Ricoh GXR Mount A12 Pictures

Hey Armando, you may want to get some feedback from Cristian Sorega at Cristian Sorega Photography as he has shot a bunch with that lens.

Thanks Duane. I'll shoot him an email. I think Cristian is also a forum member here right? Or maybe it's at GetDPI.

I'll try out other lenses when I get home as well. It may well be that my CV35 had focus shift issues all along, and I just never noticed it on the M9, because I generally downsample those 18 mp files to something more manageable.
 
Thanks Duane. I'll shoot him an email. I think Cristian is also a forum member here right? Or maybe it's at GetDPI.

I'll try out other lenses when I get home as well. It may well be that my CV35 had focus shift issues all along, and I just never noticed it on the M9, because I generally downsample those 18 mp files to something more manageable.

Cristian is on here too, if I remember correctly.

Btw, I took the plunge a few minutes ago and went thru the affiliates link above and purchased the M mount from Amazon. I was not going to lose out on another sold out situation as I did last go around. Now I just need the lens to go on it.
 
That being said, I'm having difficulties manually focusing the CV35/1.4 in both peaking modes, even with the magnify on. And specially with the lens wide open. I haven't been able to nail down focus wide open even on stationary subjects (i.e. books). I wonder if the lens suffers from focus shift when shooting wide open.

I set fn1 to Magnify and fn2 to toggle Focus Assist. Magnify is disabled automatically after exposing; FA is not.

I find Mode 1 is not in your face enough myself and use Mode 2 all the time. For me I found I was able to focus more accurately with the GXR than the NEX for whatever reason, but I doubt I would say that if I used Mode 1 which is similar to Sony's approach. It should be more aggressive and/or user definable as to how in your face it is, I think.

You might try, for now, upping the ISO if you are shooting in dim light. This seems to help. Unlike with the NEX, changing the contrast and sharpening settings doesn't impact how focus peaking/focus assist works, at least not in Mode 2.

My 35 is an f/2 max ZM35; I don't find it too hard to nail focus on contrasty things like eyelashes. Practice might make perfect. Your 35 has a very narrow depth of field when wide open - no doubt that is a little more challenging to nail than mine.

My longer lenses I find quite easy to focus. What I find harder to nail focus, not that it matters quite as much, is my much wider lens the ZM18. It has such huge DOF that sometimes I use the scale on the lens to focus.

Keep at it, hopefully something clicks.
 
I have the CV 35/1.4, which happens to be the favorite M lens (that I have). So I'll be trying it out on the GXR along with the CV 50/1.5, CV21/4 and CV75/2.5. My only red dot lens is the 90 Cron. It's hard to focus on the M9, so I rarely ever use it.

The CV 75/2.5 focuses relatively easily on the Mount A12; mine will focus past infinity so you'll want to be careful of that. I haven't looked closely to see if it suffers from focus shift but will guess that it doesn't.

Your 90 Cron probably will become usable although I bet you'll find just how steady or unsteady your hands are, especially when on magnify mode. Faster shutter speeds to the rescue!

Lately I've been shooting more with the ZM18 than my Single In January lens, the ZM35, partly because I've been out to more fires than normal in January and the 18 is my go-to lens for that sort of stuff. Probably your 21 isn't much different in that you barely need to focus the really wides given their big DOF.

Photos, we want photos!
 
@Mike - Thanks for the pointers Mike. I just ran out of battery. I was using the X100's battery on it, and it wasn't fully charged. I set AF Assist to Fn1, and Magnify to Fn2. For some reason, the Magnify stays on for me even after I take the photo. I can't find a setting where the Magnify shuts off after taking the photo.

@Duane - Congrats!!! I think BH has a couple of more inexpensive CV lenses in stock. There's a 35/2.5 Skopar and a 21/4 Skopar. Both in M mount (so no screwmount adapter needed), and very small pancakes for about $410. BH also has the 35/1.4 Nokton like mine, but the prices got jacked up to $630. They used to be more or less $450-500 when I got mine two or so years ago. No red dot stuff in stock or even most Zeiss (or CV) stuff. They are keeping the production low I suppose. Helps to drive up prices!
 
@Mike - Thanks for the pointers Mike. I just ran out of battery. I was using the X100's battery on it, and it wasn't fully charged. I set AF Assist to Fn1, and Magnify to Fn2. For some reason, the Magnify stays on for me even after I take the photo. I can't find a setting where the Magnify shuts off after taking the photo.

Magnify: Tool menu, change Zoom Display Release > On

Batteries: I find the GXR is harder on packs than the X100. The NEX was the best. That said I rotate 3 packs and have not found that to be a problem; if I am on a long trip I might want more... but perhaps the GXR-II will be out by then. :D
 
To my eyes, peaking mode 1 is not very good. The shimmer doesn't shimmer enough, and it's white. I think the peaking on my old NEX3 worked better. Mode 2 seems to work better than mode 1, but still doesn't seem quite as effective as the NEX's peaking. Maybe Ricoh will issue another firmware making the peaking better.

It would take a firmware update for the GXR to get up to the NEX peaking level. I chased chickens around my yard today with a 180mm Nikon lens on the NEX5N at f2.8 and got perfect focus every time. The NEX peaking function is simply fantastic. I should try the same game with the GXR and see if it will do as well.

BTW Armanius, I got the Pan GX1 today and it is going back. The only mirrorless cameras I need are the GXR and the NEX. They are the best by far! :)
 
Armanius, congrats for your new system!
Having the same problems with focusing in both modes I put this to the smaller opening of my f4 21mm VC. The transition of the areas of edge pronounciation comes very 'soft' - it's not the 'jumping' sharpness from good SLRs screens.
Other users told me that I have to work as a minimum 1 - 2 weeks to get it. Beside this the Ricoh is a dream to use. The quality of their modules with glass is very good and the UI the best from digital cams in this size and price range.
So give yourself more time...... :)

Concerning focusshift this effect will only happen when you focus at f 1.4 and stop down for shooting in f 4 f.e. Some lenses show this effect, f.e. Summilux f 1.4 35mm ASPH 1.version. When you keep the aperture nothing should drift, but the DOF is very thin in shorter distances.

So keep on going!
 
That being said, I'm having difficulties manually focusing the CV35/1.4 in both peaking modes, even with the magnify on. And specially with the lens wide open. I haven't been able to nail down focus wide open even on stationary subjects (i.e. books). I wonder if the lens suffers from focus shift when shooting wide open.

First congratulations to your new GXR Mount, it is a fantastic camera and after having it for a few months now, i can say I am not at all tempted to buy anything else other than lenses that is ;).

I also had problems at first with the Nokton f1.4, the DOF is not very deep at f1.4 and the lens is also not super sharp at this aperture. The main problem was that I did not use the Mode 2 peaking the right way and focussed slightly before the subject.
I don't know why but on the Nokton 35mm I find I have to focus till the lines start shimmering and then move the focus slightly further to achieve perfect focus. This is different than other lenses but you can actually see if you magnify that as soon as you move it slightly further you will get some (random) noise moving about in the magnified region and this is when you're spot on.

It takes a while to get used to it with this lens and I wonder if there is something with it's design since the f1.2 35mm Nokton or any of my other lenses do not have this problem. It almost looks like the highest contrast is just before the actual focus point.

To my eyes, peaking mode 1 is not very good. The shimmer doesn't shimmer enough, and it's white. I think the peaking on my old NEX3 worked better. Mode 2 seems to work better than mode 1, but still doesn't seem quite as effective as the NEX's peaking. Maybe Ricoh will issue another firmware making the peaking better.

Peaking mode 1 is ok but not great, seems similar enough to the Sony NEX peaking when you select white and medium settings, at least from a brief comparison in a shop.
While the normal peaking is nice, mode 2 makes all the difference for me (and for most people judging from the feedback I heard). It takes a bit of getting used to it and how to judge perfect focus but I found that it not only makes focusing very easy even in very low light but actually helps with my composition since there is nothing to distract you, like bright colours and other things.

All that said, I have sent Ricoh a few suggestions to further improve this and maybe add a mode 3 and also different colour choices for mode 1 like Sony has. I am sure we will see more improvement in this are from Ricoh but even now it is hard for me to manually focus using anything other than Mode 2, even struggled a lot recently with the RF on my RD1 since it was slower and not as good in low light.
 
Thanks for all the pointers Cristian. Maybe the 35/1.4 suffer from front focus, hence, needing to move that focus a bit further back? Maybe I need to join in and write to Ricoh as well!

@silverbullet - Thanks! Wholeheartedly agree about the UI. Other cam manufacturers could and should copy the GXR's control schemes.
 
Thanks for all the pointers Cristian. Maybe the 35/1.4 suffer from front focus, hence, needing to move that focus a bit further back? Maybe I need to join in and write to Ricoh as well!

You are welcome, hope you get along better with the Nokton on the GXR.

I am working with Ricoh to add a Q&A and feedback section on my blog for them to monitor and answer directly. It should hopefully make communicating with them easier.
 
You are welcome, hope you get along better with the Nokton on the GXR.

I am working with Ricoh to add a Q&A and feedback section on my blog for them to monitor and answer directly. It should hopefully make communicating with them easier.

A feedback section for Ricoh to look at would be awesome! I'm sure Ricoh already has heard plenty from folks about improving the peaking right? It seems to be the consensus from most web postings that I read -- that the NEX's implementation is a bit easier to use thanks to the different colors and levels of shimmer. Thanks for your hard work!

I barely touched the GXR this weekend. Relied on the K5's auto focus instead. Sometimes (and most times), auto focus makes life so much easier. Except when the auto focus is off. Which then makes life, not so easy!
 
Here are two photos that I took last Friday with the CV35/1.4. They were the few photos that were somewhat in focus and semi-sharp, because I stopped down the lens to f2.8 on the portrait, and to f5 (or more) on the pidgeons. Those pesky pidgeons were just hanging out at the cafe patio. As soon as patrons would leave, the pidgeons would raid the table before the cleanup crew would arrive to clear the table.

GXR_CV35-1_4_stopped_down.jpg
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GXR_CV35-1_4_stopped_down_2.jpg
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Great shots Armanius! It seems that you are beginning to master the new way of focusing. My efforts to get sharp photos from objects 2 - 5 meters away are not so good when I look at my camera display. These shots I have to check now in LR to get a better screen resolution. The lens with b&w film is tack sharp, I hope that the module isn't off......

In your portrait it's visible that the DOF is very, very thin. The right eye is perfect as are the hairs above it and the left eye is slightly softer - this with an APS-C sensor..... Congrats!
 
Thanks Silverbullet. Played with the GXR a little bit more tonight. I'm using the full screen magnify now, instead of partial magnify. It helps for the manual focus as the partial magnify doesn't give full resolution and the image automatically looks soft, which is a bummer. I used the GXR head to head against the M9. The M9 was easier to focus still. The GXR handles high ISO much better than the M9 though. Metering and white balance are better as well. Weight of the M lenses makes the GXR front heavy, and it makes me wish it had a bigger grip.
 
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