Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/11/03
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Hi all, after several years of "stamp-sized negative" bashing I recently couldn't resist any longer and bought a like-new M6-TTL with the 0.85 finder and a Summicron 2/90. A few days ago, I took it for a first test ride. We had a big family meeting on Nov. 1th, so I took my faithful Mamiya 7 with the 4/80mm lens and the M6. I intended to make totals and group photos with the Mamiya and take portraits with the M6. The meeting was at the cemetery where our ancestors are buried, there were 8/8 clouds, ideal for portraiture in the open. After using the Mamiya 7 (and the Mamiya 6) for a few years now, the Leica was not very different. Since the light didn't change, I took a incident reading with a Gossen lightmeter and ignored the builtin light meter of the M6, using Delta 400 in the Mamiya and Fomapan 100 in the M6. Switching between cameras for totals and detail shoots was easy, but one thing was _really_ annoying: while the Mamiya finder is bright and the focusing is very easy, the focusing spot of the Leica was very often unusuable. Especially when using the camera in portrait orientation, the center spot got very bright and didn't show any details, making distance measurement impossible. I have to wear glasses and had to move the eye into a very specific position to be able to focus correctly. The Leica films show a large percentage of negatives with wrong focusing (sometimes completely off...). Ok, the 90mm Summicron was used wide open at 1-2m distance, and the zone of sharpness is much narrower than I had expected, but I never had so much bad focused pictures before. The Mamiya finder didn't ever showed such a problem... am I too dumb to use a Leica correctly, is this a general Leica problem or could this be a problem with this specific camera? Martin | Martin Jangowski E-Mail: Martin@Jangowski.de| | Netzwerke und Multimedia | | Voice: +49 7946/940790 Fax: +49 7946/940791 | | Snail Mail: Von-Olnhausen Str. 4 74626 Bretzfeld Germany | - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html