Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2008/04/22
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Out of a sort of frustration today I went and and walked 2 or three miles and set my camera a Leica D200 to Automatic A with the lens set at 5.6. The lens was a AI-S Nikkor 45mm f/2.8P make by Cosina Voigtl?nder of Japan. http://www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Cosina_Voigtl?nder http://www.prnewswire.com/nikon/pdf/AI-S45.pdf My shudder speed was set to not go below 125th. Auto ISO gave me ISO's from 100 to 500. I got great shots of a brilliant 12 year old kid playing an old man in speed chess on the sidewalk on Broadway and 108. The fact that the lens was a pancake made me perhaps blend in well enough to do the shooting I've noticed in the past these street chess people are often not so fond of being photographed. Don't know if it messes with their concentration or they have delusions of being sought after by FBI or NSA type groups. F 5.6 worked out well for this and all the other stuff I shot. 5.6 is said to be the favorite f stop of cinematographers. They just love that f stop I read are very comfortable with it. That always confused me because with a 50 with film I'd always been able to easily miss my focus at f 5.6. I even like to stop down more than that with a 35mm lens. But later I figured out that the film makers are shooting 24x18mm what they call single frame but what we call half frame. So @ f 5.6 they're In like Flynn. DOF for days. Would be the same as at least f8 I don't know. And if we're talking 16mm forgetaboutit! So shooting a 1.5 crop factor that's pretty much within 1% that. Stopped down two. .... From 2.8 Mark William Rabiner markrabiner.com