How do you use a lens like the CV21?

L

Lord Fluff

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I am interested to know how you personally tend to use a lens which is RF coupled but has a separate VF. Do you focus, then compose, compose then focus, or just range-focus with enough DOF to get what you want?

I'm considering the Voigtlander 21mm skopar, which seems to produce great results from what I have seen, but I'm not sure if in practice it is annoying having to contend with two viewfinders.....
 
I never focused these super-wides with a rangefinder (actually, not even on SLR´s). Scale-focusing is quite accurate enough, imo.

Niko
 
I tend to agree with Niko. When using super-wide lenses at less-than-fast apertures (like f4 and down) I find scale focusing accurate enough. When using medium-wide or faster lenses (like the 28mm Ultron at f2) I focus, then compose.
 
Before I got my R4A (which has a 21mm frame) I used my CV 21 (and CV 25) on a Bessa-L and just used hyperfocal distance, and it was fine. The only thing I don't like about using an external viewfinder is parallax error, and I found having to allow for it was reducing the effective field of view that I could use.
 
I set the aperature to about 5.6 or 8.0, pre-focus at about 6 feet, then shoot "up close and personal" on the street using external VF ONLY.
 
My widest RF lens is the uncoupled 25/4, so there's no alternative to scale focusing there. On my SLR, the widest lens I have is a manual focus 17mm. But even though the SLR allows me to focus on the viewfinder screen and also with the >o< display, I never bother.. it's just too distracting. If I am using the 17, I'm very very close to the action; keeping the subject framed and timing the shot is challenge enough..
 
Focus/compose, but with a 'finger-spar' lens like the 21/4 you don't even need to scale focus. After a while you know what position of the spar corresponds to what distance.

Cheers,

R.
 
Don't forget that metering can get a little tricky if there's a lot of sky in the frame -- err on the side of overexposure (meter by pointing downward).
 
Focus - Compose - Shoot.
Parallax isn't an issue.
You can - by setting the lens at some distance within the DoF of your F-stop - even forgo focusing. Then it becomes.
Compose - Shoot.

Paul
 
Paul C. Perkins said:
Focus - Compose - Shoot.
Parallax isn't an issue.
You can - by setting the lens at some distance within the DoF of your F-stop - even forgo focusing. Then it becomes.
Compose - Shoot.

Paul
Click to expand...

Same here. Stopped down to f/5.6 or f/8 just pre-focus and shot, sometimes using the external (CV) 21mm VF. My 21 is the Super-Angulon, so metering not possible with cameras like M6 or MP.
 
As composing close up might involve some relevant going back and forth I compose first, focus, recompose a the fixed distance and shoot. But this is with a 35mm. With a 21mm and stopped down I'd just scale-focus.

Stefan
 
like most it seems, I nearly always have it set on f8 and using the hyperfocal marks, I set infinity on f8 and leave it there - mind you, mine is usually on my bessa L so I dont have any other choice.
 
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