I can’t figure out why these images aren’t sharp

[jaapv]

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Are you looking into the viewfinder in the optical axis?  Looking into it skewed will result in misfocus. 

[TheEyesHaveIt]

10 hours ago, jaapv said:

Are you looking into the viewfinder in the optical axis?  Looking into it skewed will result in misfocus. 

Sorry not sure what this means? I'm looking through the rangefinder straight on.

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[TheEyesHaveIt]

Ok after re-testing today, I'm feeling much better. I used all the perspective control and levels in the M11 to ensure everything was as level and straight on to the target as I could make it. What I found was that if I focused strictly via the rangefinder, I was sharp - but not totally at 6x zoom. However, if I used the Photos app tethered to then do micro adjustments of the focus to get it super sharp at 6x, the rangefinder square still looked pretty dead on. Yesterday, it looked noticeably misaligned, but something else must've caused that because today it was fine.

What this tells me is the rangefinder should be more than acceptable for most of my photography. And if I really need super sharp at 6x zoom, tethering to the Photos app is an awesome way to achieve that (especially with the touch screen focus point selection on the M11).

[rossawilson1]

On 11/7/2022 at 4:42 PM, lct said:

Only at the distance of the ruler i.e. for closeups or short distance tests. Funny to see that those rulers have become a sort of gold standard for everything to the point that self appointed reviewers dare to draw generalities from them and we see those guru's conclusions repeated ad nauseam on the web. Nothing can beat real world tests but they are more difficult that shooting a ruler for sure. End of rant and nothing personal of course .

I'd agree, it's a simple test if you keep suspecting issues with calibration be it lens or camera, certainly the fastest way to find out the error is user error and no amount of adjustments will fix.

[matted]

9 hours ago, TheEyesHaveIt said:

Ok after re-testing today, I'm feeling much better. I used all the perspective control and levels in the M11 to ensure everything was as level and straight on to the target as I could make it. What I found was that if I focused strictly via the rangefinder, I was sharp - but not totally at 6x zoom. However, if I used the Photos app tethered to then do micro adjustments of the focus to get it super sharp at 6x, the rangefinder square still looked pretty dead on. Yesterday, it looked noticeably misaligned, but something else must've caused that because today it was fine.

What this tells me is the rangefinder should be more than acceptable for most of my photography. And if I really need super sharp at 6x zoom, tethering to the Photos app is an awesome way to achieve that (especially with the touch screen focus point selection on the M11).

Not sure what your focusing workflow was (and if the target was already located in the rangefinder patch) but another thing to note about rangefinder focusing is that sometime the “focus and recompose” technique that is almost always necessary with rangefinders can lead to small focusing errors, depending on how flat the focus field is of your particular lens, and how much you need to recompose after focusing. Apologies if this is obvious or not a factor. 

Edited November 12, 2022 by matted