[Leica] IMG: Noctilux at work

[reid at mejac.palo-alto.ca.us (Brian Reid)]

Mark Rabiner has been telling me that my Noctilux ought to work on my M8. So 
last night at dinner I handed him my M8 and asked him to prove it. He did, 
but since I didn't have an IR cut filter on the lens, the color is crap and 
I look like I have a skin disease. So I converted to B&W in photoshop and 
applied a red filter so my skin didn't look so blotchy. I've left the 
full-resolution original B&W there in case anybody wants to look at the 
pixels. But, alas, Mark was right: it can be made to 
work in the hands of someone who knows how to do it. Back to school with me.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/bkreid/pwic/L1011472.jpg.html

Once you believe it's possible, you try a little harder to accomplish it.

Having watched Mark Rabiner take an in-focus picture with my Noctilux on my 
M8, I knew it could be done. So I spent several minutes messing around with 
focus and moving the candle on the table top and changing where I was 
sitting until I could find enough light to focus on his glasses, which got 
me this picture.

http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/bkreid/pwic/L1011474.jpg.html

I would never dream of using the Noctilux stopped down any more than f/1.4, 
so I'm not worried about focus shift. So I think this is solved except for 
acquiring a lot more skill at focusing in the dark.

All of the tests that I ran with yardsticks and focus charts used very hot 
incandescent lights, which I suspect put so much IR into the mix that the 
focus was wrong for an unrelated reason. When I get home I'll re-run my 
focus tests with cold light.