Very basic Hexar question

[wintoid]

I'm new to rangefinders, if you can call a Hexar a rangefinder, so I need help with something which is probably blindingly obvious to anyone here.

Before I autofocus the camera, I have 4 lines for framing my shot, and a central cross for focusing. When I autofocus, the framelines move, which renders the central cross off-center. Is the focus point now the center of the framelines (which is down and right from the crosshair), or is it still the crosshair?

Many thanks in advance!

 

[pvdhaar]

The focus point will move to the the lower right a bit. But only by half of what the framelines move. I guess that the overall movement is so small relative to the extent of the focus area that Konica didn't bother to move the crosshair as well.

Personally I've never had any trouble with it.

 

[wintoid]

Thanks Peter, that's helpful. I do find this a bit strange though.

 

[pvdhaar]

You can even see the effect, if you stand in a dark room facing a mirror. It shouldn't be so dark that you can't see the crosshair, but it should be dark enough to see the tiny bit of red light that the IR autofocus emits. It's very faint (as it's supposed to be IR, and the light you actually see is residual).

Then when you aim the crosshair at slightly upwards left of the mirror image, you'll see the reflection of the AF beam. Depening on the (twice: to and from) distance to the mirror, you can see the amount of offset from the center. This may require some fiddling to aim it just right to see it.

 

[Paul T.]

I've seen people complain they've misfocussed on close-up subjects because of this parallax error. I find the 'focus distance' display on the top right surprisingly handy, as it always gives you a clue as to whether you're focusing on the wrong thing.

 

[the_other_dirk]

You can even see the effect, if you stand in a dark room facing a mirror. It shouldn't be so dark that you can't see the crosshair, but it should be dark enough to see the tiny bit of red light that the IR autofocus emits. It's very faint (as it's supposed to be IR, and the light you actually see is residual).

Then when you aim the crosshair at slightly upwards left of the mirror image, you'll see the reflection of the AF beam. Depening on the (twice: to and from) distance to the mirror, you can see the amount of offset from the center. This may require some fiddling to aim it just right to see it.

That's interesting, I'll have to give this a try!

What I did was place a pencil upright on the table, point at it and see whether it focuses on the pencil (which is close by, so the framelines should move a long way) or not (if it focuses on a distant point, the framelines barely move, so you know it's wrong). this way, you can develop a "feel" for how much parallax you have to adjust for, but I have to admit I do err quite a few times when shooting for real. (I often use large apertures like f2-2.8, and when the subject is close by I find it difficult to know which parts of the subject will be in focus)

dirk

 

[pvdhaar]

Ok,

it should work, but nonetheless...

I had this mental picture of you fumbling your Hexar in the dark.. 😀

I had a such a grin on my face last night, that my wife kept giving me these suspicious looks and asked me several times "what are you laughing about?".

How could I explain that I'm making people do this kind of stuff without giving away that I've tried it myself? She already thinks I'm slightly derailed when it comes to photography. Must not make it worse.. 😉

 

[the_other_dirk]

Hi Peter,

well, I spent the last 10 minutes trying what you said. Can't see it though. When I look directly at the camera, I can see that a faint red light comes on for a fraction of a second, but I can't see it when looking through the VF. I've continuously changed the angle, but I just can't see the beam. Maybe it's because the LEDs in the VF are so bright (the - sign comes on and then the green dot saying focus is ok) that I can't see the beam.

Anyways, I've spent some quality time with my Hexar 😀

dirk