Why the R4 and not an M-body with external finder?

T

Tuolumne

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With the price of the R4 just lowered and GAS attacks hitting all around on RFF for the R4, I just have to ask my question. Why is the integral wide-angle finder of the R4 so much better than an M-body with external wide angle finder?

I have the Leica 21-24-28 external finder, as well as the Russian-made 28-135 external turret finder and a Leica-made turretless 28-135 external finder. So, two finders pretty much cover everything for me. Plus these can be used on the R-D1 to pretty closely approximate the crop factors on 35mm lenses. I find with the wide angle lenses that exact frame lines aren't really necessary because there is so much "slop" with such a wide angle view.

So, why do people feel it necessary to have internal wide-angle frame lines? I know the standard answer about convenience, not having to move your eye from one finder to the other, etc, etc, but, really, it doesn't seem like such a big hassle to me. Plus with the longer base length of a standard M-body, you get to use one camera to cover everything from 21mm - 135mm. With an R4 you are probably going to have to carry two bodies to cover that range, so where is the advatntage?

I'm not trolling here. Just really curious because I, too, sometimes have R4 GAS, but I can't understand it.

/T
 
not only that. Having two cameras carried along you don't only save time with a combined view/rangefinder but you save time not having to switch lenses and so on.

And come on. External finders are anachronistic. They do work ok if you don't have to focus or if you have plenty of time before the click. Otherwise...
 
Who the heck has to critically focus a 21mm lens? Plus, I just don't find switching from one finder to another that time consuming or difficult to do. Maybe that's the answer - some people find it a hassle to swicth back-and-forth between finders and others don't. I can accept that.

Calling it "anachronistic" is just a tautology and doesn't add any new information. Until the R4 was released external finders were the only way to do it. Maybe buying an R4 is just consumerism at its worse. Which is the same as calling it anacronistic. Doesn't add any new information. 🙂

/T
 
Finders do slow you down some -- and I don't care how careful you are, or how much parallax adjustment the finder has, invariably there'll be some inaccuracy in framing. This may be important depending on the shot.

Also, finders make the camera more cumbersome -- harder to put it in the proverbial coat pocket. And they do fall off from time to time, and get lost.
 
Well, the RF's are about being small, portable, unobtrusive, fast and capable of taking great images in available light (translation: at wide apertures). I took one of my coffee shots this morning with the R4A and the C Biogon 21/4.5 @ 4.5 from half a meter, you can bet I was happy I had a small, portable, unobtrusive, parallax corrected and correctly focused camera in my hand...
 
I like putting view finders on my cameras. Makes them look even older, and, if you will, even "anachronistic". Really drives people nuts. 😀 And I find the Bessa-T to be the ultimate street shooting machine. External finder for wides, so you don't need to critically focus, or even put the camera to your eye, and an externally viewable meter, so again, you don't have to put the camera to your eye to get the exposure. Plus it's so cheap it's disposable,so if anything goes really wrong just throw it away and get a new one. But since it's been discontinued I guess other people don't feel that way.

/T
 
KoNickon said:
Finders do slow you down some -- and I don't care how careful you are, or how much parallax adjustment the finder has, invariably there'll be some inaccuracy in framing. This may be important depending on the shot.

Also, finders make the camera more cumbersome -- harder to put it in the proverbial coat pocket. And they do fall off from time to time, and get lost.
Click to expand...

My sentiments, exactly. No need to repeat
 
/T, i was also not trolling.
No you don't always have to focus a 21mm.
But then why a rangefinder at all. Just use the cheap cool bessa L with that external finder and scale focus and that's it.
If you use a coupled rf, means you want to focus that damn thing and then it is good to have it all in one blink, isn't it?
Anachronistic, in that we are in 2007, i would say that (even for rangefinders) a current design finder frameline combined with a rangefinder is rather normal.
If you use an old gear, that has separate finders, fine! but if you buy one, why not making/buying one that has them all in?

Everything is consumerism and everything is about convenience since the fifties. Practically there is no essential change in the technology of photography since then (except maybe the digital sensor). Only thing simproved here and there or made easier.
 
mfogiel said:
Well, the RF's are about being small, portable, unobtrusive, fast and capable of taking great images in available light (translation: at wide apertures). I took one of my coffee shots this morning with the R4A and the C Biogon 21/4.5 @ 4.5 from half a meter, you can bet I was happy I had a small, portable, unobtrusive, parallax corrected and correctly focused camera in my hand...
Click to expand...

Isn't the depth of field of a 21mm at f4.5 and focused at .5 meters about a meter or more? It's nice to focus critically, but is it really necessary? I used a 15mm CV lens on my R-D1 (23mm equivalent) to take a zone focused picture of my wife sitting about .5 meters from me and including a large portion of the airport background where we were at the time that was well focused and well composed. I used my the 21mm setting of my 21-24-28 Leica external finder to aproximate the 23mm fov. That combinatiion of external vf and camera has even more parallax problems than on a Leica M-body, since it doesn't sit directly over the lens and there is no parallax compensation on that finder. Yet, I thought it well composed. Sure, you have to practice a litte to understand what the framing looks like up close, but after that it becomes pretty intuitive for close ups with wide angles.

/T
 
"harder to put it in the proverbial coat pocket"

This certainly is proverbial, meaning apochryphal and probably never really happened. Come on guys - who has a coat with a pcoket that is big enough and heavy enough to put a Leica with a lens on it into? I certainly don't and don't think I ever did. Perhaps in the 40s and 50s when HCB was in his prime and fashions were over-sized and frumpy. But today? Nah! 🙂

/T
 
Tuolumne,
I see you base all of this on "why to rangefinder focus the 21mm" and disregard the other comments.
The comments about external finders being cumbersome to put on/off, to not lose, to make camera bigger and unpocketable; in some cases they are expensive too. The comments about two bodies with two lenses might also be handy once in a while. And the comment on why a rf at all if you ain't using it.
So is it really a question what you started, or you are just fighting with your own GAS?😀
 
"invariably there'll be some inaccuracy in framing". I find this hilarious. Accurate framing is the last thing I think of when using any rangefinder camera. If I want critical framing I use a (D)slr.

/T
 
Ok, guys - fess up. How many of you have ever "pocketed" your rangefinder except for a few brief minutes, after which your clothes were stretched out of shape and you swore you would never do that again?

/T
 
I am probably ignorant. I don't get the fascination with extra wide angle, period.

For landscape, I understand perfectly, but surely a compact RF like the R4 wouldn't be the camera of choice if you're doing serious landscape?

So back to the street/people photography, why is wide angle so attractive? It's hard to single out action/person, it makes the photo look more like a snapshot, and due to longer depth of field, it's hard to separate the foreground from the background to give the photo the 3D feel.

Would appreciate an explanation or sample images 😀
 
@ T, five of the previous eight posts are yours.

C'mon, either you want us all to convince you to buy an R4 or you are trolling despite your protestation in your opening post. So put it on the table. Which is it? ;D
 
Tuolumne said:
"harder to put it in the proverbial coat pocket"

This certainly is proverbial, meaning apochryphal and probably never really happened. Come on guys - who has a coat with a pcoket that is big enough and heavy enough to put a Leica with a lens on it into? I certainly don't and don't think I ever did. Perhaps in the 40s and 50s when HCB was in his prime and fashions were over-sized and frumpy. But today? Nah! 🙂

/T
Click to expand...

Believe it or not, I do. I have three autumn/winter coats. A lightweight raincoat, a heavy and old looking tough one and a nice looking almost new one.
They have 2 pockets each where i can fit a Leica M2 with the 50/2 (not even collapsed) or the contax iia with a sonnar 50mm.
I don't have wide lenses and finders for these two bodies but i do have e.g. a 85/2 jupiter and a finder for it. When i put the finder on the Contax, it does not fit in the pocket anymore. (Still with the small Sonnar, i mean.) I can tuck it into one of the coats' pockets but then its next to impossible to get it out.
And it's not a big finder, just a small russian 85mm plastic one.

And yes i do find it cumbersome to switch between the finder of the contax and the external finder. The M2 and the built-in 90mm framelines is just much more ...convenient. If you are good in the switching, i am glad for you🙂
 
I think that part of the fascination with extar wide-angle comes from the digital RF, which makes a 21mm (if an R-D1), into a 32mm lens, pretty close to a traditional 28mm wide angle. That of course, doesn't explain the R4, on which a 21mm is 21mm. Perhaps that's why the R4 price was recently reduced? Not enough buyer interest at the higher price point? Having spent $400 on my external Leica 21-24-28mm finder, I am certainly hard pressed to justify buying an R4, but I get GAS attacks anyway since I am sensitive to everyone's justification for it. Just not buying it yet! 😀

/T
 
jan normandale said:
@ T, five of the previous eight posts are yours.

C'mon, either you want us all to convince you to buy an R4 or you are trolling despite your protestation in your opening post. So put it on the table. Which is it? ;D
Click to expand...

I am actually trying to avoid finishing my taxes and doing some very important work, why else would I be here at 3:30PM EST on a Thursday. 😀

/T

P.S. But I do want someone to either put my GAS attack out or convince me to just buy the damn thing and get it over with. After all, I do already have an M2, 2xM3, M4, 2xM5, MP3, R-D1...oh never mind. :bang:

/T
 
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