Lenses and Focus Peaking

[tommonego@gmail.com]

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I tend to like focus peaking to manually focus, has some short comings but generally works. Now a story of 2 lenses, my old faithful 35 V2 Summilux and another 35 f1.4 from TTArtisan, a cheap L mount lens ($78). With the Summilux I barely get any focus peaking it needs a lot of contrast, with the TTArtisan it is all over the place, even in shadows. The Summilux is definitely the better lens but heaven forbid I have to think about focus with it. Just wondering why this changes lens to lens???

[pop]

The summilux might not be bitingly sharp when fully open. Try focusing stopped down by a stop or two. One of my lenses used to do that, too, and stopping down a bit helped.

[lct]

Focus peaking depends on contrast so your TTartisan lens must simply be more contrasty than your Summilux v2. Now the latter works fine on my CL so i suggest you set "Peaking Sensitivity" to "High" when you focus your Summilux at full aperture. 

[jaapv]

And remember that focus peaking is not very precise, it indicates an area of maximum contrast which does not quite correspond to sharpness. It is best to regard it as a DOF indicator and assume the plane of focus to be somewhere in the middle.

[UliWer]

3 hours ago, pop said:

The summilux might not be bitingly sharp when fully open

Well, to name it more directly: the pre-aspherical 35mm Summilux is very, very soft with very weak overall contrast fully opened. 

[Stephencdean]

I agree with @UliWer . I have one of these lenses and it doesn’t trigger the focus peaking. When I first tried it on the CL, I thought the peaking had been disabled by some heavy handed ness on my part! Once you know and accept this, you remember to use your eyes! I love the lens though, have a (pretend?) titanium one, with matching hood. It looks really cool on my Paul Smith CL. The titanium matches the pale green strip on the camera! 

[lct]

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1 hour ago, Stephencdean said:

I have one of these lenses and it doesn’t trigger the focus peaking

It does, or at least it should. You may wish to follow the advice of my #3 post above.

[tommonego@gmail.com]

I generally use the lens at f5.6 or so. I have used it at f1.4and f2, I don't notice a difference with the focus peaking. I also see good contrast in the middle f stops and of course less at f1.4. I just had the lens CLAd, the aperture blades had developed some oil andit needed a new focusing knob.

[lct]

5 minutes ago, tommonego@gmail.com said:

I have used it at f1.4and f2, I don't notice a difference with the focus peaking.

Did you try setting "Peaking Sensitivity" to "High"? It is obvious this way with my 35/1.4 v2, so much so that i prefer setting it to "Low"...

[ramarren]

I have a 1972 edition Summilux 35/1.4 too. Mine was given a thorough CLA (and coded) a few years ago by DAG, and about a year ago something the distance ring had loosened so he went through it again. 

Anyway, it is a somewhat soft lens at f/1.4-f/2 ... gives me the effect of shooting through a Zeiss Softar #1 filter which is actually very appealing ... and it will trigger the focus peaking on the CL but only lightly. Stepping up the peaking sensitivity triggers it a bit more. Stopped down to f/4-f/5.6, it triggers the peaking without any problems at all; it's actually too active at the high setting.

Personally, I have to say that focus peaking usually I just find too annoying to leave on all the time. I only turn it on when I feel the situation warrants it. Mostly, for critical focus, I use magnification assist only. 

G

[tommonego@gmail.com]

vor 7 Stunden schrieb lct:

Did you try setting "Peaking Sensitivity" to "High"? It is obvious this way with my 35/1.4 v2, so much so that i prefer setting it to "Low"...

The camera and decided to do an annoying quit a couple of weeks back, sitting overnight with no battery in it seemed to revive it. I had to reset one of my profiles, which I guess had the focus peaking set to low, just set it to high again, I'll have to resave the profile.  

Thanks