FrankS said:
I just can't understnd why I'm so taken with using RF cameras for my photography! My SLRs are languishing on the shelf. I don't buy the weight and size advantage of RFs. The difference is in the viewfinder and in the shutter sound (with/without flipping mirror), neither of which seem very significant, yet for some reason I'm thrilled again with photography - because of the RF gear. I just don't understand why. Has anyone been able to?
I did a poll on this some time ago, and was surprised at many of the answers I got.
Although a lot of people cited such pragmatic factors as the lightness and compactness of an RF outfit, or positive focusing under poor conditions, many put more emphasis on emotional or subjective factors.
Some see an RF camera as a way to rebel against the plastics-and-electronics trend in camera design. Others speak of their enjoyment of the cameras' solid mechanical feel and sense of craftsmanship. Others see an RF camera as a tie to a bygone era of photography that they admire, or a link to individual photographers whose styles they revere.
For me, it's very much the "vision thing." RF cameras and SLR cameras have a literal, concretely technical difference in the way you see: you look
into an SLR and see an image, while you look
through an RF camera and see what's in front of you.
Having lost interest in navel-contemplation shortly after my sophomore year in college, the SLR vision paradigm doesn't do much for me. But seeing and making sense out of what's right in front of me is still a challenge. I like using an RF camera because it forces me to confront that challenge head-on.
Unlike an SLR, an RF camera makes it quite difficult to synthesize "creative" pictures by sticking a novelty lens or filter on the camera, peeping through a keyhole or a knothole, or generating exaggerated depth-of-field effects that are quite unlike anything the eye perceives.
In fact, an RF camera is just about useless for any kind of photography
except the kind that depends on pointing the camera at something interesting, then pressing the button at the right time.
I happen to feel that that kind of photography is the kind that has staying power for me – so I gravitate toward the kind of camera that facilitates that kind of photography, while frustrating any temptation I might have to cheat by relying on gratuitous optical effects.
