Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2012/07/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Marty, All of what you said about modern AF Nikons and Canons may well be true, but I was comparing my R8 to a Nikon F2a and an F3, both, of course, manual focus cameras. Robert On Jul 14, 2012, at 7:31 PM, Marty Deveney wrote: > 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 > > _______________________________________________ > Leica Users Group. > See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information