Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/05/23

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Subject: [Leica] IMG: Practice Image (Bench of course...)
From: rgacpa at yahoo.com (Bob Adler)
Date: Mon, 23 May 2011 15:17:17 -0700 (PDT)
References: <658422.74774.qm@web82107.mail.mud.yahoo.com> <A1B09533-0687-42A3-AB0B-82B626EA3A0E@mac.com>

Hi George,
As always, there are plusses and minus:
Plusses:
1.  Lighter than the Hassy kit
2.  I had no synch errors between the lens and the back; something that 
often 
happened with the Hassy (both Flexbody and 501). So the workflow was very 
smooth.
3.  Wonderful to have horizontal shift and VERY easy to do with this body. 
It 
just slides right over and has a click stop in the middle. Perfect!
4.  Using the LCC capabilities in Capture 1 Pro completely took care of all 
light falloff from going so wide. Wonderful addition to the RAW workflow.
5,  I cannot find ANY chromatic aberrations or purple fringing. How do it do 
that??
6.  Leveling is easy with the built in bubbles.
7.  I've never been able to go so wide. Imagine a 35mm on a 6x6 and then to 
be 
able to go 18mm wider on either side. And they make a 23! Crazy.

Minuses:
1.  Focusing using the Flexbody ground glass unit and Rmfx is not easy. 
Probably 
not easy using any ground glass. I understand that you're best served using 
a 
Leica laser range finder, but that seems pretty over the top to me.
2.  The hyperfocal markings on the lens are for film and not for digital. I 
have 
to do testing to find out the true hyperfocal distances for various 
apertures 
with my back and each lens. Not a big deal; just need to do it once...
3.  I will probably end up having to do some kind of focus stacking to get 
it 
sharp from near ( 0.4m) to infinity. I'm not real happy about that. Would 
rather 
have tilt, but you can only start using tilt with an 80mm or greater. That 
said, 
an 80mm with about 10mm shift on each side turns into about a 55mm on 6x6, 
yes?
4.  The tiff file size with stitched images is big; over a gig... I can see 
where I'm going to need to cull and delete a lot of the bad images. Not sure 
if 
this is a plus or minus.

Overall I'm completely thrilled. The dynamic range is impressive. The image 
I 
showed is not an exposure blend; each of the 3 stitched frames is exposed 
for 
the highlights with the shadows drawn out in RAW processing. That's pretty 
darned impressive if you look at that scene: it's about as contrasty as it 
gets. 
Pointing into a sunset with the shadows on my side of the grasses.  And the 
detail and fidelity are just as impressive.

Next step is to get the hyperfocal distances nailed down and figure out how 
to 
focus blend (probably Helicon Focus). I'm hoping that I'll still be able to 
get 
sharp grasses in the foreground, unlike exposure blending where you can 
loose 
that sharpness due to movement between frames.

Thanks for asking. Good to put it in writing for me to see.
Best,
Bob

 Bob Adler
Palo Alto, CA
http://www.rgaphoto.com




________________________________
From: George Lottermoser <imagist3 at mac.com>
To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org>
Sent: Mon, May 23, 2011 2:07:25 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: Practice Image (Bench of course...)


On May 22, 2011, at 8:49 PM, Bob Adler wrote:

> Getting to know the new equipment. This shot is with the Alpa STC and a 
> 35mm 
>APO 
>
> Digitar shifted 18mm to the left and to the right from center. Other than 
> some 

> focus issues that I still need to work out, I think the results are a fair 
> beginning.
> 
>http://www.rgaphoto.com/benches/content/Baylands_Bench_In_Memory_Of_Panorama_MASTER_large.html
>l
> 
> 
> Your thoughts and comments always appreciated,

appears you and the gear get along quite well

so how does this solution "feel" in the field
compared to what you imagined 

Regards,
George Lottermoser 
george at imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com
http://www.imagist.com/blog
http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist






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In reply to: Message from imagist3 at mac.com (George Lottermoser) ([Leica] IMG: Practice Image (Bench of course...))