF.  Don't have CL with me at the moment to check.

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I can at least comfirm that focus at night works fine with the camera in manual mode. This holds for both manual and TL lenses. If using autoISO, one needs to be within the preset ISO-range (+/- 2 stops), otherwise the evf/screen blacks out.

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Were you in AF, with the shutter half-pressed or in MF?  Was Auto ISO in effect, as that tells you when you have to override it, by making the screen go dark outside its limits?  Just now, inside a dark-ish house, I see brightly while focusing a TL zoom in MF, but the screen gets dark when I half-press.  Auto-ISO.

I had the problem both in AFS with manual correction with the focus ring and in MF. Fixed ISO.

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