Is a Leica CL for me?

[scott kirkpatrick]

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The problem with focus-recompose is that the direct distance to an object off to the side of your picture is greater than the distance to the image plane in front of you that will contain that object once you swing back to take the picture.  So you tend to get back focus.

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[jaapv]

Not if you are used to it - as all long-time M users are, The front-back movement is instinctive.

[lct]

[...] The only thing such a patch does is indicate in the viewfinder which section of the sensor is controlling the AF of the lens.

 

What's AF? I use movable focus patch to avoid soft results due to field curvature and/or focus shift with less than perfect lenses or difficult shots. Try to nail focusing on corners at f/2 with a Summicron 28 v1 for instance. Only way to do it is focus bracketing with rangefinders or other fixed focus patch cameras (toys). Just an example but i often need to move the focus patch to get results i want when DoF is very shallow (flowers). Focus-recompose is good enough for general photography but too inaccurate for me in cases like that. 

 

 

[jaapv]

How do you use the patch to"set focus" on a manual lens? You set it by hand, not by patch... At best it would  draw your attention to a certain place on the screen. 

 

I thoroughly dislike fiddling with back buttons and joysticks with the camera at my eye, it is a camera, not a pinball machine. Over the years I have lost far more shots by missing the moment than by missing focus because of theoretical considerations like field curvature or recomposing. 

 

I don't know whether these other brands will give an off-sensor focus confirmation, but if they do, it is really nothing different from focus peaking, and less convenient. Better to use image magnification, that is just one thumb movement and very fast.

[lct]

How do you use the patch to"set focus" on a manual lens? You set it by hand, not by patch... At best it would  draw your attention to a certain place on the screen. [...]

 

Not sure to understand what you mean. You just move the patch where you want to magnify the image. No rocket science, all cameras can do that... err... almost all cameras...

[Don Morley]

As said above, it moves about when the arrow buttons are touched, which happens all the time; I dislike switching off the camera when carrying it.

This is THE worst feature of this otherwise superb camera.Please Leica hurry up and do a firmware update to allow the focus point to be locked. Don Morley

[dfdann]

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Amen to superb camera and worst feature.

Cheers, Dan

[RomeoBravo]

Hate to break up the Off-Topic conversation, but I wanted to thank those that answered my questions.

 

My CL will be here Thursday.  The 35 Summilux TL won't get here until after the July 4th Holiday, but I'll be able to play with M lenses in the meantime.

 

I'll be posting in the CL Image Thread soon

[Guest VVJ]

Good luck!  I just read the X1D review on your website.  Looking forward to your thoughts on the CL as well!

[RomeoBravo]

Good luck!  I just read the X1D review on your website.  Looking forward to your thoughts on the CL as well!

 

Thanks.  I'll try to use it on my next fashion shoot with the Sony and Hasselblad.  I definitely won't have time to set cameras up side-by-side like some people want to see in comparisons, but I'll get a few snaps in with each.