Okay, let me rephrase. Does anyone know where I can find out how many autofocus zones the minilux has? A sharp lens won't realize its potential in a camera with a limited number of autofocus zones.

I have tried Erwin Puts web site and book, the Leica FAQ, the official leica web site, LUG, the yahoo minilux club, and the minilux camera manual, but with no luck.

Thank you.

-- sonke johnsen (sjohnsen@duke.edu), January 30, 2002

Answers

E-mail the question to Leica.

-- Ed DeAngelis (edeange769@aol.com), January 30, 2002.

Sonke

What will you do with the information? Suppose you find out it is 10, 20, 40? Which would be acceptable to you? How do you know which distances are represented by each zone? I have no idea what my reaction would be. I hate to sound like a broken record, as we always say this kind of thing, but my suggestion is that you should try one out. I wager you will not find that focussing accuracy is really an issue given the other issues in a P & S like this. If you want pinpoint accuracy then you need an M, but I bet the Minilux is pretty good and really good at infinity.

-- Robin Smith (smith_robin@hotmail.com), January 30, 2002.

Robin,

Thanks for your answer. Actually I have a minilux and enjoy it very much, but occasionally the focus is a bit off. I'm pretty sure it's the focus, because these shots were on self-timer on a tripod using Velvia slide film with the subject dead center (but with a wider aperture for OOF effects). I'm just curious if I'm sometimes slipping between relatively widely spaced focus zones.

sonke

-- sonke johnsen (sjohnsen@duke.edu), January 30, 2002.

Thanks for the tip, Ed. I just received a reply (5 minutes after emailing!). It's "over 230".

sonke

-- sonke johnsen (sjohnsen@duke.edu), January 30, 2002.

Instead of focus zone, the problem may be the focus area in the viewfinder (the rectangle) may not actually be what you want to focus on. For OOF effect on the 40mm lens, you need wide open aperture and near subject... If you are careful about parallex effect already then perhaps the focus beam is the culprit? One way of testing it is to lay a tape measure on the floor and put object at several distances to see where Minilux is focus on and try compare the results to the same setting with manually dial in the distance.

Hope this helps, Chi

-- Chi H (chihuang@yahoo.com), January 30, 2002.