Summarit 75 on M8 - focus test

[Mauribix]

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Here i will post some "Cinquecento"... hope to be not OT but that's the way...

I will post a series in the Photo forum too...

 

What a nice little monster.....

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[luigi bertolotti]

WOW, what a monster the first one !!! ...sometimes I think that if I had a small available box I'd like to have a 500... but would prefer to have a "Giardiniera"... when you are a 5 people family a Station is better...

[rickp13]

hello HC

 

my pleasure. i do a lot more reading than posting, but if i get a chance to be helpful with related information or a link, i try to take time to do so.

 

you must have read my mind about the chart. i was tempted to put a vertical line on it, then decided that putting the camera in portrait position would be better.

 

i've been putting off doing any testing though, maybe to avoid verification that my 75 summilux focuses "one way", and 35 summicron the opposite. wish me luck. at least i live in the same country as solms!

 

good holidays to all

 

rick

[ho_co]

Rick--

A true rangefinder mind at work!

 

Like the old actors' adage: "If the light doesn't find you, you find the light!"

 

Happy holidays to you as well.

 

--HC

[lars_bergquist]

Now, if with the camera held horizontally, you are shooting a flat target which is leaning away from you, i.e. with its top further away from you than the bottom – then the rangefinder should be further away from the target than the sensor is – no? So that even a correctly focusing lens would seem to back-focus. Unless you are holding the camera upside down?

 

The old man from the Age of This Side Up Photography

[ho_co]

Der Ball ist rund. Das Spiel dauert neunzig Minuten. Alles Andere ist Theorie.

 

Lars--

You are correct. Did you hold the camera with eyepiece end down or eyepiece end up?

 

Same if you draw a vertical line on the black stripe. The stripe has breadth. Are you focusing on the top part of the vertical line (further away) or the bottom part (closer)?

 

But the point is that we're using a focusing target as a very exact emulation of focusing in the real world. That is, we're doing something technical that has no real equivalent in day-to-day practice, but we can learn from it: "I tried this test on three cameras with two lenses and found out that ..."

 

I find it interesting that Roger's technician used the camera hand-held for the last part of the test, and then used a vertical line with figure 8's--a very near approximation to the D70 focus chart, in fact, except wall-mounted instead of table-mounted.

 

The exactness went into the design and production of the camera and lens (we hope). Now we're using a chart to help understand how the camera is likely to work in our hands in the real world.

 

As Ed told someone earlier--don't get so tied up in it; just go out and take some pictures!

 

Understand, I'm not arguing with you. The point is a good one. But as James Russell says in the focusing followup comments to his M8/Pamela Anderson article (Leica M8 Revisited), some moments go by when you need to take the picture, even though the focus isn't optimum. In other words, first let's prove that the technology is functional, and then let's use it.

 

 

BTW--As I thought about this, it occurred to me why some people feel they have trouble focusing the M camera: The eye has much more sensitivity to two lines not lining up exactly than it does to a slightly more or less fuzzy image. That is, with an SLR, you're watching an image go from out to in to out of focus again, and there's often a fairly long distance between "out" on the near side and "out" on the far side. You settle for a compromise because that's all the eye will let you do. But with the rangefinder, you clearly see the disparity between the edges you're focusing on, and you realize it's almost impossible to get them lined up perfectly.

 

In other words, I bet that the people who are having trouble focusing the M camera are trying to do it slowly, carefully, exactly--as they would a manual-focus SLR--instead of just turning the focus ring till the rangefinder lines up, then taking the picture.

 

Just my theory.

 

--HC

[jc_braconi]

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Hi Luigi,

My theory about the Summarit's issue was in fact about the focus point, with 2,5 aperture you have a wider latitude in hyperfocusing, this did not replace for sure an AF but the result are less frustating for people who use a range finder for the first time.

I know people who are resselling their M8 because they find them spartian tools to use.

 

Using the Noctilux at 1 or the Summilux 50 & 75 at 1.4 I must take care twice before shooting at near and medium ranges.

 

After so much time using M's, seeing the speed displayed in the M8 viewfinder is the top of luxus !

 

Cheers

JC