[Leica] Testing rangefinder

[Nathan Wajsman <nathan.wajsman@euronet.be>]

Hi all,

Being a confirmed neurotic, I decided to do some test shots with my M6
and the 75mm Summilux to see if the rangefinder was working correctly
and also to see the depth of field with my own eyes. So I took a
measuring tape, laid it on my lawn, placed a marker at 1m, 2m, ... ,
10m, put the camera on a tripod and took a picture of each marker in
turn, with the lens wide open. I just go the pictures back, and the shot
I took at the closest distance (1m) looks really bad, with the marker I
thought I had focused on completely soft, and the point of focus appears
to be about 10 cm behind it. The shots at 2m, 3m etc. look OK.

Maybe it was silly of me to even waste film on this exercise, since
things are fine in normal picture-taking use, but now that I have done
it, I am concerned that the rangefinder might after all be misaligned,
if only slightly. Is it possible that such a misalignment would only
show up at the closest focusing distance?

It is of course also possible that I simply screwed up that particular
picure. It was early morning and I had not had my coffee yet...

Nathan