Why a rangefinder over an SLR?

Diapositivo · May 11, 2017

cooltouch said:
Nice looking outfit. What I like most about the QL17 is its beautifully sharp and well-corrected lens. I have seen magazine covers shot with one of these cameras, so it is pretty much capable of doing anything you ask of it.

I have a Canonet QL19. What I find not nice is the focusing lever, unless somebody suggests me a way to use it effectively. The way I use it, it forces me to change the way I grasp the camera to focus, and then re-grasp it to stabilize it. With a normal focusing ring, one can hold the camera on the palm of the left hand, while the fingers of the same hand turn the focusing ring. Or maybe I missed something obvious.

dmr · May 11, 2017

cooltouch said:
Nice looking outfit. What I like most about the QL17 is its beautifully sharp and well-corrected lens. I have seen magazine covers shot with one of these cameras, so it is pretty much capable of doing anything you ask of it.

I've been using the GIII version off and on for about 12 years now. I actually have two of them, one chrome, one black, and the results are very impressive.

It's a small and quiet camera, and I love the wide-normal lens. I've done some stunning 13x19 prints from shots I've done on those. Very good for low/no light situations. I actually recalibrated the chrome one to use ISO 1600 film, which of course is impossible to find anymore.

The only shortcoming I notice is the lack of true match-needle exposure. If I find a situation where I disagree with the exposure, I find myself aiming at something brighter or darker to fake it, then holding the exposure and recomposing.

JohnMeadows · May 13, 2017

I am also new to this thread. While mainly an SLR/TLR shooter, the opportunity to get a nice Voigtlander Bessa R2M kit just came up and I have to say I am hooked on the shooting experience!

Steve@f8 · Jul 21, 2017

Has it been mentioned yet, both eyes open. Do that with an SLR.

miha · Jul 21, 2017

Steve@f8 said:
Has it been mentioned yet, both eyes open. Do that with an SLR.

Easy with some high mgf SLR finders.

cliveh · Jul 21, 2017

Steve@f8 said:
Has it been mentioned yet, both eyes open. Do that with an SLR.

For that you need a Voigtlander Kontur Finder.

Sirius Glass · Jul 21, 2017

Steve@f8 said:
Has it been mentioned yet, both eyes open. Do that with an SLR.

Graflexes provided space for both eye in the lens hoods.

aparat · Jul 21, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
Graflexes provided space for both eye in the lens hoods.
View attachment 183180

Those Graflex cameras never cease to amaze me.

I've tried the rangefinder several times, including a Mamiya 7ii and a Leica CL, but could not get used to the idea of trusting my ability to critically focus, esp. for portraits. Today, I look at some of the prints I made from these cameras, and they're almost uniformly very good, technically, at least. I was able to hand-hold rather low shutter speeds without camera shake (down to 1/15s). So, to me, the absence of mirror-slap was the biggest advantage.

Still, my fear of missing focus won out, and I went back to my SLRs (Minolta SRT-102 and Pentacon Six). Interestingly, both cameras have a very well-designed and supremely useful mirror lock-up feature.

Steve@f8 · Jul 21, 2017

I'll probably get shot down for this, but most photojournalists and street photographers don't critical focus, instead they set the aperture to f8 and zone focus, especially with a 35 or wider. Great thing about Leica lenses is the tab, and knowing in relation to the clock face where the focus plane is set. With practise this can be done without looking at the lens. It means the Leica M is probably the best point and shoot camera going. Love them.

GRHazelton · Jul 21, 2017

cliveh said:
For that you need a Voigtlander Kontur Finder.

I'd love to find one! Pretty rare and expensive. Someone should make a reincarnation with frame "lines" for common rangefinder lenses

Arklatexian · Jul 21, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
Graflexes provided space for both eye in the lens hoods.
View attachment 183180

In college, as biology students, we were taught to look through monocular microscopes with both eyes open. In those days, they tried to teach us to look through the microscope with one eye and use the other eye to look at the drawing we were making of what we saw in the microscope. It took some practice but it could be done.....Really nice shot of the young lady holding the Graflex......Regards!

blockend · Jul 22, 2017

GRHazelton said:
I'd love to find one! Pretty rare and expensive. Someone should make a reincarnation with frame "lines" for common rangefinder lenses

I agree! There's nothing complicated about a Kontur finder and it would be great to see them in 28mm and 35mm variations. They're not too expensive, I think I paid £20 for my slightly tired example in a box, and they knock every other two-eyed finder into a cocked hat! One of the big Chinese factories should be churning them out for £10. For zone focus users there's no competition.

dmr · Jul 22, 2017

Steve@f8 said:
Has it been mentioned yet, both eyes open. Do that with an SLR.

I often times do that, with most any camera.

Steve@f8 · Jul 22, 2017

The difference with a RF, say in street photography, you can see the individual(s) walking into the frame lines. And snap at the appropriate moment. Also, RF have a nice clear optical finder, no blackouts, no mirror slap and always in focus, apart from the RF patch, but who cares when you're zone focused at f8.

Sirius Glass · Jul 22, 2017

Mirror slap is spam promoted by the range finder lovers who cannot see what is actually in focus or use polarizing filters effectively, but desperately need to rain on someone else's parade.

Ko.Fe. · Jul 22, 2017

This thread now grown so big, no one is able to read it all to find out what was mentioned or not.

I'll admit I'm having hard times to walk with both eyes open and head turned if with SLR. And I'm very un-confident to look at the SLR focus screen and not to see everything in focus while I walk. And I'm not so good with SLR manual focusing. Mirror blackout does't make me confident while I'm walking either.

Sorry if I'm dropping something in someone backyard with this. While I'm walking with RF.

ntenny · Jul 22, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
Mirror slap is spam promoted by the range finder lovers who cannot see what is actually in focus or use polarizing filters effectively, but desperately need to rain on someone else's parade.

So why do SLRs have mirror lock-up? Surely it's not just out of superstition?

-NT

cliveh · Jul 22, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
Mirror slap is spam promoted by the range finder lovers who cannot see what is actually in focus or use polarizing filters effectively, but desperately need to rain on someone else's parade.

Why do you think RF users can't see what is in focus? Are you suggesting rangefinders don't work?

Theo Sulphate · Jul 22, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
Mirror slap is spam ...

Clearly, the penny was placed over the lens shutter and not near the A12 back. Had it been placed there, the penny would've ricocheted across the room and bounced off the walls like a trapped fly in a southern California restaurant.

ntenny said:
So why do SLRs have mirror lock-up? ...

For the same reason rangefinder cameras have tripod sockets.

Ok. Why a rangefinder? Because, for me, they are much more agile.

Sirius Glass · Jul 22, 2017

ntenny said:
So why do SLRs have mirror lock-up? Surely it's not just out of superstition?

-NT

On the Minolta SR-1, SR-7, SRT-101 the mirror locked up to allow the f/4 21mm Rokkor lens of that time fit in to the camera chamber.

Sirius Glass · Jul 22, 2017

cliveh said:
Why do you think RF users can't see what is in focus? Are you suggesting rangefinders don't work?

RF users can not see the depth of field as is exists, they can only estimate or read it off a scale. Not the same as actually seeing it, especially for critical work.

Steve@f8 · Jul 22, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
RF users can not see the depth of field as is exists, they can only estimate or read it off a scale. Not the same as actually seeing it, especially for critical work.

Of course, but most RF users I know don't use for critical focus, unless with the aperture wide, then the dof is wafer thin (Thorsen Overgaard seems always to use a Noctilux wide for some reason). I don't see a war between SLRs and RF, they're separate tools each with their own attributes, strengths and weaknesses. That said I love using a RF.

Ko.Fe. · Jul 22, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
RF users can not see the depth of field as is exists, they can only estimate or read it off a scale. Not the same as actually seeing it, especially for critical work.

On SLR with mirror shake, dealing with shallow DoF is the "critical work". RF users could get safe DoF with much slower shutter speed.
.

mynewcolour · Jul 25, 2017

Steve@f8 said:
(Thorsen Overgaard seems always to use a Noctilux wide for some reason)

Because his audience on the whole don't have a developed taste when it comes to photography? The 'Bokeh' is novel.

(just my personal opinion)

Steve@f8 · Jul 25, 2017

mynewcolour said:
Because his audience on the whole don't have a developed taste when it comes to photography? The 'Bokeh' is novel.

(just my personal opinion)

You have a point there, it's repetitive and boring. As Matt Stewart (an MP film user) says, 'no one wants to read the same words more than once', or words similar.

Why a rangefinder over an SLR?

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