[Leica] Am I wasting my time/money?

[dnaplasmid at compwrx.com (Aram Langhans)]

To all who have commented:

I have one correction - the lens was the 35 'cron, not the 100 APO, not that 
it makes that much difference as the 35 is an outstanding lens.  It puts 
more in doubt the camera shake  and foucs miss scenarios, but......

It does look out of focus at 100% all over the frame, but I probably shot at 
f-4 or 5.6 and since the scene has depth, I should think that somewhere 
there should be part of the subject in the correct focal plane if I had 
missed my focus.

The smoothness of the digital image compared to the grain of the K-25 slide 
scan is also impressive.  I know this is not iindicative of information 
gathered, but just a pleasing optical effect at 100%.

I have about 1/3 a roll of Velvia left in the R8, so I am off today with 
both cameras to seek some comparitive shots on a tripod.  I do use mirror 
lock up on most of my macro work, but on non-macro, if I have to lock the 
mirror up to make things work, it is not worth it.  The advantage of the SLR 
is WYSIWIG, not what you Don't see is what you get...

I think I am going to ask my only camera store in town if they can do a good 
4000DPI or better scan of one of the slides I get back from this trial to 
test the scanner link.  I am not sure they do this sort of thing.  Any scans 
I have gotten back in the past were small jpeg's.  I have always been happy 
with the results from my scanner before this.

Aram

> Date: Sat, 2 Sep 2006 06:30:25 -0700
> From: "Frank Filippone" <red735i@earthlink.net>
> Subject: RE: [Leica] Am I wasting my time/money?
> To: "'Leica Users Group'" <lug@leica-users.org>
> Message-ID: <043b01c6ce93$f3409c50$6401a8c0@FrankDell2>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
>
> I see the out of focus.  Every place is out.  Before making conclusions, 
> you must see if the test was "fair".
>
> 1) Was the lens properly focused?  You need to take several clicks on the 
> same subject, using a tripod and cable release.  Focus
> each time separately.  You should also use the mirror lock up feature to 
> keep vibration down.  Is the image put down on film in
> focus?  You judge this step using a magnifying glass and your eyes.
>
> 2) Is your scanner properly focusing on the image plane?  Use something 
> like a focusing negative target to judge this step.
>
> 3) If everything is properly working, and all the focus error 
> possibilities are taken into account. Try the test again.
>
> Frank Filippone
> red735i@earthlink.net