Rangefinder shooting style?

[alfa]

Even though I totally agree with what has been said before it's strange to see that no one has expressed the different optical quality of the two systems. I also own and use them both but the color tones, the bokeh, the feeling, the tridimensionality of the images that comes out of a rangefinder (mainly leica) glass is quite different from the sharp, harsh, quite cold feeling of many SRL glasses. Especially now on digital....

 

[pnance]

Well, you have to remember to take the lens cap off with a rangefinder

David.

Nice thing with the Bessa R's, the meters behind the lens, so... if the meters not working, the lens caps not off!

You walk around with a SLR and generally a bag of lenses and support gear, with a rangefinder, maybe that's all you're carrying.

 

[Lee Shively]

Someone uses lens caps?

 

[rbarker]

Someone uses lens caps?

Those who have burnt a hole in their shutter probably do.

 

[Lee Shively]

Can't take pictures through lens caps. I never use one on a lens mounted on the camera. A filter and lens hood, yes. Lens cap, no.

But you're right about burning a hole in the shutter. I've learned to keep the lens pointed away from the sun. On a sunny day, I'll carry a rangefinder camera backwards around my neck so the lens is punching me in the stomach. It might look a little different but it works.

 

[polaski]

Happy someone mentioned no zoom lenses for RF's. You can change the lens on some rangefinders, but when using a rangefinder, you're more likely to walk up close when you want to fill the frame than you wold if you were using an SLR. That's a big difference.

 

[firecracker]

I use a SLR camera like a Rangefinder camera, and sometimes the opposite. I guess it doesn't matter which one I pick as long as I can get the kind of intimacy with my photo subject(s).

For me for some reason, problems occur when I have a black-body camera.

 

[bjorke]

Tri-Elmar?

35-70 Zeiss zoom?

 

[Stephanie Brim]

The Tri-Elmar isn't really a zoom...it's three focal lengths in one lens. You can't set it at, say, 40mm. It's the rangefinder equivalent of a zoom, sure, but it's still not a zoom.

Not sure about the Zeiss, though.

I just have a different frame of mind when I'm using a rangefinder. I feel more at ease with a rangefinder because I find them less obtrusive. Rangefinder focusing is easier for me. The camera I use now equipped with the Jupiter-12 or 50/1.8 Canon lenses that I'm preferring is much lighter than the SLR I used to have. I think that the difference between rangefinder and SLR photography is more a mindset than anything else. I mean, yeah, one is usually better than the other for certain things, but they both have their uses...I just tend to go the rangefinder route because of how I shoot.

 

[Earl Dunbar]

I have a 21mm Zuiko for my OMs, plus I have a Leitz 21mm finder leftover from my M days. I've been thinking of setting the Zuiko to hyperfocal distance/using scale focusing, locking up the mirror of the OM-1, and using the finder for quick framing. Hybrid photography!

 

[Soeren]

You can have voigtländer 12 and 15mm RF lenses in Nikon mount for Nikons with MLU
More Hybrid photography
Cheers Søren

 

[rbarker]

Did someone say hybrid?

 

[Soeren]

Nah can't be. Who would mount trashy third party glass from a company like Tokina, Sigma or leica on a Nikon
Cheers Søren

 

[sanderx1]

Zeiss made / makes at least one real continous zoom rangefinder lens in the form of a Vario-Sonnar for Contax G. I'm not sure why Zeiss doesn't make one for their Ikon...

But really, not using a zoom is not really all that much of a rangefinder style, lots of SLR and especailly TLR shooting happens the same way.

 

[rml]

I find that the most important difference between SLR and RF shooting is the level of quick control over the settings that RF cameras offer me. Just this morning I went out shooting both and as long as I didn't need to change the settings on my Eos 300D, I was fine with shooting it. As soon as I needed to change any settings or wanted to quickly try out some other settings, the R-D1 let me do that much faster and with much more control.

 

[butterflydream]

I tend to see the world rather objectively with RF finder while subjectively with SLR finder. Besides, with RF finder I can watch what's happening outside the frame.

 

[Woolliscroft]

Can't take pictures through lens caps. I never use one....., I'll carry a rangefinder camera backwards around my neck so the lens is punching me in the stomach. It might look a little different but it works.

And you still don't use a lens cap!!? I agree about the Bessa R meter not working with the cap on. Trouble is I find the meter is not totally accurate with the 15mm lens I use much of the time with that camera, so I am often using a separate meter and as the lens means using an accessary viewfinder, I tend to ignore the camera's own finder. I find the big "LC" I have written in typewriter correcting fluid next to the viewfinder helps though Certainly I have less trouble remembering the cap with my Leica MP as there I will be using the meter. It is all a bit sad really, but I have only been using rangefinders again for a couple of years after a long break and I guess that after 30 years of SLR's I am just used to knowing that if I can see through the viewfinder, everything is OK.

David.