The Leica Rangefinder is Awesome & It's Terrible 

The Leica M also corrects for parallax and the box moves as you focus closer and further away. Don’t know what to tell you about missing focus. Some people just can’t see well enough to focus a rangefinder at a shallow depth of field. F2 and above should be easy to focus. Maybe you just need more practice but I’ve never had issues nailing focus on an eye. Obviously you have to be quick. If the person moves a little then they’re totally out of focus. Pretty much every photo I take is perfectly in focus. Unless of course I mess up. That’s the thing about Leica. You can’t blame the camera (unless of course it needs an alignment). Everything is on you. Leica M isn’t for everyone and it’s definitely not for every kind of shooting and photography. It’s for a very specific kind of photography. And if that’s not your thing then better look elsewhere. Most people just buy into Leica for the mystique and not for an actual need. Just get the camera that get the shots you want the easiest way. That’s all. Also. Photos don’t need to be sharp or in focus to be good pictures. If the photo is bad just because it wasn’t perfectly in focus then it wasn’t a very good picture to begin with. Some of my favorite photos ever taken are shaky and out of focus. I don’t see why the regular person needs anything more than an XT2 or XT3. That’s all anyone needs really. 🤷🏻‍♂️ that and some of those little f2 Fuji lenses and go take your pictures.

That's the reason the rest of the camera world moved on from range finder focussing.

You need to fine tune range finder regularly in order to have expected focus, there are plenty videos about that. Or to combine it with EVF add on

I love Leica and have owned several in my life but have sold each one over time because as much as I love looking through the rangefinder viewfinder, I could never make intriguing images with framelines greater than 35mm. So 50mm, 75mm, 90mm, I just sucked at. And I always wondered why and how more shooters don't complain about a corner of the lens hood, intrudes on your viewfinder framing. Kudos to those shooters that shoot Leica and make images I enjoy. Leica shooters have a unique vision.

I shoot with an m11, also had trouble nailing focus. I found the zebra red highlights in live view were off. Instead, when using the rangefinder to shoot, I’d nail focus every time. Odd. Digging camera and system though. I like that it’s hard and manual.

Really nice shots! Do you have to do much to the Leica files in post to get them to your taste?

in some case if there is a pattern you can think you're in focus while you"re way off, happened to me too. That's why Leica provides ergo on the lens and you have to memorise the relative focus distance if the ergo is left center or right on the lens. You have to intellectually evaluate the distance to your subject, less than 1,5 m ? ergo has to be pushed right size, far away pull ergo close to infinity. Another way is to every time put back the Lens at infinity and only focus from infinity to close distance, you'll cross the right focus distance only once

I have a Leica MP and mainly take landscapes so I just use Zone Focusing / Hyperfocal Distance. Especially stopped down it works like a point & shoot which is brilliant. If I'm inside and it's too dark I just open up the aperture and drop the shutter speed to 1/15 or 1/30 and focus on the main subject. I've got brilliant photos as a result. The beauty of Leica and film!

Waht you think of Hasselblad X2D with 38mm F2.5 (FF eq 30mm F2.0)? Will it be as fun as real rangefinder like Leica M? Or it will be just another DSLR/Mirrorless experience with its unlabelled spinning wheel, autofocus, eViewfinder and overall shape even tho the design is beautiful and the image quality is top notch?

I zone focus and use a separate viewfinder with my M6. As soon as I changed that my enjoyment and quality of photos shot through the roof. Zone focusing is the only way to shoot any camera anytime. Its fast and always accurate.

Try focusing with a Noctilux wide open 🙈. I miss focus occasionally with my M10R and I’ve never had great hit rates with zone focus. But I still love my Leicas. Just ordered a Q3 - I have a feeling my ageing eyes will struggle more as I approach 70. I own several Fuji cameras but it isn’t the same experience. But they are fine cameras. Forget the brand and buy the experience you enjoy most.

Makes sense, coming from Fuji I learned thanks to many youtubers from Omar to Pal2Tech, but at the end as you stated, you loose the essence of photography when you are constantly checking parameters in the OVF etc. Leica makes it simple once you have set what you need, especially with the Q2.

Glad to see you’re still enjoying the process with the Leica, great shots!

After shooting 21 thru 35: Parallax and framing on a 50 with an M, has been my nemesis to conquer recently. For me, it's being mindful of the lens sitting in front of my side-burn. Cheers!

The in focus shots are really nice. The color and the richness are surprisingly good. they have a great feel to them.

some times your finger on your right hand will cover the range finder window, leading you to believe you have nailed the focus, but in reality the second image has been covered up.

This is exactly why some love it and some hate it. :) I’ve had my M10 for almost a year now and love it! The cons force you to get a relationship with your camera. You can’t trust the camera to make the work for you, you have to use it regularly and learn how to use it probably. The fence-framing is a problem when you have something to close to your lens, that’s why you cant shot closer than 0.7meters and I guess everything closer than that will be misleading thru the viewfinder. The kid that’s out of focus is hard to tell. As it seems that you know how to handle the camera, and what to aim for when setting focus, I guess you don’t aim for the shadows in the shirt, that could be a answer thou, it’s easy to pick the wrong shadow and match two different shadows in the viewfinder and in that way have the focus to close from the subject. But I guess you focused on his face, like the nose with the sharp line in front of the blue sky? It looks like the focus is in front of him, closer, so maybe he walked and you set the focus on the face, re-composed and then focused a little closer, but over compensated so you missed the focus that way? I don’t want to be an asshole, but I guess this is a failure from you rather than the viewfinder. If you nailed focus here and the result is this, all photos would’ve been like this. But the rest are great! The system isn’t perfect, but it’s interesting and challenging. But in many way’s it’s by far the most logical system that’s out there. And I see the cons as challenges to master. You can master these, but you can’t master an AI auto setting that do everything for you. So if you fail with this system, you can learn things from it, if you fail with an Sony A7R something … you just have to wish the next session will be better 🤷‍♂️😁

Enjoying the content Eric. I hear you on odd moments of complete focus miss. I noticed it happen in the past when I’m using eye shape to align the patch and get the total wrong eye 🤣 on fairness I wouldn’t swap my range finders for auto focus. Horses for courses but I totally agree on the busy displays of most cameras. I’m happy with my m4, m8.2 and iiif. I’ve uploaded a few videos if you get a chance to check them out. Cheers ☘️

Does tge frame line chage size if you change lens let say 28 to 35 to 50?

Live view is always there to get yourself modern framing, exposure, and through the lens. The M10 has the best of both technological worlds between rangefinder and live view framing through the visoflex or back screen.

The soccer player blur could of been a sensor thing. Depending on ISO etc.

Try zone focus with a non coupled adapted lens. Believe me, you’ll nail it in no time and learn not to worry about the patch. Think that’s a hangover from mirrorless and DSLR. You know your f stop and distance off by heart. Except when you’re doing a critical portrait on a tripod. Works with my M8✌️🇦🇺

Agreed I sold my M10 monochrom for the Q2m Due to similar reasons. Especially shooting street wide open at night. I've done it and it can be done succesfully but it does come with a ton of misses. Especially at times when you think you nailed the patch. It does not appear your rangefinder is mis-algined since it happens only sometimes? Iono but if you shoot Leica you def know the hit to miss ratio is real... stay strong my friend.

focus is possibly because youre using a lense that focuses closer than .7 meters. a lot of voightlanders and newer leica lenses can do this

Try zone focusing!

Just use a 1.25 or 1.4 eye piece magnifier for 50mm, 75 or 90 mm and you will nail focus your pictures.

Thanks for sharing, great set of images especially the second to last with cheerleaders on the field in b&w super sharp…..

Wading into enemy territory I see.

There's another digital rangefinder now from the brand Pixii

My Leica MP is not great with 75 and 90mm. I only get a tiny bit of the view of the rangefinder. No change of perspective. For me, the camera is great with only wide angle to 35/50.

Now I’m 5 weeks into Fuji and have been using 4/3 system for 17 years so I’m extremely out of practice with actually looking through a viewfinder for what you actually see. But testing it Fuji has a trick in their camera to make sure you are lining up your photos properly. I’ve tried it up close and far away and it’s far, far, far more accurate than my friends m10 I tried this weekend. I want the rangefinder experience but I want auto focus.

With a Leica you can put it down for a week and then pick it up and know exactly how it’s set up. You are ready! Can’t say the same for other cameras with reams of electronic menus.

Absolutely, I wish these camera companies would make an affordable camera with analogue dials, and lose all these complicated menus that most people really never use.

The Pixii is another digital rangefinder camera on the market. Just saying, not trying to light up the GAS...or whatever the expression is

Too shallow depth of field can be your enemy, it's not the rangefinder's fault 😉 Personally, I do not choose wider than 1/2.8 in bright conditions, especially in portraits: I don't want some parts of the head in focus and others not so...

Hey man. I realize it has been a while, since you’ve posted this video, but to me it seems like it’s simply out of alignment. Hope this helps.

Go buckeyes

Leica fans need to justify anything mundane about their cameras for the hefty price they paid for.

Rationalizing any Leica camera as worth the price is literally insane lmao. $9K for a camera that doesn’t autofocus? Yeah the people at Leica should be in prison

You had me until the end. O-H . . .

canon is better

Babbler