Leica M EV1: The first M with EVF instead of Rangefinder

[adan]

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3 hours ago, IkarusJohn said:

Interesting.  It’s hard to get a definitive explanation from google. A number of sites state that PDAF, in relatively basic form didn’t appear until the 2000s, whereas the F5 was released in 1996.

Don't let the names of things (and the changing form of those names) confuse things!

A horseless carriage is a charabanc is an automobile is an auto is a car is a whip, right? 😉

Phase-Detection Auto Focus (PDAF) is really just the great-great-grandchild of a rangefinder (whether from a World War One battleship, or a 1932 Leica II, or your Leica MA of today.) And quite a bit older than the 2000s: Leica's own Correfot AF invention of the 1970s used the same principle, if not the name. (Leica never used the Correfot - licensed it to their tech-partner Minolta instead)

https://www.leitz-auction.com/de/Leitz-CORREFOT-Collection/AI-16-19868

Split an view of the world into two pathways (two windows on the MA, or through two prisms, or two electronic detectors in the Correfot, or two pixels on an imaging sensor) - and then turn the lens until those two pathways are back in phase (aligned), and then STOP moving the lens.

All that really changes is the Detection and Focus method - your eye-and-brain vs. a chip eye-and-brain, and your fingers on a focus ring vs. a AF drive motor geared to the focus ring.

In the case of your F5, the PDAF (by any other name) chip's electric signal that told an AF Nikkor's motor to STOP turning when the images were in phase - could also light up an LED to tell your fingers to STOP turning an MF lens when the images were in phase. Easy-peasy.

.......................

And yes, with an imaging sensor that contained its own PDAF pixels (as in the Q3), it could "light up" an LED in the viewfinder, when the correct focus/phase was detected.

Only drawback with PDAF-on-image-sensor technology (at the moment) is that the focusing pixels are not imaging pixels, so the picture will have "pinholes" where the focusing pixels delivered no picture data. With 60Mpixels, and with the slight blurring that comes from demosaicing a COLOR image anyway, this is neglible.

But also, as with the Q3, it makes a Monochrom less-than-ideal - since Monochrom images lack the slight "melding of pixels" that occurs in post-processing color images. The PDAF "pinholes" would be a bit more obvious.

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[NigelG]

Thanks for the link to the Correfot…I knew the Leica AF story only in passing. Internet wormhole duly opened 🙄

(Minor pedantic correction - a charabanc is simply a wagon with forward-facing bench seats in rows and plenty were horse-drawn…I have a picture somewhere of an elderly relative on a works outing and there are IIRC four horses up front) 

[LocalHero1953]

5 hours ago, markc2 said:

The moment I bought a light meter was when I really learned a lot as well. LF is probably super slow compared to any modern camera. Just curious what was the biggest thing you learned? and am I right you look at the image inverted?

 

Thanks!

Do things slowly, systematically, with regular checks, and don't make mistakes*. And don't be afraid to bale out and not take the shot if the scene/light changes. Every shot is expensive.

Personally, I use the inverted image to confirm the framing and composition of a scene I have already envisaged, not for the composition itself.

 

* I do everything else correctly except this.

[Alberti]

17 minutes ago, LocalHero1953 said:

Personally, I use the inverted image to confirm the framing and composition of a scene I have already envisaged, not for the composition itself.

what is that, an inverted image. It reminds me of the 6x6 I once used.

Anyway,

I find meself nowadays often looking on the backscreen to check illumination (the hi-res sensor I have seems more sensitive even though the DR increased).

In that sense I have been searching for a Leica CL  – maybe this FF-version of the CL is capable of breaking down my extreme latency of buying 🙂 

[LocalHero1953]

19 minutes ago, Alberti said:

what is that, an inverted image. It reminds me of the 6x6 I once used.

 

NB My post was a response to a comment about large format photography. It's exactly the same. On the ground glass screen of a large format camera you see the image upside down and left to right. Same as a Rolleiflex TLR.

[SrMi]

22 minutes ago, Alberti said:

what is that, an inverted image. It reminds me of the 6x6 I once used.

That is an old technique to evaluate composition: rotate the image 180 degrees.