[Leica] IMG: Noctilux at work

[hoppyman at bigpond.net.au (G Hopkinson)]

Brian, your shot of Mark shows us just what can be done with that lens and 
camera combination, regarding low light. More importantly
it looks to me to be focussed very accurately on the glasses frames as you 
intended. It also shows that, with that miniscule DoF,
the smallest error becomes apparent. I suspect that is exacerbated by the 
lower magnification of the finder rather than any sensor
vs film characteristic. Might be interesting for you M8 guys to try a 
magnifier on the viewfinder? 
I think that the main issue that people were bringing up recently was a back 
focus shift when the aperture is changed?

BTW, that guy in the first shot is famous, I've seen him on television 
somewhere recently... in a well pressed shirt as I recall.

Cheers
Hoppy

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+hoppyman=bigpond.net.au@leica-users.org 
[mailto:lug-bounces+hoppyman=bigpond.net.au@leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Brian Reid
Sent: Friday, 27 April 2007 08:35
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: Noctilux at work

Mark Rabiner has been telling me that my Noctilux ought to work on my M8. So 
last night at dinner I handed him my M8 and asked him
to prove it. He did, but since I didn't have an IR cut filter on the lens, 
the color is crap and I look like I have a skin disease.
So I converted to B&W in photoshop and applied a red filter so my skin 
didn't look so blotchy. I've left the full-resolution
original B&W there in case anybody wants to look at the pixels. But, alas, 
Mark was right: it can be made to 
work in the hands of someone who knows how to do it. Back to school with me.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/bkreid/pwic/L1011472.jpg.html

Once you believe it's possible, you try a little harder to accomplish it.

Having watched Mark Rabiner take an in-focus picture with my Noctilux on my 
M8, I knew it could be done. So I spent several minutes
messing around with focus and moving the candle on the table top and 
changing where I was sitting until I could find enough light to
focus on his glasses, which got me this picture.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/bkreid/pwic/L1011474.jpg.html

I would never dream of using the Noctilux stopped down any more than f/1.4, 
so I'm not worried about focus shift. So I think this is
solved except for acquiring a lot more skill at focusing in the dark.

All of the tests that I ran with yardsticks and focus charts used very hot 
incandescent lights, which I suspect put so much IR into
the mix that the focus was wrong for an unrelated reason. When I get home 
I'll re-run my focus tests with cold light.



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