[Leica] Best Practices...

["Bryan Willman" <bryanwi@seanet.com>]

There have been two very useful threads
on LUG of late about "how best to do something",
particularly how best to do it with a Leica RF.

I'd like to collect a set of these (and will post a
summary if people so desire)

Notes so far:

1.    Not running the meter down inside the bag.
        a. set the shutter to B
        b. don't cock the shutter
        c. carefully arrange your bag to not press
            on the release
        d. keep the camera out (my favorite)

2.    Fast focus
        a.    don't be overly fussy (except with 75f1.4)
        b.    pre-focus by guess (practice helps)
        c.    pre-focus by object at same distance
        d.    pre-focus with deep depth of field,
               use camera as point and shoot
        e.    Always set the lens at one extreme
               (say, infinity) so when focusing you
               only need to go one way.
               [for lenses with tabs, you will be pulling
                the tab towards you to bring the focus
                in from infinity.]
        f.    Sometimes it's faster to lean than focus.

3.    Exposure
        a.    When shooting color negs or B&W negs,
                if in doubt, over expose.

4.    Packing
        a.    Always include a body cap for every body
                and a rear cap for every lens, even though
                you carry lenses on bodies.  This avoids
                a very awkward 6 handed dance that can
                leave you with no place to put something.
                (Learned on a recent theater shoot with Paul)
        b.    always have a little cleaning rag for the 
                finder, particularly if you are using the 21
                with its finder.  (you'll get your nose on the
                main finder.)
        c.     put your little cleaning rag in a transparent
                film can (Fuji cans work great, regardless
                of whether you like their film.)  The can
                keeps the cloth clean, and because you
                can see the cloth in the can, you won't
                throw it out by accident.
                The Lecia cleaning cloths are nice because
                they are white.  (There are other equally nice cloths,
                but they're brown, so it's harder to see them,
                see when they're dirty, etc.)

5.    A trick.  If you really rock your eye around, the
        outer most edges of an M6 (NOT M6HM) finder
        roughly match the field of view of the 21mm,
        and can be used instead of the 21finder in a
        pinch.

6.    Hand holding and sharpness    
        a.    Caffine is NOT your friend.
        b.    Sleep is your friend.
        c.    If your elbow is waving in the air,
                it's in the wrong place.