[Leica] M9 reviewers drawn from the "unwashed masses"

[drodgers at casefarms.com (David Rodgers)]

Mark wrote,

>>Yes but shooting every darned thing wide open can get old a fella
wants to
stop down to a blazing 5.6 every once in a blue moon and make sure he or
she
is getting their focus. Maybe more than one thing in focus.
I say rich or poor its always nice to get the thing in focus.
Makes you want to look at it. The picture.<< 

Stopping down has never been an issue for me. OK, maybe once or twice
when I went from outdoors to indoors, had the lens stopped down to F8 or
smaller and I tried to focus assist before opening up the aperture. The
only lens I even use stopped down to f8 or smaller is the 28/2.8
Elmarit. I stop that down sometimes when I shoot hyperfocal. But then I
don't need to focus. (for those who don't know the D700 focus assist
only works at f5.6 or larger)

Honestly, the biggest issue I have is forgetting to change the Custom
setting when I switch lenses. You can program into the D700 multiple
custom lens settings. It seems to help with exposure and other things
when you create and use a custom setting that has the right focal length
and max aperture of the lens. 

I have a custom setting for each R lens and I've programmed the function
button so I can change the setting when I change lenses. It only takes a
split second to do, but I sometimes forget. When I forget sometimes
things like exposure and white balance aren't perfect. They're very
close, but not perfect. 

When I have the right lens selected everything is perfect. Highlights
and shadows flirt with the extreme edges of the histograms, but neither
reach the blow out stage. It's pretty amazing. Fortunately, I rarely
forget to change the lens selection any more.  

I don't know how the D700 figures everything out so well when there's no
communication between the lens and the camera body, but somehow it does.
It's way, way, way, way better than the D200 in that regard. 

If I'm going to shoot stopped down I may as well use Nikkors :-). 

Dave R
  

-----Original Message-----
From: lug-bounces+drodgers=casefarms.com at leica-users.org
[mailto:lug-bounces+drodgers=casefarms.com at leica-users.org] On Behalf Of
Mark Rabiner
Sent: Tuesday, November 10, 2009 1:16 AM
To: Leica Users Group
Subject: Re: [Leica] M9 reviewers drawn from the "unwashed masses"

> 
> 
> and don't forget, Leica R glass, with 10 min of work to put on a
leitax
> adapter, works fine on the excellent Nikon D700 body...
> 
> so all those people who are waiting,
> 
> can stop waiting...
> 
> 
> Steve