Ray Sachs
Legend
- Location
- Not too far from Philly
- Name
- you should be able to figure it out...
For those of you who like to use zone/snap focussing for street shooting or whatever, I just did some calculations on the actual depth of field vs the information the electronic DOF scales in these camera produce. And the bottom line is:
IGNORE THE ELECTRONIC DOF SCALES!!
They're so far off its not even funny. They both show FAR LESS depth of field than you're actually working with, and if you believe them, you'll be a real pussy about the lighting conditions you can reasonably use zone/snap focus in.
I've checked the LX5 and X100 in the past, and both of these were off, but by fractions, not multiples. They're useable for zone focussing (just a bit conservative, which isn't a bad thing), although they'll throw you off pretty badly if you try to use them to find the hyperfocal distance. According to some numbers Don (shooter) provided me, the Ricoh GXR has a DOF scale that appears to be just about dead-accurate, so it IS POSSIBLE!
I built a little DOF cheat sheet, rounding the near distances up and the far distances down to be conservative (and to be able to read it easily without all of the decimals). Based on my already conservatively rounded numbers, here are some examples of just how out of whack the X10 is: at the 28mm equivalent 7.1mm lens setting:
5 foot focal point, f2.8 - actual 3-15 feet, DOF scale about 4-7 feet
10 foot focal point, f2.0 - actual 5-287 feet, DOF scale about 7-15 feet
7 foot focal point, f4.0 - actual 2.5-infinity, DOF scale about 5-15 feet
Actual hyperfocal distance at f2.0 - 10.4 feet, DOF scale about 15 feet.
The Ricoh's numbers are every bit as bad and misleading. This is no opportunity for Ricoh of Fuji fanboys to trash the other company's products - they BOTH suck in this regard!
If you believe the DOF scale, you will not trust the camera to do nearly what its capable of and you will crank down the aperture beyond where you can get a reasonable shutter speed in fading light. These cameras have a LOT more DOF latitude than their own scales would lead you to believe. So I urge anyone using zone focus to build a little cheat sheet and get to know your camera's actual behavior out in the field. Jeez, I'd turn that DOF scale off if I could, and just leave the focus point intact, but this isn't an option on either camera.
This is really discouraging. These cameras are amazingly capable street cameras, but one of the most potentially useful tools on both cameras is useless to the point of being counter-productive. This really shouldn't be this hard to get right.
So, now you've been warned!
-Ray
IGNORE THE ELECTRONIC DOF SCALES!!
They're so far off its not even funny. They both show FAR LESS depth of field than you're actually working with, and if you believe them, you'll be a real pussy about the lighting conditions you can reasonably use zone/snap focus in.
I've checked the LX5 and X100 in the past, and both of these were off, but by fractions, not multiples. They're useable for zone focussing (just a bit conservative, which isn't a bad thing), although they'll throw you off pretty badly if you try to use them to find the hyperfocal distance. According to some numbers Don (shooter) provided me, the Ricoh GXR has a DOF scale that appears to be just about dead-accurate, so it IS POSSIBLE!
I built a little DOF cheat sheet, rounding the near distances up and the far distances down to be conservative (and to be able to read it easily without all of the decimals). Based on my already conservatively rounded numbers, here are some examples of just how out of whack the X10 is: at the 28mm equivalent 7.1mm lens setting:
5 foot focal point, f2.8 - actual 3-15 feet, DOF scale about 4-7 feet
10 foot focal point, f2.0 - actual 5-287 feet, DOF scale about 7-15 feet
7 foot focal point, f4.0 - actual 2.5-infinity, DOF scale about 5-15 feet
Actual hyperfocal distance at f2.0 - 10.4 feet, DOF scale about 15 feet.
The Ricoh's numbers are every bit as bad and misleading. This is no opportunity for Ricoh of Fuji fanboys to trash the other company's products - they BOTH suck in this regard!
If you believe the DOF scale, you will not trust the camera to do nearly what its capable of and you will crank down the aperture beyond where you can get a reasonable shutter speed in fading light. These cameras have a LOT more DOF latitude than their own scales would lead you to believe. So I urge anyone using zone focus to build a little cheat sheet and get to know your camera's actual behavior out in the field. Jeez, I'd turn that DOF scale off if I could, and just leave the focus point intact, but this isn't an option on either camera.
This is really discouraging. These cameras are amazingly capable street cameras, but one of the most potentially useful tools on both cameras is useless to the point of being counter-productive. This really shouldn't be this hard to get right.
So, now you've been warned!
-Ray