Fuji X-Pro 1: Viable host for rangefinder glass ?

I'm not a lens adapter (and I'm not saying it's a bad, I'm just too lazy), but a friend just sent me this link from today:

Fuji Xpro-1 and Leica 50mm Summilux | picabroad.com

Yup, those look just fine. Longer lenses shot wider open - you aren't going to be as sensitive to the problem and longer lenses are affected less in the first place.

Perhaps not here but whenever I've offered an opinion on whether the camera makes a good hose for M lenses I do try to throw in a good amount of "maybe" as how happy one is really depends on the nature of their photography.

A 50mm optic will be affected less than a 35 or 25 or 18 or 15 or 12mm optic -- the smearing effect gets progressively worse as focal lengths get shorter, and on a given lens, is progressively worse as the lens aperture is widened. I bet a lot of 50mm users could live with it, again depending somewhat on what they shoot.

Go wider, and probably you'll find fewer which are happy with the result. A 15 or 18mm lens isn't an ultrawide on APS-C crop cameras. At these wider physical focal lengths the smearing effect occupies the outer 1/4 to 1/3 of the frame along the horizontal axis. Add the outer left and outer right side of the affected frame together and you are talking about 1/2 to 2/3s of the frame being affected.

Except for those that always shoot a 50mm f/2 or faster lens wide open, all the time, many of the rest of us can probably think of images shot with wider angle lenses that would suffer some if 1/2 to 2/3 of the frame suffered from astigmatic smearing.

At some focal lengths and apertures you can see this smearing even at web resolution and sizes; in prints of any size the problem would be problematic. Wider angle lenses will highlight this problem more given they have inherently more depth off field.

Whether or not the camera will be a good platform for M lenses will depend entirely on the photographer. "Maybe, for you..." is probably the right way to look at it. Try before you buy might be a good approach or pick a vendor with liberal return policies if you need to do some experimenting with a collection of alternative glass - M lenses - on the camera before deciding it if works for you.
 
I am a manual focus noob, but wouldn't the focus peaking on the GXR M or NEX outweigh any incremental sensor gain (if it also translated to adapted lenses) on the XPro1 in real world shooting?
 
Probably it would Kyle, although those who are shooting M lenses on the X-Pro 1 haven't been commenting much on manual focus other than to say it works and can be done.

Hopefully when Fujifilm releases their own adapter they'll also release a firmware update that adds some form of focus peaking; so far there's been no commitment from them to do so.

I figure anything that helps you nail focus, faster, is a good thing. The GXR and NEX are good - better in some conditions than rangefinder patch focussing, a little less able than the RF in other conditions - but good overall. 35mm - 50mm - 75mm and up I find focusing either the GXR or NEX can be very quick, again depending on the lighting and subject conditions. You may have seen video showing focus as the edge detect sweeps across an area in the finder as the focus ring is turned - stopped down a little you can generally be assured you'll hit acceptable focus quickly. For critical focus on eyelashes or on stray hair falling in front of a face, focus peaking really works well - definitely peaking provides an edge over magnification alone in my personal experience.

Sometimes peaking can get in the way too; for example I find the effect distracting on the NEX in some cases (think a bunch of bare branches in a forest... lots of edge detail to highlight) - there are workarounds to disable it but the NEX really could use a firmware update that gives it the ability to toggle peaking momentarily on the half-press of the shutter like the GXR does. Very helpful.

Peaking aside, other dimensions of the shooting experience might matter more to some. One advantage the X-Pro 1 has over any other cameras is that, once focussed, you can leave the EVF and use the OVF to decide on timing the exposure, or you can remain in the EVF if precise framing is more important than timing. That certainly makes up for the sometimes laggy EVF, plus lets you see beyond the frame which no EVF does.
 
The depth of field for any given lens will be less when used on an APS-C camera than it will on a full-frame camera.

No. The DOF of a 35mm lens will always be that of a 35mm lens. The only thing that will change is the field of view, your image will look cropped on a smaller sensor. But DOF will be exactly the same, given that both shots were taken with the same aperture setting.
 
No. The DOF of a 35mm lens will always be that of a 35mm lens. The only thing that will change is the field of view, your image will look cropped on a smaller sensor. But DOF will be exactly the same, given that both shots were taken with the same aperture setting.

It seems counter-intuitive at first, but is explained in more depth here

Depth of field - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It's related to the additional enlargement required to transfer the image projected on a smaller sensor to the same sized print as an image taken with the same lens and the same distance to subject on a larger sensor. The angle of view will be different, and so will the apparent depth of field.
 
Now I'm confused about DOF ... maybe I need a practical example.

Let's say I have a 35mm lens for the Leica M, and I set it on f16. The scale tells me that focused at 1.5 meter, approximately between 0.96 meters and 3.5 meters will be "in focus."

I typed in that information on the DOF Master app on my iPhone, used a Canon 5D as the camera, and the numbers were confirmed.

Using the same parameters (35mm lens set at f16), I switched the camera to a cropped sensor Canon DSLR on the iPhone app. The near limit is now 1.1 meter and the far limit is 2.36. The app tells me that the total depth of focus was reduced roughly by half.

This is indeed counter-intuitive!
 
Well, we are taking lenses, here, not print sizes (or the distance between a print and the human eye). If you want to talk prints, we can vastly complicate the matter by adding "circle of confusion", which will be, well, very confusing. ;)

I am already in the circle of confusion! Reminds me of the "circle of trust" thing in the movie "Meet the Parents."

So ... the verdict about accurate reliance on the DOF scale on a lens (made for a full frame camera), when used on an APS-C camera, is ... yay or nay?

Thanks!
 
The scale on the lens is always the same (however, it's usually not very conservative and calculated for full frame negatives and analog prints of medium size, so beware). Fuji's digital DOF scale is much more conservative, it's calculating with a much smaller COC. Firmware 1.20 in the X100 even introduced a DOF scale error with a way to conservative COC. This has been corrected in 1.21.

What part of a shot you perceive as in focus or not mostly depends on the size (magnification) of the original negative (analog or digital) and your viewing distance. Sensor resolution plays a role, as well.
 
For manual focus lens users on a crop camera (i.e. full frame RF lenses), the depth of field scales are way off due to the difference in the circle of confusion between full frame film or digital and crop cameras.

Working quickly I just use the scale two stops narrower than my current actual stop; probably you can get away with 1 1/2 or 1 2/3 stops narrower.

The scales on lenses of the same focal length but made by different manufacturers are not always going to be the same, as each maker picks what they consider to be a representative focus distance as the median for calculating their depth of field scales... not too close to macro distance nor too close to hyperfocal distances.
 
For me what is most confusing is that two people can be right even though the answer sounds different, due to simple choices of terminology and whether we are talking about relative depth of field.

I think. ;)

Depth of Field, Digital Photography and Crop Sensor Cameras - Bob Atkins Photography

Might help, skip to the end maybe?

Fortunately when it comes to the depth of field scale you can easily test theory in practice, especially for those who have full frame digital rangefinders as well as crop.
 
Try taking the same lens and changing the camera/format size on any depth-of-field calculator and watch the depth-of-field change.
It IS all about the circle of confusion, and viewing the final images from either format at the same size.
 
Well, we are taking lenses, here, not print sizes (or the distance between a print and the human eye). If you want to talk prints, we can vastly complicate the matter by adding "circle of confusion", which will be, well, very confusing. ;)

DOF can't be calculated without a circle of confusion. The scales on the lenses are based on it. And the COC is calculated on an assumed print size and viewing distance (7x5 print inch at 1 foot distance). Lenses themselves, do not have depth of field.

Anyway, DOF is an illusion anyway. It's apparent and subjective.

Gordon
 
For me what is most confusing is that two people can be right even though the answer sounds different, due to simple choices of terminology and whether we are talking about relative depth of field.

I think. ;)

Depth of Field, Digital Photography and Crop Sensor Cameras - Bob Atkins Photography

Might help, skip to the end maybe?

Fortunately when it comes to the depth of field scale you can easily test theory in practice, especially for those who have full frame digital rangefinders as well as crop.

Great article. Thanks for the link Mike! Now, I feel like I understand about 35% of it all. More than 0% before!
 
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