The M is hard to focus in critical moments, when events become animated and take on a life of there own. This is when the M fails, it takes beautiful images otherwise. How do others focus quickly or keep one show ahead, to get the image. Set focus and step into it, is good but isn't accurate. How important is focus. In a recent vanity fair, Bresson states that focus is a bourgois concept. Who agrees

-- lux (lux@nyc.com), May 03, 2001

Answers

Lux, compared with my manual-focus Nikons, the M is noticeably easier to focus, especially in low light. Of course, the M focuses at snail pace if you compare it to an autofocus Nikon D1 or the eye-focus EOS 3. Zone focusing is pretty accurate once you get used to it. I get more sharp pictures taken with my guess-focus Voigtlander 15mm and 25mm lenses than with my AF Nikkors. About focusing being a bourgois concept, well, photography is a bourgois concept (see: http://www.uib.no/cris/d ok4/part4.html) and the very nature of Leica camera itself is a bourgois concept.

-- Hoyin Lee (leehoyin@hutchcity.com), May 03, 2001.

I don't think anyone claims that the rangefinder is the fastest thing in the world to focus, unless of course you are in very dim lighting, using a wideangle lens. In this situation you will find the rangefinder patch 'snaps' into focus, instead of the rocking back and forth you'll do on an SLR lens trying to determine where your focus is. Then there is the matter of stealth, again that with which the rangefinder excels. Recently I was at a very 'quiet' musical event, a small chamber group. I shot two rolls with my IIIg. Wasn't even noticed, while a fellow 3 or 4 rows back of me (I was in the front row), was asked to put his Canon Rebel away after his 2nd shot. I quess I am just emphasizing what most on this forum already know. The M doesn't do everything, but it does some things absolutely better than others. That is why, though the rangefinder is my constant companion, the R sits in a bag at home, ready for use when needed.

-- Bob Todrick (bobtodrick@yahoo.com), May 03, 2001.

This is where regular practice comes into play. When ever you can, take your camera with your favourite lens (this only works with lenses that have focusing tabs or that you mark) and practice "dry" focusing. Pick out an object in your surroundings and turn the focus ring, without looking at the camera, to where you think it is in focus. Hold up the camera and see if it is and note any correction. Pick out another object and do it again and again and again; until it is matter of instinct. Now you will be able to focus on anything and much faster than any auto focus.

This same technique can be used for estimating exposure or field of view as well. Heck, after even more practice, you will not need to look through the viewfinder at all!

Cheers.....not quite there yet myself,

-- John Collier (jbcollier@home.com), May 03, 2001.

I agree that Ms are difficult to focus when objects are fast moving - much more so than manual or autofocus SLRs. It is a rangefinder disadvantage. But remember you get a smaller, lighter camera because of it. Perhaps the Contax G2 is faster if you want a smaller separate-viewfinder camera. Most M users use zone focusing or just use experience and it usually works very well.

We in the west are all bourgeois now anyway by Marxist standards. Bresson is talking nonsense, of course.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), May 03, 2001.

For photographing anything in *erratic, unpredictable* motion, a modern AF system is the most successful with the least experience. Even with considerable experience I think you've got to have a bit of a martyr complex to choose manual-focus for that type of work. The kind of quick street-shooting that works with the Leica falls into one of two categories: first, using wide-angle lenses with sufficient DOF to cover mis-focusing; second, those trying to emulate the style of their idols of 40-50 years ago and using the same equipment. I love all my Leica equipment but when I photograph children or wildlife I do it with an F5.

-- Jay (infinitydt@aol.com), May 03, 2001.

Thanks guys, what using the M gives you with one hand it takes with the other. I must admit though I was shooting with a 28mm f2.8 on a 0.72 and I where glasses, but the shots were worth it. The M is a vital element in my kit, but just one link in the chain. The more I use the M the more it educates me.

-- lux (lux@nyc.com), May 03, 2001.

It takes a while to get the hang of working an M camera quiuckly. Sometimes if I am working fast, I focus as best I can but don't obsess about getting the split lines up perfectly and just shoot the picture. Usually the images come out fine.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), May 03, 2001.

Spouting nonsense and seeing it taken seriously is clearly one of HC-B's amusements, along with drawing gorgeous young models -IMHO both sensible activities for a retired Art God. But "bourgeois" has different implications to a frenchman of his background than to most americans. It suggests repression. A need to have all your subjects in focus suggests the obsessive neatness of a middle-class provincial living room. He's been in lifelong flight from that, via Surrealism, Marxism and Zen. Many of his best images *are* out of focus, like the man jumping a puddle. In perfect focus, though, are a couple of his shots of children that are the best shots of children in action I've ever seen. There wouldn't have been time to do it any other way: he must have stepped into it. There's no getting around it, Lux: from HCB to DAH good shooters have gotten sharp coverage of action with zone-focused Leicas. Often without even being noticed, or as Cartier-Bresson so elegantly puts it, "I grab the shot and scram.".......

-- david kelly (dmkedit@aol.com), May 03, 2001.

An SLR with a nice bright microprism can be a snap to focus. The same cannot be said for a plain groundglass. I have to rock the focus back and forth through the point of best focus, from unsharp to sharp to unsharp and back, until my fingers memorize the midpoint where the true focus is. Then I let my fingers return the lens to the point without relying on my eyes.

Now, with the Leica M, as long as there,s a clean line or even a point somewhere in the picture, I can tell immediately whether I'm in focus. Either the split image lines up, or not. Alternatively, I either have coincidence, or I don't. It either is, or it ain't. No rocking back and forth to make sure. In some cases this can be the most accurate focusing possible, or at least the least annoying.

A limitation of microprisms and split image inserts on groundglasses is that the effective rangefinder base is no greater than the lens diameter. So anyone who thinks the CL doesn't have a long enough base, needs to realize that with an SLR, it is often less than 25mm!

-- Bob Fleischman (RFXMAIL@prodigy.net), May 04, 2001.

Bob

On a static subject I might agree with you, but on a fast moving subject it is very difficult to follow a line and match up the images when is moving in and out of focus. Here the SLR which with a good bright screen, such as is on the R6 or R8 provides a very good instant image of whether it is in acceptable focus or not at any point in time. On the R6 or R8 one can focus pretty accurately without using the central spot, so the baselength issue does not come into it then. And the brain always can process the information "focus or out of focus" much easier than the rf spot method. My daughter on a swing was the case in point I was thinking of. You can make it work fine with an M, but it does take practice and I have never found myself enjoying close, "follow focusing" much on an M.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), May 04, 2001.