A question..

I believe a part of the good focus problem is related to the M8's short EBL, and the rest to a certain difficulty to know intuitively which f stop you have to use with each lens if you recompose the image after the patch alignement - this comes with a lot of practice. As for the rest, obviously this guy has seen the "rangefinder effect": simplicity, clear vision, mechanical quality. I would not agree entirely with the judgement on the lenses - I find the CV 35/1.2 to be a first rate lens with a lot of character, and generally I find Zeiss glass better than anything else, but I think this is a bit of a hair splitting discussion - most of today's RF lenses from any of these manufacturers are optically far more sexy than the auto everything zooms for the DSLR's.
 
Oh, well,

so I guess it should be commoner having such problems in portraits (due to the reframing of the face) / set portraits? (the ones with the people aside in foreground and beside him / her a landscape) ?
 
I think part of his issue with the focusing is maybe partly a general complaint about the lack of autofocus and partly getting used to the lack of DoF preview, although he doesn't say so in as many words. I can't think of any other aspect of rangefinder focusing that's likely to be in any way challenging to a professional photographer.

I have to agree that it's not a very well written article, and I'd sure as hell like to know where he got his "Voigtlander 50 1.2 and 35mm 1.4" (seeing that they've never made lenses of those lengths at those speeds).
 
From the article:

"A friend of mine says that buying a Leica and putting Voigtlanders on it is like buying a Porsche and dropping in a Chevrolet engine and he's right."

So? it'll still get you from A to B if you *know* how to drive 😉

This guy seems to just found the Leica kool-aid fountain and just want to talk about it.
 
I think I get the idea of what he's trying to get across. At least, the conclusion.

It could have probably been done in a more clear manner.

It's definitely positive, but sort of in a back-handed way.

Focus? He's probably looking thru the viewfinder like one does with an SLR. His mind is saying 'hey, everything in the frame is sharp!' so he takes the picture. Then he finds out there is a focus problem. User error. 🙂
 
As far as CV lenses, I have two -- 28/1.9 Ultron and 21/4 Skopar. I think they are fine lenses. They offer what, 95% of the performance of the Leica glass for 20% of the price, or something along those lines?

For the same reason, I don't have Pirellis on my Porsche. I have Kumhos that offer 95% of the performance for about 50% of the price. 🙂
 
sitemistic said:
The man said that half the time the camera doesn't work as expected, but that the look and feel of the camera just makes all that go away. If 50 percent of the stuff I shot didn't come out as I expected, I would dump the camera immediately, regardless of how pretty it was.
Click to expand...


Agreed...but the problem is probably the user expectation, not the camera...at least that's how I read it. 🙂
 
I think this kind of set the tone there:

I'm not a range finder guy.
Click to expand...

There's no obligation for people to find RF cameras easy, pleasant or productive. Even as a booster, I'd say they are somewhat limited in their overall usefulness and pretty idiosyncratic. If I could only have one camera...it would probably not be an RF. If someone doesn't find RF use works for them, don't expect a great review...and don't let it bother you at all.
 
"It's just a surprise at anything more open than 5.6"

I think this guy is totally clueless, or his camera is miscalibrated. I can shoot a whole roll at f/2 and 90% will be focused just where I want. Same goes for framing.

Anyway, the opening sentences indicate that he was biased against rangefinders from the start, and was looking for confirmation in his belief that shooting with a RF gives "probably not near the composition you intended." It's evident he was trying, either consciously or subconsciously, to prove his hypothesis.
 
He states in the first sentence that he is not a rangefinder guy . . . Somebody explain to me why I should give a rats' tail what he has to say about an M8 - which by no possible stretch of the imagination represents the best that the rangefinder genre has to offer.

Paul
Pulling the sheet-metal over the top of my hooch and hunkering down for inevitable incoming...
 
Paul C. Perkins said:
He states in the first sentence that he is not a rangefinder guy . . . Somebody explain to me why I should give a rats' tail what he has to say about an M8 - which by no possible stretch of the imagination represents the best that the rangefinder genre has to offer.

Paul
Pulling the sheet-metal over the top of my hooch and hunkering down for inevitable incoming...
Click to expand...

He was perhaps hoping it would make him a RF guy.
 
Paul C. Perkins said:
He states in the first sentence that he is not a rangefinder guy . . . Somebody explain to me why I should give a rats' tail what he has to say about an M8 - which by no possible stretch of the imagination represents the best that the rangefinder genre has to offer.

Paul
Pulling the sheet-metal over the top of my hooch and hunkering down for inevitable incoming...
Click to expand...

He was perhaps hoping it would make him a RF guy.
 
Do you think of a M8 as pamela anderson?

Do you think of a M8 as pamela anderson?

Hello:

I have modest pretensions as a rangefinder guy which are consistently affirmed whenever I use a low shutter speed and a handheld camera. Combine this with use of wider apertures and my modesty is fully justified.

A successful pro probably has both assistants and a tripod mounted/image stabilized camera. Given his background he probably was doing well in % of acceptable shots. He simply was not used to working without a safety net.

yours
Frank
 
I don't think the author really means "who cares what the photos look like". The piece is illustrated with fairly good photos.

He finds some drawbacks of M8 to him, but goes to say that Leica's lure and mode of operation outweigh that.

From the article it sounds like I can focus a Leica way better than him, but it is irrelevant to the point of his writing. There are other very objective drawbacks and limitations of every RF (e.g. tele, closeup range), none of those stopping aficionados however.
 
I love cameras that are strange and force me to see the world just a little bit differently than I did yesterday, because that’s what photography is all about, seeing the world just a little bit differently."
Click to expand...

Fred, thank you for bringing that quote to the top. A great thought for photography, which really involves vision, and renewing our vision.
 
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