Close-up

... blog post:

Conventional wisdom says you can't make close-ups with a rangefinder camera. Well tell that to my Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f4 with its close-up adaptor M 😀.

Above is a close up of the model of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes well known for his powers of analysis and synthesis and for not saying, "Elementary my dear Watson". No really, not in the original books he never did.

Above is a representation of his friend and colleague Dr Watson of whom he did say, "If not luminous yourself, you are a conductor of light". Yes, Holmes really did say that to him in one of the stories.

The above is the 'Leica Macro-Elmar-M 90mm f4 and Close-up Adaptor M Set' with which I made all of the photos on my M10-R for this blog post. It allows the lens to be focused down to 0.5m for a maximum reproduction ratio of 1:3.

As the photo of the fronds above shows, you can get in nice and close and retain lots of detail by stopping this macro lens down. One of the nice things about the "spectacles" (or "goggles" as some prefer to call them) on the macro adapter is that the align with the rangefinder and viewfinder windows to change their magnification to match the close-up range of the adapter which is rangefinder coupled. This allows you to continue to view and focus your subject in the normal way using the optical system or alternatively ignore it and use live view if you prefer.

I used the normal optical rangefinder to focus all of the images in this posting as I am a traditionalist. Why buy a rangefinder camera and then use it as live view mirrorless thingy? I love the good old rangefinder experience.

The photo above shows the very shallow depth of focus achieved using the lens very close, wide open at f4 and also some idea of the bokeh if such a thing bothers you.

Finally, just to give you an idea of the magnification of Holmes and Watson, here they are shown at a more "normal" perspective each being approx 7x4". Taken on an iPhone.