Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2001/07/30

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Subject: Re: [Leica] M rangefinder focusing techniques
From: Johnny Deadman <john@pinkheadedbug.com>
Date: Mon, 30 Jul 2001 09:20:32 -0400

on 7/30/01 8:38 AM, Mxsmanic at mxsmanic@hotmail.com wrote:

> I notice that when focusing my M6, I spend about thirty seconds checking and
> double-checking to make absolutely sure that the two little images in the
> rangefinder are perfectly aligned.  I'm pretty sure that this is overkill, but
> I don't know how much accuracy is really necessary.

Neither do I but once the images are coincident I fire and forget. It takes
me a lot less than a second. My pictures are sharp. That is the beauty of a
rangefinder. I have been shooting a lot with my T90 recently using 24mm and
17mm lenses and the focusing is a nightmare.

Incidentally anyone who tells you you can rely on DOF in lenses this wide is
wrong... the 17mm in particular demands that you put in a lot of very close
foreground, maybe 2-3' away, but you also want the background to be sharp...
suddenly you're stopping down to f/8 or f/11 or even f/16 to get the depth.
I shot a whole bunch of stuff with the 24mm with the background out of
focus... not in a good way either...

having said all that it is worth the pain not to have the parallax problems
you suffer with wiiiiide lenses on the M. And the Canon FD 17mm is a very
sharp lens at moderate apertures.

- -- 
John Brownlow

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com

ICQ: 109343205