[Leica] Shootout - L vs N

[telyt at earthlink.net (Doug Herr)]

My experience exactly.   The automated tools help you produce the goods
quickly and easily but the really special pictures come from doing it
manually, requiring a tool optimized for manual use.

Have you posted these pictures yet?

Doug Herr
Birdman of Sacramento
http://www.wildlightphoto.com



on 2/28/05 2:48 AM, Rick Dykstra at rdcb37@dodo.com.au wrote:

> Having discovered this magical puddle on the boulder out in the forest,
> and the incredible variety of birds that are attracted to it if I top
> it up with water, I spent the weekend standing on a stool behind Leica
> and Nikon lenses.  On the Saturday I was in an Ameristep Outhouse blind
> with my head jammed up in the attic - bit hot it got, when it was
> sunny.  So on Sunday I tried without the blind - and most of the birds
> were happy to play regardless - at a distance of only 2.5 to 3 meters.
> 
> I started with the apo telyt 560/5.6 and R8 and found trying to focus
> on birds doing spins in the puddle nearly enough to give me a cerebral
> hemorrhage.  I didn't feel like I was getting many keepers so on Sunday
> I dragged out a F5 and 300 AFS, hardly used since my soccer photography
> days.  It was very good for that so maybe I should give it a go with
> 'da boyds'.
> 
> That Nikon made me feel like the God of Photography, on steroids.  Damn
> this is easy.  The 300 plus a 1.4 converter -  faster than my 560 so
> more wriggle room in the changeable light.  I machine gunned a pair of
> little thornbills as they splashed water over each other.  Great fun.
> 
> So I got four rolls processed today, two from the Leica gear and two
> from the Nikon.   With the Leica I got about 5 keepers from each roll,
> vs about 8 with the Nikon, which had felt better than that.  I'd been
> using the F5 on focus priority mode and so it only fired when it was
> happy, as I was with each shot.  And it did achieve focus with each
> shot, but not necessarily on what I would have liked - the bird's eye.
> When it missed, it didn't miss by much, usually picking up the feathers
> just in front of the eye.  Whereas my misses with the Leica gear were
> usually by more.  But a miss is a miss is a miss.
> 
> Two shots stood out head and shoulders above the rest, of a White Eared
> Honeyeater and a Scarlet Robin (boy did I get a surprise when when that
> guy jumped into the viewfinder!).  And, both were taken with the Leica.
> It was the ease of focussing anywhere on the screen that made the
> difference.  No dicking around trying to get the sensor in the right
> place.  Complete freedom with composition.  Neither shot would have
> worked with the Nikon as the sensors were not where I needed them.
> 
> So, I have a good number of very engaging and useable photos from the
> Nikon, and a couple of absolute crackers from the Leica.  Those two
> shots did feel good as I took them - I remember saying 'Yes!' under my
> breath.
> 
> The moral?  Autofocus maketh one a God - not!  :-)
> 
> Rick.
> 
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