[Leica] IMG: Chelsea At The Door

[rbaron at concentric.net (Robert D. Baron)]

On August 28, 2007, Hoppy wrote:

> Bob, a nice warm pet portrait. 

Thanks, Hoppy, and others who wrote.  It was late afternoon / early 
evening sun, which gave the photo a nice warm light....Chelsea (who was 
waiting to go in for supper) is a smart, affectionate and occasionally 
very hard headed dog, who waits for no man when the food is being dished 
out...

> The back focus issue is a very interesting one. There is an article in the 
> current (August) LFI which discusses the issue at some
> length. Leica reports record numbers of lenses being sent for adjustment. 
> The most vulnerable being basically the -luxes. Clearly
> any error would be most apparent with the very fast lenses. However they 
> have said that the later design of the 50 asph and 75 asph
> with floating element is meant to be less vulnerable and this may be their 
> future basis for lens designs of that type. Leica
> suggests that errors that may have been present with film cameras too are 
> perhaps more noticeable with digital capture. Especially
> now that there is a greater awareness of the issue.
> 

Thanks.  I just read the article. I don't pretend to understand 
everything I read but I guess it makes sense insofar as I do.

> I like their one line solution if you get a focus shift. Just shoot the 
> lens 
> wide open all the time!

A little impractical with the 75 Summilux, which at 1.4 and close in has 
depth of field about equal to the width of a human (or dog) hair.

The shot of Chelsea was at 2.8 or 4.0 (ISO 320) and cropped a bit; I was 
standing maybe 8 or 10 feet from her.  The depth of field is minuscule 
here and at 1.4 it would have been almost non-existent.

I love the images this lens produces when I hit the focus, but often 
times luck plays a large role.

> 
> Cheers
> Hoppy

Regards,

--Bob

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> Subject: [Leica] IMG: Chelsea At The Door
> 
> Here is a shot made this evening with my M8 and 75mm Summilux of 
> Chelsea, one of our older Cavaliers (she is ten) at the back door.
> 
> The 75 just came back from Leica New Jersey, along with my 35mm ASPH 
> Summilux and 50mm pre-ASPH Summilux.  I had back-focus issues with these 
> three lenses on my M8 so I sent them in to Robert Fisk and his 
> technicians for 6 bit coding and focus calibration.
> 
> I think they did a great job.
> 
> My Noctilux goes in tomorrow.
> 
> http://www.bobbaron.com/W_L1002843ChelDoor.jpg
> 
> --Bob