I just bought a factory demo leica Minilux yesterday. I shot a roll of film that turned out well....but I'm confused about close up shots and where to put the lines in the view finder. After reading the instructions...I'm still unclear.

Also I live in Arizona with bright sunshine year round.... Can you Leica guru's suggest the best film to use for this camera for day to night shooting?

-- David Roberts (ddavidroberts@earthlink.net), March 28, 2001

Answers

Okay, stick with me on this rather complicated little tour.

The outside frame line is the edge of your photograph, provided that you're shooting under normal conditions.

Near the top, there's a small line jutting out from the left and from the right. That's the top of the image when you're shooting up to, say, a meter from the subject. Your lose the top due to parallax (the difference in angle between the viewfinder lens and the "real" lens).

Below those two lines are two shorter lines. Those marry the two short lines roughly 2/3 down the screen. These four lines-- the two nearer the top and the two nearer the bottom, are the top and bottom of your panorama framing. In order to shoot panoramic, you must buy a panorama adapter from Leica.

To complete the tour, the rectangle in the center anchors both your focus and your metering. Frame the area you want in focus in this rectangle, then reframe for composition. Similarly, place the area that's critical for metering so its centered in this area, then reframe for composition. The actual metering area is larger, but you'll get good results if you follow the above instructions.

Whew.

-- Howard B (howardb@voicenet.com), March 28, 2001.

Film:

Can't really go wrong with an ASA 100 or ASA 400 color print or B&W film. I usually don't use flash so I use the 400 speed films most of the time if I'm going to be in less than beautiful light circumstances.

Godfrey

-- Godfrey DiGiorgi (ramarren@bayarea.net), March 28, 2001.

I don't own a Minilux, but I have lived in Arizona. The whole state gets more than its share of UV light. No one film will handle this, so consider putting a UV filter on permanently to help keep the UV effects under control (if you *can* put a filter on a Minilux, that is).

-- Ken Shipman (kennyshipman@aol.com), March 28, 2001.

Unfortunately there is no way to attach filters to the wonderful Minilux lens. There used to be one kind of stick-on filters, but they're discontinued. But then, why use filters when you have such a lens? The blue color of a sky when slightly underexposed look just fantastic, no need for a polarizing filter.

Simon Bischof

-- Simon Bischof (nomis@swissonline.ch), November 13, 2001.