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Your zone focus settings for the m10


happyvillian

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New owner of the m10! I'm coming from a Q, which I still own, and am getting used to using manual focus. I've gotten so comfortable with AF with the run and gun style of shooting, and am now trying to figure out an optimized way of zone focusing. 

 

What are your typical "Max Auto ISO" and "Max Exposure Time" speed settings for when you decide to zone focus? 

 

Right now i'm setting my Max Auto ISO to 6400, and Max Exposure Time to 1/f (which from my understanding is 1/35, if i'm using a 35mm Summicron, correct?). I then usually open aperture to f8 to go about shooting. 

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A shutter speed equal to the focal length is often sufficient to avoid motion blur caused by an unsteady hand. But this isn’t true for moving subjects. To freeze the feet of a walking person for example, you need a much faster shutter speed, unless the motion blur is intended, of course.

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Why not looking for the "good manual settings" on your M10 (that is very different from Q-auto-everything :D ).

 

Forget how you use your Q and try to use M10 as M10 may be good idea.

 

Manual focus on M10 with rangefinder (it's strength) can give more satisfaction than mimic-Q-use.

 

;)

Manual focus, manual settings of ISO and shutter speed when the subject require may be better choice than relying on "auto-iso-shutter-and-what-else".

 

I think that if you buy M10, it means that your Q can not give you what you want.

 

Why would you want to use M10 as Q ?

 

...

My settings suggestion:

 

That said, I'd set the focus to about 3 to 5m for "street" and 400 to 800 ISO (remember Trix ?).

Then the f number is a variable to adjust in each picture.

Edited by a.noctilux
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New owner of the m10! I'm coming from a Q, which I still own, and am getting used to using manual focus. I've gotten so comfortable with AF with the run and gun style of shooting, and am now trying to figure out an optimized way of zone focusing. 

 

What are your typical "Max Auto ISO" and "Max Exposure Time" speed settings for when you decide to zone focus? 

 

Right now i'm setting my Max Auto ISO to 6400, and Max Exposure Time to 1/f (which from my understanding is 1/35, if i'm using a 35mm Summicron, correct?). I then usually open aperture to f8 to go about shooting. 

Your M10 is a rangefinder camera, equipped with a precision focusing system. You paid a considerable amount of money for it too. Whilst zone focusing can be a useful tool in some circumstances, it is basically something you get with a 30$ three-position focus camera.

Why not start out by learning how to focus the camera properly?

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Of course you should keep on practicing with the rangefinder. But in some situations zone focusing can be very useful, for example when things happen very fast, like in street photography. It may be useful to learn how the distance scale on the lens works, so you don’t need to stop down more than necessary: 

 

If you for example want everything between 3 and 10 meters to be in focus, then turn the focus ring so "10m" on the distance scale points to a number on the right side of the f-scale below (you have to make a guess the first time), for example f/5.6. Then look at the same f-number on the left side of the scale. It will point to the nearest distance that will be in focus, in this case about 2.75 meters. If you are satisfied with this, then turn the aperture ring to f/5.6 and you are ready. If you need a closer minimum focusing distance, try again with a higher f-number.

Edited by evikne
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You are using an M10 that has great potential for sharpness and large prints, so permit me to offer a suggestion once published by Hasselblad for the SWC: When using DOF scales, or published hyper-focal charts use one ƒ-stop smaller (numerically larger) than suggested by the chart or printed on the lens. For example, if the ƒ-stop suggested is ƒ5.6, use ƒ8.

Edited by pico
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Congrats on receiving your new M10 - a fantastic machine and a great homage to the legendary film Leicas - with a 35 on the front I'd say you have started in exactly the right place!

 

For zone focused 'street' I personally always shoot manually (never auto) with settings vaguely in the 1/250th, f/8, 400-1600 ISO range. Do a couple of test shots as you walk to get the exposure correct for where you are, then leave it...

 

As for focus, f/8 on a 35 does give reasonable depth of field - but it's not as much as you might hope for, so start at a preset of about 5m and feel where the focus tab is on the lens, then feel where the focus tab is at 2m and 8m... As a situation comes together that you would like to shoot you should know (from practice and experience) if the action is at 5m, as preset, or closer/further than 5m. You will instinctively get to know where to put the focus tab without using the rangefinder.

 

Sure - if you have time you can fine tune focus precisely once the camera is up to your eye, but sometimes there just isn't time and doing it by feel can work accurately and effectively.

 

As ever - go and do it.... practice makes perfect;-)

 

(p.s. Great to see a question about actual photography and not which strap/bag/haircut do I get for my new Leica - good luck!)

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This is rather misleading. In your example only subjects @ 4.75 meter approx. will be in focus. Everything else will be progressively unsharp, but you deem the unsharpness acceptable. As the markings are for film and this is digital, the max. print size you might get away with will be 10x15 cm, certainly not more.

 

Zone focus by all means, if you cannot focus precisely, but don't expect miracles and AF will always be superior.

And: heed Pico's advice.

Of course you should keep on practicing with the rangefinder. But in some situations zone focusing can be very useful, for example when things happen very fast, like in street photography. It may be useful to learn how the distance scale on the lens works, so you don’t need to stop down more than necessary: 

 

If you for example want everything between 3 and 10 meters to be in focus, then turn the focus ring so "10m" on the distance scale points to a number on the right side of the f-scale below (you have to make a guess the first time), for example f/5.6. Then look at the same f-number on the left side of the scale. It will point to the nearest distance that will be in focus, in this case about 2.75 meters. If you are satisfied with this, then turn the aperture ring to f/5.6 and you are ready. If you need a closer minimum focusing distance, try again with a higher f-number.

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You are using an M10 that has great potential for sharpness and large prints, so permit me to offer a suggestion once published by Hasselblad for the SWC: When using DOF scales, or published hyper-focal charts use one ƒ-stop smaller (numerically larger) than suggested by the chart or printed on the lens. For example, if the ƒ-stop suggested is ƒ5.6, use ƒ8.

 

Agree with this but not last bit. If you are using f8 as aperture than using 5.6 on scale will give safety margin.

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This is rather misleading. In your example only subjects @ 4.75 meter approx. will be in focus. Everything else will be progressively unsharp, but you deem the unsharpness acceptable. As the markings are for film and this is digital, the max. print size you might get away with will be 10x15 cm, certainly not more.

 

Zone focus by all means, if you cannot focus precisely, but don't expect miracles and AF will always be superior.

And: heed Pico's advice.

 

I get the same result with my iPhone's DOF calculator (TrueDoF) as I read out of the lens' distance scale. I am not very experienced with zone focusing because I usually shoot with very shallow DOF and must use the rangefinder, but when I have tried, I have always got satisfactory results with this method.

 

But I agree it's a good idea to have a one stop safety margin.

Edited by evikne
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Sorry that I do not have the giga image of this on-hand. It was a commissioned photo of my work building made on 6x6cm at Hasselblad's conservative recommended DOF specs. OK, I'm off to search my archive disc which resolves individual bricks. Oh my, have I really come to this?

 

Image 1 here.

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When I think of it, the zone focus method I mentioned first is unnecessarily cumbersome for street photography, but is better suited for landscape photography when you want the best depth of field from a certain distance to infinity.

 

For street photography it’s probably better to just set the focus to about the distance where you expect the "action” to appear, and then look at the distance scale to see if you have sufficient safety margin with the selected f-stop.

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That is true and one starts using the rangefinder at this point, allowing for slight misfocus. The art of anticipation is far more important than cracking numbers for the focus zone.

In response to your other post, instead of the traditional CoC on film of 0.033, it is better to assume 0.02 for a sensor.

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There are of late a lot of things in photography where people adopt techniques just in order to avoid a bit of work, for example 'stand development' of film, and another is zone focusing. In the first example simply to say you use film is often more important than using it to best effect. And it's a similar case with zone focusing, it takes away any responsibility for getting the key theme of the image in sharp focus and abrogates decision making. A sludge of 'acceptable sharpness' where nothing is the determined focus of the image is the result. This is even more detrimental when the supposed item of interest is off centre because there is nothing to draw the eye to it, if everything is sort of equally sharp then everything in the photograph is sort of equally important. Hence street photography becomes a record of people walking about undifferentiated from surroundings and without context.

 

Obviously zone focusing is a useful technique to use on rare occasions and where the lens you have and the light make it possible at all. But the best street photographers make it clear to the viewer that this thing or that person is the important element in the image by actually focusing on it, not trusting to luck. A full frame rangefinder camera gives you the ability to make a decision about what is actually sharp and important, but most small sensor or P&S cameras can do a better job of making everything sharp. If you want to record the world as a flat plane of sharpness buy an Olympus Pen F with a wide lens and you are the god of DOF.

Edited by 250swb
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Guest Nowhereman

Below, the first picture was pre-focused and taken on film that was stand developed. If I remembered correctly, I pre-focused at about 1.5m. Pre-focusing is a bit different from zone focusing and, like stand development, can be useful for street photography. Stand development is often used for the way it tames highlights in harsh light — in this case, bright tropical light at noon; it's also used to develop a film on which a range of ISOs has been assigned to various frames because the film was shot in  bright as well as low-light conditions on the same roll. But I won't rave about stand development because the OP's question was about the M10.

 

The OP also asked about exposure. My preference is manual. In the case of film, I take a few readings in the brightest and the darkest areas of of the street, and adjust my exposure as to where the main subject is as. Generally, I use a Sekonic 398A light meter for this.

 

In the M10 picture below, I also prefocused. Now, with digital, my experience is that I tend to "chase the exposure" if I try to take a light reading with the camera's light meter each time I'm going to make a shot; so, I do the same as when shooting with film, taking a reading of the darkest and brightest areas of the street and seeing how the histogram looks. But, generally, I shoot for the highlights — that means underexposing and then lifting the shadows in post-processing not to blowing the highlights: the M10 offers great flexibility in shadow recovery, as much as 3 or 4 stops.

 

Leica M6 | Summilux-35 FLE | Tri-X@400 | Stand development

25644137381_e50df7dd55_b.jpg

Chiang Mai

 

Leica M10 | Summaron-M 1:5.6/28 | ISO6200 | f/5.6 | 1/180 sec

37532528464_38eb2e2875_o.jpg

Bangkok

_______________

Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

Nowhereman Instagram

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Guest Nowhereman

For these two shots, I just held the camera at chest level for what Moriyama Daido calls a "no finder shot". I had the (short) strap wound around my wrist, using it like a wrist strap.

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Lovely photos btw, very inspirational and definitely going to practice pre-focusing!

 

Below, the first picture was pre-focused and taken on film that was stand developed. If I remembered correctly, I pre-focused at about 1.5m. Pre-focusing is a bit different from zone focusing and, like stand development, can be useful for street photography. Stand development is often used for the way it tames highlights in harsh light — in this case, bright tropical light at noon; it's also used to develop a film on which a range of ISOs has been assigned to various frames because the film was shot in bright as well as low-light conditions on the same roll. But I won't rave about stand development because the OP's question was about the M10.

 

The OP also asked about exposure. My preference is manual. In the case of film, I take a few readings in the brightest and the darkest areas of of the street, and adjust my exposure as to where the main subject is as. Generally, I use a Sekonic 398A light meter for this.

 

In the M10 picture below, I also prefocused. Now, with digital, my experience is that I tend to "chase the exposure" if I try to take a light reading with the camera's light meter each time I'm going to make a shot; so, I do the same as when shooting with film, taking a reading of the darkest and brightest areas of the street and seeing how the histogram looks. But, generally, I shoot for the highlights — that means underexposing and then lifting the shadows in post-processing not to blowing the highlights: the M10 offers great flexibility in shadow recovery, as much as 3 or 4 stops.

 

Leica M6 | Summilux-35 FLE | Tri-X@400 | Stand development

25644137381_e50df7dd55_b.jpg

Chiang Mai

 

Leica M10 | Summaron-M 1:5.6/28 | ISO6200 | f/5.6 | 1/180 sec

37532528464_38eb2e2875_o.jpg

Bangkok

_______________

Alone in Bangkok essay on BURN Magazine

Nowhereman Instagram

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