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The heck with the crop factor....


adan

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Like the title says - I have decided to quit worrying about the crop factor of the M8 and go back to the original set of lenses I loved on film. 21-35-90.

 

I wish I had figured this out 2 years and umpteen kilobucks ago, instead of spending the time and money futzing around with which 28 came closest to the look of a 35 Summicron, or whether a 50 or a 75 was the best "short tele" to substitute for my 90 Tele-Elmarit or how in the world I could find a 15mm that was not: a) f/2.8 but the size of a dinner plate or B) nice and small but f/4.5.

 

Here's a pair of shots, both made with a 35 'cron - on the M8 and on film (let's avoid the comments about my niece just because the other shot happens to be a dog...).

 

For tonality, piquant highlights, and the soft-yet-obvious falloff in sharpness:

 

1. Both pictures "look" like 35 Summicron pictures, and

2. Neither can be duplicated by shooting any 28 on the M8 (not the 28 'cron, not the 28 Ultron, not even a 28 Elmarit with the same Mandler heritage as the 35). Nor does the shot on the M8 look anything like a film picture made with any 50 - the "drawing" is just unique to the 35 f/2.

 

In a general sense, the same applies to the 21 and 90 - neither has the same field of view on the M8, but they still perform more like themselves cropped than a substitute lens does that nominally is a better match for their "film" field of view. The 21 is a "wideangle" with the same relationship to the 35 that it had on film, and the 90 is a short tele.

 

If I absotively, posilutely have to have the old "21" field of view for architecture or whatever, I can grab the 15 c/v Heliar out of the bottom of the bag. But I am going back to 21-35-90 as my main carry, and the 50s and 75s and 28s are out the door.

 

This should not be taken as a defense of the M8 crop - if Leica can get to a 24 x 36 sensor I'm all for it. I'm just not going to pay attention until it gets here.

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Actually,simple and brilliant. I don't know why I haven't thought about it, but with the DMR and it's crop 1.3X factor I'm still using the same lenses for the same things. Even 35mm for architecture. It's just a different point of view, slightly further back than before ;-)

 

You're right and it makes it simpler. And the 35mm which is a classic M lens you don't have to abandon for a 28mm.

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I agree with you 100%. I have posted numerous times that the magnification does not change - 28mm remains 28mm; 35mm remains 35mm etc. All that happens is that you have a cropped image of what you would have had with full frame. Once you start messing around and use 28 because it looks most like 35 you change the subject magnification and all the hassles that goes with that. Well done with your decision.

 

Andreas

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I agree only in part... and is on the "standard" lens: on film I was accustomed to consider 35 in this role... and now I have came to the same conclusion for M8: logical or not it is, I can't get myself accustomed to consider 28 as the standard for M8 (probably, also for 35 is a modern Cron asph while for 28 I have to choose between a tasty but very old Summaron 5,6, and Elmarit non asph, which feels "too big" vs. the 35).

 

For the light tele, don't know why, but I felt a different mood... 35+90 was so a pleasant std. set for film... but now 90 seems to me "a bit long" and switched to Summarit 75 for the role: but, thinking well, I think is more a psychological bias due to the framelines and not the focal length in itself ... my film camera was a M4 : 90 used to be a frame with a certain "breadth" , on M8 isn't so... 90 is "the tiny one" and this probably brings me to prefer the 75.

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It's because cropping one lens does not give the look and feel of another lens. Since you can see the image on the back once you shoot, that is pretty much the best indicator. If you cropped a very wide angle shot severely it would in no way resemble a telephoto shot because of the perspective angles, depth of field and so on. Why on earth they always say the 35mm is more like a 50mm is beyond me. The crop factor is just that; cropping slightly, nothing more. Everything else about the lens and it's look and feel remain the same. I wish someone would post 2 sets of identical shots, one from a M7 with the images as they are full frame with a dozen different lenses and another set with the M8 with the cropped digital images side by side. When I get my M7, perhaps I will do this, although I only have 3 lenses. Someone with a lot of time and many lenses and bodies should tackle this for all of us and put this crop factor nonsense to rest.

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Andy - I completely agree with you. A favorite lens is a favorite lens. My favorite lens is the 50 Summilux and I use it on the M8 as much as I used it on the M7 (actually more, since I shoot more with the M8... because it is digital.) I may disagree with you on the lens lineup, but yes: How I Learned To Love The Crop And Quit Worrying About The Lens is a smart way to go.

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Andy,

 

Thanks for being a brave soul and posting this. I've been dismayed for years now about the intensity of the crop-factor debate -- not just here, but with with other brands as well. There's no magic to format size, it its what it is, so make the best of the tools you use.

 

Larry

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If you cropped a very wide angle shot severely it would in no way resemble a telephoto shot because of the perspective angles, depth of field and so on. Why on earth they always say the 35mm is more like a 50mm is beyond me.

Actually, C, that's not the case.

 

Perspective is determined only by position. Cropping a wide-angle will give exactly the same image with exactly the same depth of field as a telephoto shot from the same place. (For DoF, one multiplies the aperture also by the crop factor. Thus, a 35/2 "becomes" on the M8 the equivalent of a 46.7 mm f/2.7 in terms of field of view and depth of field.)

 

(To convince yourself of this, consider the Minox 'spy' camera: Compare the effect of its 15 mm f/3.5 lens on 8 x 11 mm format to that of a 15 mm lens on 24 x 36.)

 

There have been a number of forum discussions on this topic, often heated; a lot of people have initially shared your point of view: You are not alone :) because the relationships aren't immediately intuitive.

 

First time I saw the aperture relationship explained was in "Form follows Format" in LFI 3/2006, describing a presentation by Peter Karbe, Leica's head lens designer.

 

In addition, there's an excellent summary of these and a number of related issues by forum member Rubén Osuna and others at Luminous landscape.

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I totally agree and I haven't thought about it since getting the M8. 50mm was, and still is, my most used lens on film and it is on the M8. I use all my lenses the same way on the M8 as I did on film. I just step back slightly or more to the point I step closer now when shooting film.

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Nothing personal here, but I hear this old saw over and over again, and it is rare that a few steps back gets you the picture you visualized when you were standing closer. A dramatic example would be the difference between the boring:

 

https://thefourcornersclassroom.wikispaces.com/file/view/Toronto's_CN_Tower.jpg

 

and the far more dramatic:

 

http://www.concretecontractor.com/graphics/cn-tower4.jpg

 

Different focal lengths exist for a reason. If you use a 50mm on the M8 because you prefer that lens over the 35mm (equivalent of 50 FF), then you are often choosing a narrower view. If your vision is loose enough to support that, then go for it, but this isn't the case for all of us.

 

And yes, once in a while you *can* just take a few steps back, but I visualize 50, so if I use a 50 on the M8, I am going to be walking backwards all the time, and missing half my shots.

 

In general, you are only going to be to swap one focal length for another and extra walking when you are far from the subject, and the changed distance doesn't significantly change the scene or the perspective. Otherwise, you are simply taking a different shot.

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. Cropping a wide-angle will give exactly the same image with exactly the same depth of field as a telephoto shot from the same place.

 

Just so: I had held to the misconception that a wide-angle lens gave somehow different width/height proportions from a more 'normal' focal length lens. Until I overlaid 24mm and 50mm images from the same tripod point in Photoshop and saw the 100% overlap. Of course cropping from say a wider CV lens might not match the resolution that a 50 Summilux ASPH would yield of the image you wanted.

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Well I stand corrected, I think.

 

On page 303 of the Leica M Advanced Photo School book I have it shows 3 pictures of the same woman, each with a different lens. The face is distorted in the 21, less distorted with the 50mm and correctly proportioned with the 135mm. The perspective may be the same but distortion would not overlap. The faces in the book certainly would not overlap properly due to different distortion from each lens. .

 

I'd post it but as a writer myself I know that is not kosher. If any of you have this book, check it out. It's a great book.

 

I would still like to see those comparison shots & overlaps.

 

In the end it is true though that one must choose what feels best. We can not avoid the crop factor with the M8 & 8.2 and it seems that a full frame one may be an impossibility with current lenses.

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Well I stand corrected, I think.

 

On page 303 of the Leica M Advanced Photo School book I have it shows 3 pictures of the same woman, each with a different lens. The face is distorted in the 21, less distorted with the 50mm and correctly proportioned with the 135mm. The perspective may be the same but distortion would not overlap. The faces in the book certainly would not overlap properly due to different distortion from each lens.

Good point. Distortion is a characteristic of the lens, not a geometry law.

This is probably why though I like the FOV of the 28mm lens better on the M8, I find the 35mm to have a more natural drawing of lines (less distortion).

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I agree with you 100%. I have posted numerous times that the magnification does not change - 28mm remains 28mm; 35mm remains 35mm etc. All that happens is that you have a cropped image of what you would have had with full frame.

 

That is true, but also that is a big problem. On full frame I choose 35mm because it is wide angle of coverage. Sometime I cannot step back more. Actually it is not 28 v 35 that is most irritating with cropped sensors, it is when losing the widest angle possible. Example, CV 12mm is widest rectilinear lens capable with full frame Leica M, but on the M8 it is cropped severely (compares in coverage to 18mm on full frame) and there is no other lens can go wider.

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With a wider lens, the distortion increases towards the edge of the image, so if you crop the image, the distortion is less noticeable. I would be very surprised if anyone could tell the difference between a cropped image taken with a 35 Lux on a full frame and an uncropped image taken from the same point, with a 50 Lux. I would think they would be more likely to spot the differences between an image taken with a 50 Lux and a 50 Sonnar. With modern wide angle lenses, you just don't get that looking through a door spy hole view that you used to get with old wide angles, where everyone looks like Barry Manilow.

 

Wilson

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I've felt this way from the beginning. I was fortunate enough to beta test the M8 back in August 2006. I remember thinking at the time that the crop would change my lens choices, but the 35 still "felt" like a 35, the 28 "felt" like a 28, and so on. I don't really think about the camera being "less than FF" any more. I just use the lens that suits the situation, as others have noted as well. I still use the 35 cron as my main lens and in no way think it looks like a 50. It looks like a 35. My favorite lens on the DMR was also a 35 cron. Same deal. My 90 feels like a 90, just a hair tighter. Even the WATE feels as wide as it is. I look at shots I do at 16 and they just don't look like they were shot with a 21. They just "feel" wider.

 

I've had this conversation countless times over the two years that the M8 has been out, and many still hold onto the lack of FF as a major shortcoming of the camera. For me, I'm happy. I'd love a FF M9, but only for the increased sensor real estate and bump in pixel count. The 1.3x is a non-issue for me. I cover everything from 16 to 90 in my bag and never feel I am missing a focal length because of the crop.

 

But hey, that is just me. Glad to hear there are other heretics out there too! :)

 

David

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