David R
TPF Noob!
- Joined
- May 4, 2009
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- 15
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- Location
- Toronto
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This is a fairly lengthy intro to my question, please bare with me. (I'm also new to these forums)
I have a total of 5 Nikon bodies. The two that I learned to shoot with, a Nikkormat FT, and a N2000. These two were for a long time fine for my kind photography. Recently I had the opportunity to pickup a couple of more bodies, a FE, a FE2 and N6006. Never use N6006, it was really cheap so doesn't matter. The FE2 became my favourite, love the metering.
Anyways started to notice some focus issues. Images just didn't seem as shape as I thought they should be. Eventually isolated down to the FE and the FE2, problem seems to be around infinity focusing. Usually when I'm out Kayaking I just set the lens at infinity as most objects of interest are further than 50 feet, good enough for wide-angle lens. Well it turns out that on these bodies infinity comes early, depending on the focal length of the lens. By comparison the FT, N2000 and for that matter then N6006, hit infinity where the lens are marked as infinity. For those note familar with these bodies, the FEs have interchangable focusing screens, while the FT, N2000, and N6006 are factory fixed focusing screens.
So after a lot of focus experiments I have something that doesn't really add up for me. I would expect that a check of the focal plane focus verses the view finder focus would agree. Well this is where I get confused.
I've tried several techniques, a piece of frosted mylar as a focusing screen on the film plane, with x8 loop, a focusing screen from another camera refashioned to fit on the film plane with a x8 loop, a crude collminator setup using another camera with matching lens.
The FE and FE2 both agree for view finder matching film plane focus, even though the focusing scale on the lens are off. The FT, N2000, and N6006 don't agree for film plane verse view finder, they're just slightly off with the film plane hitting focus before the view finder. The view finder agrees with the scale on the lens. While normally I use the split screen center for focusing, I also watched the matte part of the screens to be sure my eyes weren't the issue.
So I'm a little lost as to what the problem is, or where to go from here. Is there something wrong with the FEs. Am I doing something wrong in my testing. I have tried using film tests, but it wasn't really conclusive as I was using slide film, then scanning, and my scanner isn't up to that level. I haven't tried specific tests with neg film and enlarging, which I could do. Its just a little time consuming and to costly right now.
Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
David R
I have a total of 5 Nikon bodies. The two that I learned to shoot with, a Nikkormat FT, and a N2000. These two were for a long time fine for my kind photography. Recently I had the opportunity to pickup a couple of more bodies, a FE, a FE2 and N6006. Never use N6006, it was really cheap so doesn't matter. The FE2 became my favourite, love the metering.
Anyways started to notice some focus issues. Images just didn't seem as shape as I thought they should be. Eventually isolated down to the FE and the FE2, problem seems to be around infinity focusing. Usually when I'm out Kayaking I just set the lens at infinity as most objects of interest are further than 50 feet, good enough for wide-angle lens. Well it turns out that on these bodies infinity comes early, depending on the focal length of the lens. By comparison the FT, N2000 and for that matter then N6006, hit infinity where the lens are marked as infinity. For those note familar with these bodies, the FEs have interchangable focusing screens, while the FT, N2000, and N6006 are factory fixed focusing screens.
So after a lot of focus experiments I have something that doesn't really add up for me. I would expect that a check of the focal plane focus verses the view finder focus would agree. Well this is where I get confused.
I've tried several techniques, a piece of frosted mylar as a focusing screen on the film plane, with x8 loop, a focusing screen from another camera refashioned to fit on the film plane with a x8 loop, a crude collminator setup using another camera with matching lens.
The FE and FE2 both agree for view finder matching film plane focus, even though the focusing scale on the lens are off. The FT, N2000, and N6006 don't agree for film plane verse view finder, they're just slightly off with the film plane hitting focus before the view finder. The view finder agrees with the scale on the lens. While normally I use the split screen center for focusing, I also watched the matte part of the screens to be sure my eyes weren't the issue.
So I'm a little lost as to what the problem is, or where to go from here. Is there something wrong with the FEs. Am I doing something wrong in my testing. I have tried using film tests, but it wasn't really conclusive as I was using slide film, then scanning, and my scanner isn't up to that level. I haven't tried specific tests with neg film and enlarging, which I could do. Its just a little time consuming and to costly right now.
Any insights would be greatly appreciated.
David R