Any famous photographers that used fixed lens rangefinder?

[Roger Hicks]

Sorry, my original post I was thinking only of 35mm: I was distracted by the reference to Leicas. Indeed, there have been quite a lot who have used fixed-lens roll-film cameras.

Cheers,

R.

 

[shortstop]

She was one of us, but their photo are masterpieces. Mine not...

 

[shortstop]

She was one of us, but their photo are masterpieces. Mine not...

Forgotten: Vivian Maier

 

[John E Earley]

Vivian Maier wasn't famous until a couple of years ago. She was just an everyday person taking photographs of things she liked.

Are you saying she isn't famous or she wasn't famous during her lifetime or that you don't consider her work good enough to qualify?

 

[CameraQuest]

There is a famous Vietnamese photographer who reputedly shot only with a pre-war 6x9 Super Ikonta. Unfortunately I don't recall his name.

Stephen

 

[Roger Hicks]

Are you saying she isn't famous or she wasn't famous during her lifetime or that you don't consider her work good enough to qualify?

Dear John,

Or indeed that she didn't use a fixed-lens rangefinder? (Unless she had a Rolleimeter). This is irrelevance piled on irrelevance.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

There is a famous Vietnamese photographer who reputedly shot only with a pre-war 6x9 Super Ikonta. Unfortunately I don't recall his name.

Stephen

Dear Stephen,

The 6x9 Super Ikonta was also issued to official war photographers in the UK during WW2: I think Beaton used one in the Western Desert.

Chees,

R.

 

[Graham Line]

Every newspaper I worked for had a couple of non-functional fixed-lens Canon rangefinders in a drawer someplace in the photo department.

 

[rivercityrocker]

Are you saying she isn't famous or she wasn't famous during her lifetime or that you don't consider her work good enough to qualify?

I'm saying she wasn't famous in her lifetime not to mention that her fame isn't solely attributed to her photography work, but because of how it was discovered.

When if it comes down to brass tacks she's still not really a "famous" photographer to anyone but a handful of photographers most of whom are interested in street photography. If you polled working professional photographers today I'll bet almost none of them have never heard of her.

In the end I think it will bear out that she will be at best a minor footnote in the history of photography. More of an oddity than a recognized photographer.

I'm not saying that she wasn't good. She was.


These days it's hard to even say what "famous" is. We live in a society where normal everyday people (typically morons) are famous simply because they are on a reality show. In the photography community you have people that are "famous" because they are great at promotion. Chase Jarvis comes to mind, I know his name, but I wouldn't recognize any of his photos if shown them. Gary Fong is famous because he invented a contraption. Jared Polin is famous because he has stupid hair and acts like a putz. Digital Rev dude is famous because he acts like a fool. Hell, I bet Ken Rockwell is even more famous than Vivian Maier in the photography world and he hasn't ever taken a decent photo in his life.

This is way off topic so I'll end the rant with that.

As a side note, Ricoh made very high quality fixed lens rangefinders.

 

[Pioneer]

As to Vivian Maier's fame, I suspect in some crowds she is more famous than even HCB. 🙂

And Leica did in fact make a lot of fixed lens cameras that could be bought with rangefinders.

Most famous photographers used whatever camera worked best for them. And it often changed based on the project involved. A few did become famous for using a specific camera, but that was certainly secondary to their image making and was usually the result of intentional marketing on the part of a given camera company. 🙂

 

[tunalegs]

Famous is not as important as "good". Look on flickr for instance, and you can find plenty of great photographs taken with fixed lens RFs.

edit: as for the Vietnamese with the Ikonta: http://luceoimages.com/2010/10/from-the-archive-39/

 

[mike rosenlof]

Robert Adams too.

nobuyoshi araki, mitch epstein, tod papageorge, mark steinmetz, jeffrey ladd, christian patterson, and annie leibovitz have used fixed lens fuji 6x9s for varying amounts of their work.

 

[Roger Hicks]

. . . And Leica did in fact make a lot of fixed lens cameras that could be bought with rangefinders. . . .

But not M-series. And indeed, with the screw mount, not after the demise of the model A and B. Unless you include the Post models.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Famous is not as important as "good". Look on flickr for instance, and you can find plenty of great photographs taken with fixed lens RFs.

Eminently true, but that wasn't the OP's question.

Cheers,

R.

 

[Brian Levy]

One I know is

One I know is

Ansel Adams. Maybe not a fixed lens rangefinder you'd think of but, one none the less. He used for years various Polaroid pack cameras and carried a 180 almost all the time as his walk around camera. Polaroid capitalized on it and had write a book on using their pack cameras. A great read. He used it for much more than just proofing. Many professional large format photographers used them on shoots proofing both outdoors and in the studio.

 

[Greyscale]

Andy Warhol

 

[newspaperguy]

I went to Korea with an Argus C-3* as the most famous photographer in our unit..:angel:

O f course, there was that Speed Graphic to fall back on.

* It did get quickly replaced with the first of two Leica 1f's. Gotta love the PX system!

 

[Trooper]

What, no one responded "Ever knew of me!" ? 🙂

Nobody mention me?

Oh sorry, I don't use a fixed lens rangefinder...

 

[Greyscale]

I went to Korea with an Argus C-3* as the most famous photographer in our unit..:angel:

The C-3 is an interchangeable lens camera.

 

[rodinal]

How about Tony Vaccaro and his Argus C-3 ?
Technically, the C-3 had interchangeable lenses, but not in the same sense more professional cameras do (it needed some disassembly).