leica M9 as good as Phase P40, P30 and P21

[Guy Mancuso]

Looks like Heilcon didn't get the boundary between mountain and floor right on the horizon in your image.  That's still a problem with stacking - its not perfect.

I actually had to replace the sky since i got ghosting. Perfect no but close. I think I worked on it more too. Sometimes it can be a real pain to work with and with wide angles even harder seems to do better with longer lenses which i have done with better results. I handheld this one too laying down on the ground so it could very well be me for sure.

[Guy Mancuso]

I see what your saying on the horizon . I will go fix the final for sure. Thanks

[Rob C]

Keith and Guy

Yes, what you say is true as well, but that's taking the argument(?) a little way out of the simpler question that was posed, which I take to mean the image as a straight shot. Otherwise, we may as well intruduce tilts and shifts etc. but they, too, suffer from the same fact that only one plane is ever critically crisp.

Your focus stacking example is certainly impressive and far more detailed, fore and aft, than I ever managed stopping down a 50mm Distagon on the 500 cameras!

Rob C

[Guy Mancuso]

Problem is Rob we can never get that from fore to aft with any amount of stopping down with MF and even a lot with smaller formats at least with a shot like this even at F22 which we all know will cause diffraction. Honestly your hung out to dry here without some tricks. Sure tilt/shift lenses would certainly help and you are correct there will be a area that is critically sharp and the rest will just fall into place. Even a M9 here with say there Tri-Elmar at say F16 most likely will run into the same issue. This image posted is really pushing the technique a lot. I'm maybe the very minimum focus all the way out to infinity. Like 2 feet, hell that is bending things around pretty hard. I certainly would have been better on a small tripod than handholding for sure. This one is extreme and it really is better with a little more focal length to start with. But here I am after the wide angle effect or look so we need to find some type of workarounds. I love MF but it certainly has its challenges and DOF is the biggest IMHO. Now we need to remember to this is the monster rig out there also a FF 80mpx behemoth so maybe the absolute worst case scenario on DOF.  There is a price to pay ( no pun intended ) on full frame sensors and DOF is it. On another note it is a blast shooting this damn back. It is a serious amount of detail that is just frightening. Honestly my eye cannot see anywhere near what this back picks up. That is just scary. LOL

I'm most likely just doing a lateral to a IQ 140 as it is plenty for me but I would love having the bad boy and I am even thinking of just getting a P65+ and holding off on the IQ which is a sweetheart on the tech side. I'm honestly torn on what to do.

[Wayne Fox]

This is interesting because I focus with my left eye too and I don't find it any different or more difficult on DSLRs. Could you briefly explain why it would be more difficult for "left eye focusers" to focus on the Leica rangefinder?

It's quite hard to get your left eye close enough to the viewfinder to see well.  You have to smash your nose into the LCD.  Cropping with a wide angle is really hard because it's difficult to actually see the crop guides with your left eye.

I've finally gave up and forced myself to use my right eye.  I'm finally getting a used to it and getting much better at composing with the camera, but focusing is still challenging because often it is hard to find something on the exact plane of focus that lends itself to the rangefinder/split image thing.  Often I focus by estimating measuring the distance and setting the lens.

As far as cropping I find myself sometimes doing what I do with my Alpa if I'm on a tripod... shoot/adjust/delete to fine tune cropping.  I guess you could call this "liveview"    about 1 frame per 5 seconds

If you manage to crop it well and get it focused, the resulting file is outstanding ... I would agree with a previous post its the closest thing I've seen to MFDB from this size of sensor.  Certainly very high quality.

[Rob C]

I'm not trying to be funny here, but is there any possibility that the M9 can be used upsde down to allow the best eye to do the focussing and then, once you've done that, swap back to the normal holding position? Okay, maybe useless for moving targets, but not everything runs, and if you don't shift your own stance...

Rob C

[cng]

I am left-eyed and have a few M6's (I'm not sure how big a difference the form factor is compared to an M9).  I actually enjoy focusing with the RF, especially the big bright view in the RF window.  The only drawback with being left-eyed and using an M6 is that I have to move the camera away from my face to wind the film.  It's just part of my process with the camera now, but obviously not a consideration with an M8/9.

Depending on the situation I either zone focus with smaller apertures, or if shooting wide open (which is most of the time) I focus then recompose if necessary.  When forced to focus/recompose I try to focus on something that's close to the plane of focus as my subject, always aware that this involves compromises.  Instead of shooting a burst like with a (D)SLR, I just keep the camera to my eye, focusing/refocusing, composing/recomposing until I think something good is happening or going to happen and click.

Missing focus is generally due to pretty obvious reasons:  I didn't focus on the right spot, either me or the subject shifted, or due to recomposing.  But then again, I miss focus using a DSLR with AF too.  Nothing and no-one is infallible, especially when you're rushing or careless.  You just have to learn the quirks of the system you're using.  In fact, I would say the M is a camera you should use to the exclusion of everything else for a while to truly become comfortable with it.  Not because it's "harder", but simply because it's different.

Everyone seems to want to get perfect sharpness out of the M lenses, but my opinion is that the M rewards wide open shooting with minimal light (bright RF, "gentle" shutter), so you are most likely trading off optimal sharpness in these situations anyway.

There is so much BS surrounding the Leica M.  In my experience, yes, it's slower and it does make you think and work differently.  This is all part of the mystique/quirkiness/joy/frustration with the camera.  Whether it shows in the final result or not is up to debate.  Whether anyone finds it more "rewarding" to use is up to personal preference.  Personally speaking, I love shooting with the M, but contrary to all the Leica fondlers and haters, having a red dot doesn't make the camera or it's lenses automatically magically better or worse than anything else.

[geesbert]

the screen surely is shite, one learns to interpret it. It doesn't help either, that the screen shows the RAW (DNG) and not a jpg rendering. the good thing is, it doesn't beautify the capture. if it looks crap on the screen, it usually is crap.

with my Canons it happens quite often that I presume a beautiful picture by looking at the back of the camera, only to realise later on my computer that it doen't hold up.

that is not an excuse for Leica to use such a bad screen. it seems there is no high rez screen in 2,5" available.

[ErikKaffehr]

Hi,

The sensor use by both MFDBs and the Leica are very similar, except that most MFDBs don't have microlenses. Another factor may be that both MFDBs and the Leica are more often used with high quality primes while DSLRs are usually armed by zooms. In addition the Leica lenses are supposed to be very sharp.

I guess there is no way around MFDBs having more pixels than the Leica but I'd assume that at actual pixels the MFDBs and the Leica look quite similar.

I got the impression that exact focusing with the Leica is quite a challenge. Would be nice if Leica made a fully electronic package. Electronic viewfinder, live view. Not everybody's dream but may be the best way to extract optimum performance from the package.

Best regards
Erik

If you manage to crop it well and get it focused, the resulting file is outstanding ... I would agree with a previous post its the closest thing I've seen to MFDB from this size of sensor.  Certainly very high quality.