p.13 #1 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
brainiac wrote:
...That's the problem with the M8: no matter how good it feels, its results are outperformed by current entry-level DSLR's.
It is still in the nature of the photographer, which was my point behind the pencil analogy: if my photography can be done very well with an RF, AND the tool feels right in my hands, the what-ifs and what-nots of what else the camera cannot do are irrelevant.
The right tool can really do magic in the right hands: anyone who draws extensively understands this.
p.13 #2 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
mawz wrote:
It IS an issue if you have a habit of shooting fast glass at wide apertures and relatively short distances. Like say candid shots indoors, or portrait work like Ulrikft's stuff. It's much less of an issue with wider lenses, but in the 35-50mm range it's very definitely an issue.
Whether the M8 can do low light fast pace photography, the proof is in the pudding as they say:
p.13 #4 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
I use the D700 and Leica M8 extensively. The leica with a couple of lenses makes a fantastic travel package. The IQ is first rate -- every bit as good as the D700, and, while the DR may be less than the D700, the lack of an AA filter and the CCD give a very "film-like" image.
I enjoy using (that is, the process to taking photos) with the M8 much, much more than a D700. That is a subjective experience, but, if you enjoy the experience, and the final product (the photo) is fantastic (as it is with the M8) then the M8 might be for you. Whoever "you" may be.
A used M8 is still expensive, but, if the money is there, then I recommend the camera. If you are on a limited budget and need to have one camera that can "do it all" then I would recommend against the Leica and for a nice Canon or Nikon.
Yep, it certainly can do that. Note that's not really all that close up on the normal shots, the only real close shots were clearly with a wide-angle. So the issues with focus & recompose don't apply here, you're in the range where DoF covers the margin of error.
As I noted above, it's only under 3m or so where it becomes an issue, and even then only near wide open on really fast lenses of 35mm or longer. Which does not appear to be the case for this (outstanding) set of work.
p.13 #6 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
I don't have an M8, instead I use M6's with shorter depth of field, and my most used lens is the 35/1.4. The bulk of what I do is in low light, much of it at large apertures of 2.8 or greater and at close distance - close environmental portraits - at about two metres.
So much of what I do is slightly, sometimes around a third, off centre. I make a small adjustment from accurate on axis focus, and don't have a problem.
Just try and focus an SLR off axis in low light, wide open with a 35/1.4 - in my experience, even focusing centrally in such conditions is like a game of chance, so please don't try and tell me that a rangefinder has problems here. Try focusing off axis with such a lens with a 5DII with the edge focus points - they wont even work!
p.13 #8 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
wolfloid wrote:
Just try and focus an SLR off axis in low light, wide open with a 35/1.4 - in my experience, even focusing centrally in such conditions is like a game of chance, so please don't try and tell me that a rangefinder has problems here. Try focusing off axis with such a lens with a 5DII with the edge focus points - they wont even work!
I've actually done a decent bit of that, more with a 50 or 58 than a 35/1.4 (I've got the Nikon, it gets soft at the edges wide-open so I tend to bring a subject in closer to the centre). With a good finder (like say my FM2n with an E3 screen, a setup better suited to manually focusing fast lenses than a 5D even with a 3rd party screen) it's quite doable. It does take a good finder and a screen designed for manual focus though, I would be a fair bit less confident with a D700 than with my FM2n just due to the screen differences.
p.13 #9 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
wolfloid wrote:
I don't have an M8, instead I use M6's with shorter depth of field, and my most used lens is the 35/1.4. The bulk of what I do is in low light, much of it at large apertures of 2.8 or greater and at close distance - close environmental portraits - at about two metres.
So much of what I do is slightly, sometimes around a third, off centre. I make a small adjustment from accurate on axis focus, and don't have a problem.
Just try and focus an SLR off axis in low light, wide open with a 35/1.4 - in my experience, even focusing centrally in such conditions is like a game of chance, so please don't try and tell me that a rangefinder has problems here. Try focusing off axis with such a lens with a 5DII with the edge focus points - they wont even work!...Show more →
Using a 5Dii does not mean one _must_ use AF. You can manual focus a lens on 5Dii too. However, for best MF results one must change to a manual focusing screen such as the EG-S screen. My experience is with a 50/1.4 and I agree with mawz.
The salient points are i) less than 3m, ii) wide aperture like f1.4 or wider and iii) manual focus. Obviously, since we are in the alt forum, we are using manual focus lenses. What you said about the edge AF points is true in AF mode and I've no doubt in that.
p.13 #11 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
"for best MF results one must change to a manual focusing screen such as the EG-S screen."
I have the EG-S screen, and in low light levels (only fairly low) it is completely useless. In the situations I'm describing the rangefinder is not only an order of magnitude brighter, which helps in composition, it is also easy to focus. With the EG-S screen and a 40/2 it is almost impossible to focus centrally and just a joke to try to focus off axis. The EG-s screen is only good in good light.
Mawz, yes, there is a difference between manually focusing a DSLR and a well set up SLR. I have more luck with a Pentax LX with the SC69 screen - its the brightest SLR viewfinder I've looked through. But with a 35/2 on it, in low light, off axis focusing is hit and miss. It makes more sense to focus with the (relatively inaccurate) focusing aids centrally and do the same as I would with the rangefinder. So why do this when the rangefinder is snappier and more accurate to focus centrally anyway. This was my point about off axis focusing.
p.13 #12 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
wolfloid wrote:
Mawz, yes, there is a difference between manually focusing a DSLR and a well set up SLR. I have more luck with a Pentax LX with the SC69 screen - its the brightest SLR viewfinder I've looked through. But with a 35/2 on it, in low light, off axis focusing is hit and miss. It makes more sense to focus with the (relatively inaccurate) focusing aids centrally and do the same as I would with the rangefinder. So why do this when the rangefinder is snappier and more accurate to focus centrally anyway. This was my point about off axis focusing....Show more →
My E3 screen is somewhat better than the original LX screens (unless you had one of the new screens from an LX 2000, which are comparable to the FM3a 3-series screens I'm using in my FM2n). But my experience is somewhat different from yours. Of course some of that is lens-based, I find the 35/1.4 to be easier to focus in low light than a 35/2, a combo of that extra stop of light and the shallower depth of field. I would agree with you on a 35/2 in low light.
Note the E3 screen I'm using is a grid matte screen, not a split-prism (which is a K screen in Nikon parlance), I've got no central focus aid. In general I find the 35/1.4 to focus well in low light out to anywhere in zone B. Zone C is difficult because of lens performance (curvature of field and softness).
Jun 16, 2009 at 08:46 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.13 #13 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
wolfloid wrote:
"for best MF results one must change to a manual focusing screen such as the EG-S screen."
I have the EG-S screen, and in low light levels (only fairly low) it is completely useless. In the situations I'm describing the rangefinder is not only an order of magnitude brighter, which helps in composition, it is also easy to focus. With the EG-S screen and a 40/2 it is almost impossible to focus centrally and just a joke to try to focus off axis. The EG-s screen is only good in good light.
Not my experience. I get good results with wide aperture lenses in low light with Ee-S and Eg-S. I don't believe that focus-recompose would give me either the accuracy for sharp eyes at f1.4 or the focussing speed that I need. Two frames-per-second wouldn't help either. Here are a few pictures from one event, mostly at isos 6400-12800 with a Contax 35mm f1.4 wide open. An M8 could neither match the speed of off-centre focussing, nor the iso and ability to get adequate results in little to no light, nor the frame rate and method of attrition.
p.13 #14 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
wolfloid wrote:
"for best MF results one must change to a manual focusing screen such as the EG-S screen."
I have the EG-S screen, and in low light levels (only fairly low) it is completely useless. In the situations I'm describing the rangefinder is not only an order of magnitude brighter, which helps in composition, it is also easy to focus. With the EG-S screen and a 40/2 it is almost impossible to focus centrally and just a joke to try to focus off axis. The EG-s screen is only good in good light.
Mawz, yes, there is a difference between manually focusing a DSLR and a well set up SLR. I have more luck with a Pentax LX with the SC69 screen - its the brightest SLR viewfinder I've looked through. But with a 35/2 on it, in low light, off axis focusing is hit and miss. It makes more sense to focus with the (relatively inaccurate) focusing aids centrally and do the same as I would with the rangefinder. So why do this when the rangefinder is snappier and more accurate to focus centrally anyway. This was my point about off axis focusing....Show more →
+1.
For those who have not yet looked through an RF viewfinder, the difference between that and a full frame DSLR, say a 5D, is not too far from the VF between a 5D and a 450. None of my full frame DSLRs, between the 5D, 1Ds and the D700 had more hits than my RFs with fast wide angles. Even though academically the DSLR "should" focus easier, in real life that is not the case. Both the speed and accuracy of the RFs in WAs is at least as good. Especially in light low enough to render a DSLR useless with an MF lens.
p.13 #15 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
TWoK wrote:
Are you serious? I think Michael Kamber put any ideas of the M8 being durable, well made, well thought out or anything else positive to rest with his M8 tales from Iraq.
I don't really plan to go to war with my RFs, so expecting them to last a long time is a possibility I think
Jun 16, 2009 at 11:09 AM
brainiac Offline [X]
p.13 #16 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
Is anybody else seeing my images displayed at double size? They are 1000 pixels wide and this page seems to be showing them at more than twice that size. Unfortunately, although I wrote the code that learns image sizes on this site, I am no longer involved in FM development, so I can't fix it
p.13 #17 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
dasrocket wrote:
For those who have not yet looked through an RF viewfinder, the difference between that and a full frame DSLR, say a 5D, is not too far from the VF between a 5D and a 450. None of my full frame DSLRs, between the 5D, 1Ds and the D700 had more hits than my RFs with fast wide angles. Even though academically the DSLR "should" focus easier, in real life that is not the case. Both the speed and accuracy of the RFs in WAs is at least as good. Especially in light low enough to render a DSLR useless with an MF lens....Show more →
Once you get wider than 35mm or so the focusing accuracy advantage of an RF shows up and DoF covers focus&recompose errors. If you want to shoot fast wides at wide apertures, it's hard to beat an M or Ikon. With normals (35-60mm) accuracy is essentially a wash between a high-end SLR finder with an MF-oriented screen designed for fast glass and an RF, but focus & recompose errors start to become visible close in at wide apertures. Longer than 60mm, the SLR finder steadily increases its focus accuracy advantages and focus & recompose errors can be magnified at short ranges.
Everything's a trade-off. I'd much rather shoot an M if I was shooting a 24 or 28 at f2 or wider close in. I'll take my SLR close in for a fast 35 or 50, but at mid-range the M will be just as good. For a fast 85+, gimme the SLR every day.
p.13 #18 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
dasrocket wrote: These were shot with an EPSON RD-1; remember this is a very short RF base which makes it a little harder ot focus than a LEICA M. The first two were with a canon 50mm 1.2 serenar (circa 1953) about 18"-24" away and the tattoo one with the CV heliar 15mm about 12" away.
It is not as fast as with a TTL VF, but it is really not an issue if you take your time for each shot.
And there's little to no recomposition in the first two. That's the third part of the equation, there's zero issues focusing a fast lens wide open and close in on an RF if you aren't significantly recomposing away from the RF patch (which is what generates the focus error in the first place). The third one wouldn't show the issue in the first place as you have gobs of DoF at 15mm and f4.5.
Here's an example (of me rather than by me) of the sort of thing I'm talking about. The focus is just about dead on my left eye here.
And another one where the focus point is the bike rack on the lower right, wide open. This one's far enough away that DoF may well cover the recompose.
p.13 #20 · M8/Leica People I'm Thinking About Switching
No offense brainiac but you nailed the correct eye in about 1/2 of those shots (might be motion blur). It's not my field of expertise so I don't know if it matters, but for the stuff I shoot it does matter, and I find the 5D-II viewfinder quite inadequate and inconsistent with wider than 50mm fast lenses. But I can use live-view without much penalty to shooting speed.
And yeah your images are huge in the thread but normal sized when opened in a new window. EDIT: yes you fixed it.
Is the camera really the limiting factor here? Have you seen any shots taken with an M8 in a similar environment where you've felt "I could have done better with my SLR" ?
