M8 by James Russell

[Rolo]

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Are you sure you didn't mistake the 24mm frame lines for the 35. Just asking.

 

Ed, that's exactly what I did.

 

I shoot the MP and M3 and never give the frame lines a second thought. Auto assumed the outer ones were the same as my MP - 35mm.

 

I was handed this in the street; no manual; no training. Shot 100 frames off in 1 hour to get some samples of colour, resolution and framing. Several appear in the Photo section here, so I got buy without hand-holding.

 

Enjoyed it immensely.

 

Rolo

[BerndReini]

I juts wanted to drop a note on focusing the M8. I've been working with the M system extensively for two years, and I have become very fast and accurate at focusing even following focus on moving subjects.

 

I just recently had to make a folder of pictures for a friend of mine at work that included some older pictures that I shoot with my late 5D and the 35 1.4 L-series prime. I used to shoot ISO 1000 with the 5d ahile I only shoot up to ISO640 with my M8, and I have to tell you that a lot (!!!) of pictures that I took with my 5d and remembered to be sharp are actually very soft compared to my M8 standards of sharpness, even for low light. I am sure that this is caused by a combination of factors such as mirror slap, autofocusing on the wrong point, motion blur etc., etc.

 

But in conclusion, it confirms my switch to the M8 even more. Truthfully, I think the advantage of an SLR as far as focusing is concerned is not the automation, but the fact that when you shoot 50 pictures in a rapid sequence, some have to be in focus.

 

Here's my only story of not being able to focus my rangefinder: I was covering some of the festivities of the 2006 World Cup in Germany, when I bent some of the pins of my CF lot of the 5D and rendered it non-functional at the end of the night. So I pulled out my MP loaded with Neopan and started shooting away. However, I had already had so much beer by this time that after processing the films, I am embarrassed to say that barely anything was in focus. How are you going to overlap two windows when you're seeing four?

[Guest stnami]

................. didn't happen

[Jamie Roberts]

{snipped} However, I had already had so much beer by this time that after processing the films, I am embarrassed to say that barely anything was in focus. How are you going to overlap two windows when you're seeing four?

 

LOL!! Now that *is* a limitation of manual focussing

[bradreiman]

How are you going to overlap two windows when you're seeing four?

 

when you get back to basic doublevision you know you're there-in more ways than one...b

[dalippe]

You also need to learn to "pre--see" where the action is and make sure the lens is in the general vicinity. And SHOOT--stop focussing. The focus on a Nocti at f1 at 15 feet, well, it's not as critical or hard as people make it out to be at all. It's only a 50mm...

 

The 75 or 90 on the other hand are a bit more finicky, but really, get the focus close and at f 1.6 to 2 you're going to be fine.

 

(And what Hank said about people jumping around and everything in alignment, too )

 

Yes, I suppose that I should spend some time experimenting with how far off the double image can be without leading to an OOF shot for various lenses at various apertures. Right now I have two ways of handling focus-- zone focus with wide angles stopped down, and trying to get the double images *perfectly* lined up with everything else.

 

On the other hand, my favorite subject does jump all over the place, and rushes toward me trying to take my camera whenever he sees me taking pictures. My ten month old is rather enamored of his new locomotive skills, and rather interested in this thing I've been pointing at him for ten months. What I need is a lens with good close focus to grab the shot right before he crashes into me

[ho_co]

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Someone mentioned somewhere that film has thickness and is thus more forgiving of focus...

LFI said that a couple issues back in their article on perceived focus discrepancies with the M8.

 

But I don't understand how people find a rangefinder trickier to focus than an SLR.

 

With the M, you must hold the camera horizontally to focus on a vertical or vertically to focus on a horizontal. Same thing with a split-image prism in an SLR. With groundglass or fine microprisms, the SLR focuses completely differently, but the eye is much more sensitive to split lines than to fine detail going into and out of focus.

 

With the M, you can't focus if you hold your hand/finger in front of one of the windows. That possibility doesn't exist with an SLR, because you see your finger--but you also see your finger with the M. Maybe it takes some time to get used to that.

 

I used to sell cameras, and if you let a customer try both his SLR and an M, he was always quicker and more accurate with the M.

 

Maybe it's just that we've grown used to letting the camera do it with AF lenses. There, dSLRs are quicker than the M. I mean, even if you wait all day, the M8 won't focus itself.

 

And then my eyes aren't as good as they were back then. That could be part of the problem as well.

 

Then, too, Bernd has a point when he says that with a dSLR, "the fact that when you shoot 50 pictures in a rapid sequence, some have to be in focus."

 

--HC