framing with 75mm

[pab]

Does anyone have a tip for the best way to frame a 75mm lens on the R-D1? I find I can use the 50mm lines if I have the time to compose carefully, but for rapid shots in the street I find I'm cutting off people's feet or the tops of their heads.

A 105mm viewfinder might help but I'm not sure how easy they are to find. Any other ideas?

 

[Doug]

The 75 is actually a couple mm longer, so it has the same angle of view as about 117mm without the crop factor. That will of course be an odd one to find a viewfinder match, but perhaps good to keep in mind this is a very long lens for the short RF base of this camera. I'd think wiser not to push beyond about an actual 60mm, and limit even that to f/4 and smaller aperture.

 

[Ed Schwartzreic]

The old Nikon 105mm BL VF does work using its inner close-up lines. However, finding one these days will likely be both difficult and expensive.

I don't know of a turret finder that has the currect focal length. One of the Nikon, Tewe, or their clones variable finders is a thought.

Other than that, a 90mm BL finder, or the old Canon 100 BL, are probably the best bet.

 

[jlw]

If you use a lot of 'in-between' lenses such as this, it might be a good investment for you to track down a variable-magnification auxiliary finder such as the Nikon zoom finder, or the Tewe finder I have:

As Doug says, you have to be careful not to run out of the RF accuracy limits when you're using longer lenses -- but I've shot very successfully even with my 100mm f/2 Canon on the R-D 1, as long as I keep a sensible mix of shooting distance and aperture (i.e. not getting too close when I'm shooting at wide apertures, or stopping down when shooting at close range.)

One pitfall of using long-lens auxiliary finders on any RF camera is that even a reasonably precise accessory shoe may not line up the finder so it's pointing exactly the same direction as the lens. One way to deal with this is to set the finder to a slightly longer focal length than the 1.53x "crop factor" would suggest, to give you a bit of safety margin in your pictures. Of course, with the R-D 1 it's pretty easy to "chimp" your first shot or two with the long lens so you can spot any framing errors, and then compensate for them.

Here's a link to my R-D 1 finder webpage, which includes a few example images illustrating how the viewing angle of the finder can deviate from that of the lens, just to give you an idea of the magnitude of the possible problem.

 

[fgianni]

I tried Hektor's 75 lux with my RD-1, and I can focus spot on at f1.4 in low light and at the closest focusing distance, same for the noctilux at f1, the RF base is small, but the 1:1 magnification helps.

 

[pab]

Thanks folks for the information about finders. I should say that I've had no problem focusing the CV 75mm even close up and wide open at f2.5. The CV 90mm also focuses easily on my R-D1.

 

[jlw]

Another thought: Unless you're a tight-composition fanatic (always better in theory, especially with a digital image, but not always realistic in practice) you may do fine just by getting whatever next-longer finder you CAN find, and cropping out any excess. In the case of a 75mm lens, this might mean using a 135 finder, which is probably easier to find than a 105.

The one thing you'd want to avoid is using a finder SHORTER than your (75mmx1.53x=114.75mm) 35mm focal length equivalent -- that might lead you to compose thinking objects would be included in the picture, only to find out later they had been cropped out!

Try as I might to be a purist, I almost always find I have to crop my pictures anyway to accommodate the shape of the subject, so I'm able to be fairly rough'n'ready in selecting auxiliary finders to use on my R-D 1. To illustrate this point, I'm attaching a couple of photos from a concert I shot last week; these were with a Canon 85mm f/1.5 screwmount lens on the R-D 1, for which I was using a 135mm Komura brightline finder (quite a nice little finder, incidentally.)

A 135 finder is actually a pretty good match for an 85mm lens on an R-D 1, but I still had to do a lot of cropping: sometimes because of the shape the picture needed (as in the first attachment) and sometimes to cut out dead space. The second attachment, a screenshot of the Camera Raw dialog box, shows how much I had to crop out of the picture of resting dancers, to get rid of all the dead space (couldn't get any closer to the stage); the third attachment shows the finished result.

When you're already forced to frame so imprecisely, I figure, having the EXACT matching auxiliary viewfinder isn't worth too much worry!

(Incidentally, for those who have heard the Canon 85/1.5 is no good, take a look at the final attachment, which is an original-pixel crop. Okay, it's no 75/2 Summicron, but I can live with it...)

 

[fgianni]

Okay, it's no 75/2 Summilux, but I can live with it...)

Did you mean 75/1.4 Summilux or 75/2 Summicron?

 

[jlw]

Did you mean 75/1.4 Summilux or 75/2 Summicron?

I meant to say "Summicron" (and have edited my original post accordingly) but I'm sure that either of them is sharper than the 85/1.5! Still, in this particular picture, I doubt if it would have made a visible difference.

If one of you 75/2 Summicron owners disagrees, all you have to do is lend me your lens for a few months, and I'll be happy to document its superiority in an exhaustive comparison test! Normally I'm not much of a subscriber to the Leica mystique, but I admit that I covet this particular lens...

 

[pab]

JLW- thanks for your suggestion. I've actually managed to lay my hands on a Leica 135mm viewfinder and I'll see how I get on with this. It looks like this could work, with a little bit of post-exposure cropping if necessary.

Per