[Leica] Leica Won't Improve Your Photography

[abridge at gmail.com (Adam Bridge)]

Thanks for the excellent suggestion, Ted. I'll see if this works for me.

Where I encounted the problem most recently was shooting a building
with repeating rows of windows. It was far enough, and suffienctly
identical that when I focused I got two different windows overlapped!
It was, ahem, "creative" in atmosphere but not the shot I wanted and
when I looked at the review image the light had gone... Oh well. It
also happens with trees/flowers with stuff going every which way. I or
my eye gets confused.

Thanks again for sharing this technique. I greatly appreciate anything
that increases my technique.

On a tangent, I attended the Stanford Broadcast and Film Institute
back in 1969. We had a guest speaker, a photojournalist, who used a
Leica and he told us that he continually practiced presetting the
focus, just by hand with the camera down, never looking at the
distances marked on the lens, until he felt he was "very very close"
90% of the time. I have tried this since and I sure can't do it
although I don't have the pressing need that he did!

It's funny. I can see this man, his camera, standing in front of the
class but I cannot tell you what he looked like to save my life. I
just know he was "someone" since the prof was a former NY Times editor
and we had some terrific speakers.

Adam

On Sat, Sep 12, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Ted Grant <tedgrant at shaw.ca> wrote:
> Adam offered:
> Subject: Re: [Leica] Leica Won't Improve Your Photography
>>>>
>>>> There are some challenges to focusing an M - especially in an
>>>> environment
>
> with complex and confusing backgrounds. If the focus setting on the
> lens isn't close to the actual focus one can think they have achieved
> focus when, in fact, it's seriously out of focus.<<<<
>
> Hi Adam,
> I think this may have more to do with the user and using style?
> I know what you mean about confusing bkgrds and hitting the focus point
> against that kind of confusion. It can be without question a SOB! Here's a
> little "trick?" I use.
>
> Even in a quick action situations before the camera is at my eye I've
> already picked my focus point, then as the camera comes to eye I know
> exactly where to put the focus patch. Not sure if I'm describing this
> correctly or not? But it works 99.9% of the time. ?I started years ago 
> using
> this method where a confusing bkgrd was involved.
>
> Maybe this is something that could work for others, it's worth a look and a
> try.
> cheers,
> ted
>
>
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