Different lenses give different Perspective (i.e. a long lens "compresses" an image), and with and SLR you can easily see this because you are looking through the lens. What about the viewfinder which doesn't change? I've used SLRs for a long time, and recently - about a year ago - I got some leicas with a 50 and 35mm lenses. Both of these have a similar perspective to the viewfinder. What about wideangle and tele lenses? It would seem that the viewfinder would show the edges of the frame (or close to it!) but not the perspective of the lens you are using. Is this true? It seems to me that with my new 28mm, objects in the background of the picture seem further away in the slides than they did when I framed it through the viewfinder. Has anyone else though/expierenced this or am I just crazy?

-- j. locher (locherjohn@hotmail.com), September 10, 2001

Answers

The Leica M viewfinder will not show you the depth of field only the width. You are not crazy.

-- sam smith (Ruy_Lopez@hotmail.com), September 10, 2001.

And the height of course.

-- sam smith (Ruy_Lopez@hotmail.com), September 10, 2001.

Of course you are right! Lack of perspective and depth of field preview are supposed to be one of the bigest minuses of all rangefinder cameras.

You need -what we call- "SLR therapy" at least once a month!

:O)

Jordan.

-- Jordan Koussis (jordan@koussis.com), September 10, 2001.

It just adds that much more to the anticipation and surprise when you first get your photos back. I am always amazed at the stuff I take with the 135mm lens especially-definately looks different full frame with compression than the little box in the center of the finder.

-- Andrew Schank (aschank@flash.net), September 10, 2001.

A.) You are not crazy.

B.) Try this experiment. Take a print (or project a slide) made with your 28, and view it from a distance roughly equal to the short side of the image. If you are projecting the slide to 60" x 40", walk right up to within 40-50 inches of the wall; if you have a 4" x 6" inch print, view it from 4-5 inches away.

NOW does it look more like what you saw through the viewfinder? You are now seeing the scene at the same relative magnification that the Leica finder showed you; i.e it's REALLY BIG and starts to surround you, and your eye sees those background details as very close and in normal perspective.

Step back away from the wall or print and suddenly the 'wide-angle' look returns as the image becomes smaller in your field of view.

You can do the reverse with a short telephoto picture. Take a picture with a 90mm lens and make a 4x6 print. The print will probably show some perspective 'compression'. Now take that print and go back to the same spot where you took the picture. Hold the print up at arms length so that you can see both it and the original subject. Move the print closer and farther away until the image is the same 'size' as the original subject. So does the original subject now look compressed, or does your supposedly 'compressed' print suddenly look normal?

Optics, like cats and mirrors, are one of nature's/the creator's weirdest jokes. They can make your eyes cross and your brain turn in on itself. Sometime I'll demonstrate why the most realistic, naturalistic and 'correct' view of the world actually comes from a fisheye lense, and not all of our carefully corrected rectilinear wideangles and beautiful 'crons - but not today.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), September 10, 2001.

I disagree: the M allows to view the *perspective*. Perspective has nothing to do with depth of field.

If you see the angle of view covered by a 28mm, you see the perspective of a 28mm. Perspective is the relation between objects at various distances from the viewer. Weither these objects are "in focus" by being within the depth of focus of a given aperture/magnification couple or not is another problem.

Hence, objects in the background of the picture are NOT further away in the slides than they were when you framed them through the viewfinder.

Same at 90mm: what you see in that little square is the *perspective* ("compression" included) that you'll see in the picture.

Besides infinite depth of field, what remains constant in a M is the *magnification* of the viewfinder. A big difference with the zoom viewfinder of the G1/2 for example, which provides infinite depth of field, just like the M, but delivers variable magnification.

With the M, you have got to learn to "mentally zoom" into the relevant square.

You have to learn to look at what is in the relevant frame, and "forget" what you see around it. Inversely you should avoid "tunneling" into the smaller frames when you are using a wide angle lens.

Learning that, you will realise that you can view the *perspective* changes when you change reference frames.

Look through a key hole, then open the door: perspective changes radically, but depth of focus and magnification are exactly the same.

Same with the M, except the key hole is in a glass door....;-)

-- Alan (alannews@my-deja.com), September 10, 2001.

I'm with Alan. Perspective is ONLY the size relationship between near and far objects. The ONLY way to change perspective is by moving yourself and the camera. Lenses don't change perspective, they only select different viewing areas of a view in which perspective has already been established by the placement of the camera. Whether you use a VF camera or a SLR, all the finder does is draw a line around the area you have selected to photograph with a particular lens. You may not notice it as much, but it's there with the Leica exactly the same as with your SLR.

Andy's demonstration *illustrates* the perspective already in a photo, but doesn't *change* the perspective in the photo any.

Depth of field is a different question, and VF cameras don't show it, that's right.

-- Michael Darnton (mdarnton@hotmail.com), September 10, 2001.

John: Michael and Alan are correct.

From a practical point of view, you might want to investigate an accessory finder for the 28 (even though the M6 has a 28 finder built in). Compared with the M6/M4-P finder, the accessory finders 'shrink' the world to fit in a smaller frame, the way an SLR finder does, and so, PERCEPTUALLY, it is easier for your eye/mind to see the wide-angle effect, even if the lens take the same picture.

If the Leica finder is too pricey, the revived Voigtlander makes one for $150 (?) and and it's also possible to find used Leica, Canon, Nikon, Minolta (etc. etc.) finders from the 50s/60s.

-- Andy Piper (apidens@denver.infi.net), September 14, 2001.