getting a start with rangefinders

[miha]

Gerald, I have never seen a working pro shooting sports with a Leica/Bessa. The best success rate with fastly moving subjects is generally achievable with a camera that can shoot many frames per second and is able to AF. Even die-hard Leica users of the time had a Nikon with a long lens ready for such occasions

 

[MattKing]

IMHO, the reason rangefinders are advantageous when shooting moving subjects is that the viewfinders usually allow the photographer to see movement outside of the field of view of the lens - they help you anticipate the right moment.

 

[ntenny]

The sports "use case" is complicated by the fact that RFs don't work that well with long lenses. If you had a sports situation that you could shoot comfortably with a 90mm lens, then you could make an apples-to-apples comparison between RF and SLR systems---but how often does that happen?

-NT

 

[Gerald C Koch]

The sports "use case" is complicated by the fact that RFs don't work that well with long lenses. If you had a sports situation that you could shoot comfortably with a 90mm lens, then you could make an apples-to-apples comparison between RF and SLR systems---but how often does that happen?

-NT

Then there is the problem with camera shake and depth of field with long SLR lenses. Given a choice between using a telephoto and getting closer to the subject most people would choose getting closer. It's all a trade off.

 

[Moopheus]

IMHO, the reason rangefinders are advantageous when shooting moving subjects is that the viewfinders usually allow the photographer to see movement outside of the field of view of the lens - they help you anticipate the right moment.

Right. No matter what camera you're using, you're still at the mercy of your finger. And the finger is going to introduce a delay that's quite a bit bigger than the shutter lag of the camera--around 2-4 tenths of a second. I'd be very surprised if you could control the timing of that motion to within 20 milliseconds. So time parallax is still bs.

And it isn't about what camera is faster--in fact, the point is that in most cases, it doesn't matter. Most pro-grade cameras, at least, are faster than you are.

 

[Someonenameddavid]

Oh but if someone were to design a high speed camera with a pellicle mirror you would have the best of worlds... oh look Nikon and Canon did.....