Member Mark Gowin

Jack MacD;775 wrote: Roger,
After telling you to do a test, I decided I should also. Especially after David expressed a bit of surprise that I would be going on his fall trip with such a light tripod as the Gitzo#2
Maybe if I had a 180mm I would go for the #3.

I merely did an 8 second test shot of a star on a very heavy tripod that I…

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Full review is up in the News and Articles section:

Testing the Leica 400mm APO-Telyt-Modular-R on the Leica S2

hikemate;752 wrote: Hi Dave I love the forum.

Thanks!

What kind of how-to's are you looking for?

Roger;740 wrote: Thanks David . The series 3 size with a good ball head (RRS,ARCA etc) seems like the right size but I was reacting to the article on LL where the author swears we will be giving away some necessary stability.

Maybe with a 645DF. 😀 The S2 has an extremely well-dampened mirror and an almost-vibration-free shutter.…[Read more]

Roger;738 wrote: I know to extract the most out of the S2 that a heavy tripod is recommended. Looking at the latest article on Luminous Landscape and David s post on the Telyt conversion …both seem to be using a GITZO 5 series . I have one but use it with a Gimbel head for long lenses .

The series 5 GITZO is as solid as I ve seen but…

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madmanchan;732 wrote: You can use high Detail amounts (even 100) with S2 files, but please do so carefully. High Detail means ACR/Lr will do its best to extract every ounce of detail & texture available in the file. This is almost always undesirable for portraits or perhaps even general-purpose use where a smoother result is preferred. But for…

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Well… I made a decision and went for two Crucial m4 512GB drives and configured them in RAID 0 on my current laptop. Just got finished cloning my system back over and ran CrystalDiskMark:

As you can see, it's much faster overall. I'm a little surprised that the 4K random reads was actually 2MB/s better on the old drives. Where the…[Read more]

fotophil;717 wrote: Hi David:

Leica lenses eat everything for lunch at wide open apertures. My Pentax 400mm tests confirm that the performance is disappointing wide open but greatly improves stopped down 2 stops and even better at 3 stops. In long lenses there is no free lunch. What is the going price for the Leica APO 400mm and…

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Pete Walentin;716 wrote: WOW! That is really great.

I guess there are shot on a tripod? Would like to see some handheld as well. 😉

Looking forward to the whole report.

Cheers.

Pete,

These were all shot on a Gitzo 5-series with the Systematic Hydrostatic Ball Head. The lens weighs 9lbs alone, hardly hand-holdable,…[Read more]

Doug Herr;718 wrote: Should we assume the larger lens head would work too?

Doug,

I would assume so, as the image circle limitation comes from the focus module not the lens head.

With the larger 400/560/800 lens head and the 1.4x, you'd have a drool-worthy 560mm f/4 on the S2!! 😎 This is equivalent to a 450mm in 35mm land.

fotophil;713 wrote: Hi David:

What a great 400mm set-up for the S2!!! After the the dust settles, please compare with the Pentax 6×7 400mm ED lens.

Phil

Phil,

Our 400mm P67 lens has been on loan to a forum member here and is on its way back to us for comparative testing. Even without a side-by-side, it's safe to say that the…[Read more]

Arif;711 wrote: How fascinating! David, Will I have to do permanent changes to my APO-telyt or can I manage via an adapter?
Thanks for posting,
Arif

Arif,

I'll post all the details in my article, but no, this isn't done via an adapter. The lens has to be shortened to achieve infinity focus. This also involves moving the aperture…[Read more]

Another one, also shot wide-open…

1/350th @ f/4, ISO 320

One from yesterday's testing with the 400mm.

Leica S2 with 400mm f/4 APO-Telyt-R
1/350th @ f/4, ISO 320

Remember, you must be logged in to view forum images.

jrv;700 wrote: Are there any off-camera shoe extension cords that allow the SF-58 to be fully functional?

Yes. The Nikon SC-28 or SC-29 cable has the same pin locations that Leica uses. The SF-58 functions perfectly when used with the cable.

melantye;684 wrote: Thanks David!

I'm a really lazy photographer:D Actually I've been thinking of using some kind of multi exposure with multi flash, to capture dancing steps. If the camera superimpose a single image for me, it would be much more convenient to check on site and make changes to setting errors.

For stacking double or more…

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melantye;681 wrote: Not sure if I missed this function in the menu or not… can we do multiple exposure?

There is no way to do multiple exposures in a single capture, but you can easily do this in Photoshop with layers, with far more control than doing so in-camera.

See the following thread for an example where multiple long exposures…[Read more]

Stuart Richardson;668 wrote: Just some questions out of curiosity, David…what is the widest lens you can focus to infinity with using this kind of setup? I suppose it would support basically any 4×5 lens as long as it was not too huge…
How do you synchronise the shutters in the S2 and the view camera? Just with a flash sync or something…

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Bobby,

Interesting test. I'm curious about your testing process. Assuming that the JPG for testing was generated from the DNG, how did you process the file?

If using LR, I'd strongly suggest lowering the Black Point from the default of 5 to 2. This alone will give you back some DR in the shadows that the software is clipping. In fact…[Read more]

Stuart Richardson;653 wrote: Thanks David,
I read that bit. I still think his advice probably applies more to standard cameras. Did he mention specifically that he was recommending high levels of detail for non-AA filtered cameras? Because if he is, I would still disagree with him! I certainly am not saying you cannot get decent results by…

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