Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/07/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]You need to remember what they're _for_. > It's really depressing that N and C have such poor finders. To be fair to Canon and Nikon, modern SLRs have very good finders for autofocus with lenses of moderate aperture, which is what they're designed for, but when you depart from that, it's like trying to take a sports car onto a beach. > I wanted to shoot the 12.5 Photar on the full frame 5D > but with the extreme bellows factor > I literally can hardly see through the view finder > even at f:1.9 > The R8 is clear even fully stopped down. The real difference with the R8 is that you are looking at a ground glass focusing screen. As far as I can tell ALL modern AF SLRs use a focusing screen that is an engineered light pipe with microlenses on each surface, not ground glass. They only accept light from a narrow field of view, and in effect each microlens has its own aperture. They are much more efficient transmitters within their design spec, which is why the view looks so bright in the store with that f2.8 or f4-5.6 zoom, but are not so impressive with an f1.4 lens. These are very good if you're using an autofocus system, but much less good if you're using an eye. The problem lies in the comparison - a lot of us have transitioned from manual focus cameras to dSLRs and have brought lenses and other equipment along for the ride. In a way it's better (including for the manufacturers!) to just start from scratch. Marty