So at PDN I was able to play with a Leica. I had questions before about buying into an M8 to try the rangefinder experience. I haven't as of yet, and have listened to the suggestions of people on this forum to try it first, as it is not for everyone.
The feel of the Leica feels nice and solid. I was able to try my hand at the focusing, which honestly I was not accustomed to.
My question is, how do you focus a subject to not be in the center frame? I was only able to play with it for a minute or two. Are you able to move that focusing square in a different part of the frame??
paregorike wrote:
My question is, how do you focus a subject to not be in the center frame? I was only able to play with it for a minute or two. Are you able to move that focusing square in a different part of the frame??
Thanks,
Ron
This is most hilarious part of Leica, at one hand, they have awesome lens fast up to 0.95, at other hand you have to always put your subject on dead center.
Recompose most like will not work within 2M and fast than f1.4. I trained myself tilt the body to compensate recompose error, but you can improve focus but get critical accurate result is still hit and miss, this largely offset Leica last 5-10% WO performance advantage.
Not to mention, almost all there fast glasses have field curvature.
But many leica users stop down the lens to take street, this hardly a problem, you may not even focus. by putting your finger on the bump/tab, you know your subject is in focus without even use your eyes. That is the beauty of Leica.
I have to admit that many times for WO, you may not require absolutely in focus.
Not wanting to sound arrogant, but I've never had problems with focus recompose using fat glass on an m.. I've owned the 50/1.1 and 35/1.2 noktons in the past and now have the 50 and 35 lux asphs.
at 0.7M, DOF is 1.5cm and you can miss half of it 0.7cm, at 1M, you can only miss 1.5cm and 2M 6cm. not to mention, you have to be in the center of focus, zero error, if you are slightly front or back focus in your rangefinder system by 1 or 2cm, you success rate will be even lower cause those already tiny DOF tolerance will be further shrinking.
If you focus and recompose, how can you make sure focus distance doesn't change with this technique. Again, I tried remember to compensate that by body movement or focus adjusting, but many time, I don't have time to do it. or what I did just not enough. Especially, during portrait, you want eyes sharp. That what I though Noct design for at f.95.
I don't know if you can just based on this to decide system or not. Even with AF, what is the keeper rate? Can you quickly move the focus point when thing moving, and you have to remember move it back once subject move to different location. I get caught several times on that as well.
With D700 with shallow DOF screen, my keep rate is not that great as well especially things move.
So, my point is you need evaluate the + and - before make judgement. Yes, rangefinder require focus and recompose. but it also has a couple of advantage other system doesn't have.
If one is in a hurry, moving an (electronic) focusing marker will take up quite as much time as using the central field. An autofocusing system has a nasty habit of deciding on its own where the focus should lie.
I don't really see the problem. I use focus recompose for as long as I remember and never had problems with it.
Also with the 50/0,95 nocti, no problem at al.
