A second look at yesterday’s results with the M10-R, 180mm Telyt, and APO-Extender 2X led me to believe that the problem wasn’t, as I wrote yesterday, shutter shock. Many shots looked just plain ol’ out of focus.
Recalling that with some of the Sony A7xx series, first level magnification with peaking gave unreliable focusing cues, I set out with yesterday’s combo again this afternoon. With lenses of this length, the higher level of magnification makes for a very shaky finder view, even with the best of hands. But it gives more accurate peaking cues; and I got much better results today using it.
Unfortunately, how much better can’t be determined, as air quality was horrible for shooting over distances (PSI >100). Still, I doubt that even in bright light and with better air quality, the M10-R will be the camera of choice for this combo, as its peaking cues are overkill. Can’t blame Leica for that, though, after all the complaints about how faint the cues were on the M240.
A morning outing with the CL showed that it produces superb images with M glass. Still, the finder is rather dim past f/4. And the EVF “brightness” control seems only to desaturate the finder image rather than make it brighter.
This seems to be true with every L-mount body I’ve owned since the T: TL2, SL, SL2, and now CL. I always kinda figured Leica’s marketing babble about designing their EVF to mimic an OVF was BS to cover another possible intent: to nudge people towards their own L-mount lenses, which give nice, bright finder views—and having nothing to do with aperture. Evidence of this is that the Visoflex Typ 020 used on the M10-R gives a perfectly bright finder even with the Telyt/2X combo shot a stop down at f/9.
Enough of my own babble for today, else I’ll need to add a table of contents . . .
