dont45
Member
:bang: Just what you all want to hear! I just got my D300. After a couple of days, I really know why we all love the M8. Not bashing the D300 -- I just think of Dee and her comments about the K10D -- "Can't Resolve". Well, the D300 I think is a lot worse with it's about 1 million features. But on to the subject of my post...
For the past couple of months (since I got the 28 cron) I have perceived mis-focus up close. I even ran a series of 'Nikon' test targets which is a ruler target taken at a 45 degree angle. It showed a significant front-focus, about 10mm as I recall. I then tried to take lots of actual pictures to see what I could learn. For example I pushed books in and out at different distances on the bookshelf and photographed them up close. I photographed a newspaper on the wall at a 45 degree angle. As far as I could observe in these actual photographs, the focus was right on. And my actual experience, which led me to all this, was a side portrait up-close where the far eye was in focus and the near eye not, whereas I thought I had focused on the near eye.
Well, on to the post...I took a series of shots, one series with focus on the hunter, included here, and another with focus on the book. All shots were at iso 640 at f2. The M8 are with the 28mm f/2 Summicron and the D300 with the Ziess Distagon 35mm f/2. The D300 with the manual focus lens was focused using the range-finder indicator dot, with focus on the hunter's face, and the M8 was focused on the vertical line of the hunter's nose. The D300 shot at 1/30s and the M8 at 1/25s.
The shots were 'developed' in C1-4 with minor adjustments to white-balance, slight increases to exposure, contrast, brightness and saturation, and some reduction of highlight. Of course the L101... is the M8 file. Attached are the un-cropped shots. The M8 crop (I'll attached the two crops in another message since I can't here) seems to be out of focus, but I really think it is movement blur from the 1/25s. The depth of field difference is interesting too. My guess is that the 28 has a deeper focus field than the 35, but then again, it may be that the actual focus point is in front of the hunter, thus moving the focus forward to the book. I'm not a scientist so I simply don't know how to tell.
I know this is an amature test, but I thought the results were interesting. The D300 receives quite the rave review, but the M8 sure held it's own, and at iso 640. I'd certainly appreciate your thoughts and comments, especially about the mis-focus perception.
For the past couple of months (since I got the 28 cron) I have perceived mis-focus up close. I even ran a series of 'Nikon' test targets which is a ruler target taken at a 45 degree angle. It showed a significant front-focus, about 10mm as I recall. I then tried to take lots of actual pictures to see what I could learn. For example I pushed books in and out at different distances on the bookshelf and photographed them up close. I photographed a newspaper on the wall at a 45 degree angle. As far as I could observe in these actual photographs, the focus was right on. And my actual experience, which led me to all this, was a side portrait up-close where the far eye was in focus and the near eye not, whereas I thought I had focused on the near eye.
Well, on to the post...I took a series of shots, one series with focus on the hunter, included here, and another with focus on the book. All shots were at iso 640 at f2. The M8 are with the 28mm f/2 Summicron and the D300 with the Ziess Distagon 35mm f/2. The D300 with the manual focus lens was focused using the range-finder indicator dot, with focus on the hunter's face, and the M8 was focused on the vertical line of the hunter's nose. The D300 shot at 1/30s and the M8 at 1/25s.
The shots were 'developed' in C1-4 with minor adjustments to white-balance, slight increases to exposure, contrast, brightness and saturation, and some reduction of highlight. Of course the L101... is the M8 file. Attached are the un-cropped shots. The M8 crop (I'll attached the two crops in another message since I can't here) seems to be out of focus, but I really think it is movement blur from the 1/25s. The depth of field difference is interesting too. My guess is that the 28 has a deeper focus field than the 35, but then again, it may be that the actual focus point is in front of the hunter, thus moving the focus forward to the book. I'm not a scientist so I simply don't know how to tell.
I know this is an amature test, but I thought the results were interesting. The D300 receives quite the rave review, but the M8 sure held it's own, and at iso 640. I'd certainly appreciate your thoughts and comments, especially about the mis-focus perception.
