Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/02/28

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Subject: [Leica] Shootout - L vs N
From: rdcb37 at dodo.com.au (Rick Dykstra)
Date: Mon Feb 28 12:33:24 2005
References: <BE486015.1F55E%telyt@earthlink.net>

Haven't even mounted them yet Doug.  I'll let you know when the two 
good ones have been scanned.  Rick
.
On 01/03/2005, at 12:43 AM, Doug Herr wrote:

> My experience exactly.   The automated tools help you produce the goods
> quickly and easily but the really special pictures come from doing it
> manually, requiring a tool optimized for manual use.
>
> Have you posted these pictures yet?
>
> Doug Herr
> Birdman of Sacramento
> http://www.wildlightphoto.com
>
>
>
> on 2/28/05 2:48 AM, Rick Dykstra at rdcb37@dodo.com.au wrote:
>
>> Having discovered this magical puddle on the boulder out in the 
>> forest,
>> and the incredible variety of birds that are attracted to it if I top
>> it up with water, I spent the weekend standing on a stool behind Leica
>> and Nikon lenses.  On the Saturday I was in an Ameristep Outhouse 
>> blind
>> with my head jammed up in the attic - bit hot it got, when it was
>> sunny.  So on Sunday I tried without the blind - and most of the birds
>> were happy to play regardless - at a distance of only 2.5 to 3 meters.
>>
>> I started with the apo telyt 560/5.6 and R8 and found trying to focus
>> on birds doing spins in the puddle nearly enough to give me a cerebral
>> hemorrhage.  I didn't feel like I was getting many keepers so on 
>> Sunday
>> I dragged out a F5 and 300 AFS, hardly used since my soccer 
>> photography
>> days.  It was very good for that so maybe I should give it a go with
>> 'da boyds'.
>>
>> That Nikon made me feel like the God of Photography, on steroids.  
>> Damn
>> this is easy.  The 300 plus a 1.4 converter -  faster than my 560 so
>> more wriggle room in the changeable light.  I machine gunned a pair of
>> little thornbills as they splashed water over each other.  Great fun.
>>
>> So I got four rolls processed today, two from the Leica gear and two
>> from the Nikon.   With the Leica I got about 5 keepers from each roll,
>> vs about 8 with the Nikon, which had felt better than that.  I'd been
>> using the F5 on focus priority mode and so it only fired when it was
>> happy, as I was with each shot.  And it did achieve focus with each
>> shot, but not necessarily on what I would have liked - the bird's eye.
>> When it missed, it didn't miss by much, usually picking up the 
>> feathers
>> just in front of the eye.  Whereas my misses with the Leica gear were
>> usually by more.  But a miss is a miss is a miss.
>>
>> Two shots stood out head and shoulders above the rest, of a White 
>> Eared
>> Honeyeater and a Scarlet Robin (boy did I get a surprise when when 
>> that
>> guy jumped into the viewfinder!).  And, both were taken with the 
>> Leica.
>> It was the ease of focussing anywhere on the screen that made the
>> difference.  No dicking around trying to get the sensor in the right
>> place.  Complete freedom with composition.  Neither shot would have
>> worked with the Nikon as the sensors were not where I needed them.
>>
>> So, I have a good number of very engaging and useable photos from the
>> Nikon, and a couple of absolute crackers from the Leica.  Those two
>> shots did feel good as I took them - I remember saying 'Yes!' under my
>> breath.
>>
>> The moral?  Autofocus maketh one a God - not!  :-)
>>
>> Rick.
>>
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>
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In reply to: Message from telyt at earthlink.net (Doug Herr) ([Leica] Shootout - L vs N)