Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2011/05/23
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi George, As always, there are plusses and minus: Plusses: 1. Lighter than the Hassy kit 2. I had no synch errors between the lens and the back; something that often happened with the Hassy (both Flexbody and 501). So the workflow was very smooth. 3. Wonderful to have horizontal shift and VERY easy to do with this body. It just slides right over and has a click stop in the middle. Perfect! 4. Using the LCC capabilities in Capture 1 Pro completely took care of all light falloff from going so wide. Wonderful addition to the RAW workflow. 5, I cannot find ANY chromatic aberrations or purple fringing. How do it do that?? 6. Leveling is easy with the built in bubbles. 7. I've never been able to go so wide. Imagine a 35mm on a 6x6 and then to be able to go 18mm wider on either side. And they make a 23! Crazy. Minuses: 1. Focusing using the Flexbody ground glass unit and Rmfx is not easy. Probably not easy using any ground glass. I understand that you're best served using a Leica laser range finder, but that seems pretty over the top to me. 2. The hyperfocal markings on the lens are for film and not for digital. I have to do testing to find out the true hyperfocal distances for various apertures with my back and each lens. Not a big deal; just need to do it once... 3. I will probably end up having to do some kind of focus stacking to get it sharp from near ( 0.4m) to infinity. I'm not real happy about that. Would rather have tilt, but you can only start using tilt with an 80mm or greater. That said, an 80mm with about 10mm shift on each side turns into about a 55mm on 6x6, yes? 4. The tiff file size with stitched images is big; over a gig... I can see where I'm going to need to cull and delete a lot of the bad images. Not sure if this is a plus or minus. Overall I'm completely thrilled. The dynamic range is impressive. The image I showed is not an exposure blend; each of the 3 stitched frames is exposed for the highlights with the shadows drawn out in RAW processing. That's pretty darned impressive if you look at that scene: it's about as contrasty as it gets. Pointing into a sunset with the shadows on my side of the grasses. And the detail and fidelity are just as impressive. Next step is to get the hyperfocal distances nailed down and figure out how to focus blend (probably Helicon Focus). I'm hoping that I'll still be able to get sharp grasses in the foreground, unlike exposure blending where you can loose that sharpness due to movement between frames. Thanks for asking. Good to put it in writing for me to see. Best, Bob Bob Adler Palo Alto, CA http://www.rgaphoto.com ________________________________ From: George Lottermoser <imagist3 at mac.com> To: Leica Users Group <lug at leica-users.org> Sent: Mon, May 23, 2011 2:07:25 PM Subject: Re: [Leica] IMG: Practice Image (Bench of course...) On May 22, 2011, at 8:49 PM, Bob Adler wrote: > Getting to know the new equipment. This shot is with the Alpa STC and a > 35mm >APO > > Digitar shifted 18mm to the left and to the right from center. Other than > some > focus issues that I still need to work out, I think the results are a fair > beginning. > >http://www.rgaphoto.com/benches/content/Baylands_Bench_In_Memory_Of_Panorama_MASTER_large.html >l > > > Your thoughts and comments always appreciated, appears you and the gear get along quite well so how does this solution "feel" in the field compared to what you imagined Regards, George Lottermoser george at imagist.com http://www.imagist.com http://www.imagist.com/blog http://www.linkedin.com/in/imagist _______________________________________________ Leica Users Group. See http://leica-users.org/mailman/listinfo/lug for more information