cold weekend of people and places in new york

[georgeaye]

I spent a bitterly cold weekend in New York and took my little RF along. The lens is a 50 summicron and I'm still getting used to working with an effective 75mm lens, as I've only used a 50mm equivalents before.

Until the trip, the RD-1 was being used very casually for several weeks but never under any stress. It finally got a good work out.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/georgeaye/sets/72157594513211571/

Here are a few things I've learnt:

When the camera is cocked and left on, and it's goes to sleep, don't expect the shutter to release on one press. It needs one to awake and then one to fire. ARGH! I must have lost several dozen shots until I got understood the issue.

75mm makes for a very tight crop when you're only 5 feet away from someone.
I'm usually only concerned with making images of people and faces but it's less forgiving when you're tying to shoot when you're not looking throught the viewfinder.

Zone focusing (if that's what i'm doing) is hard. Damn hard. I am just so used to shooting from my hip with reasonable accuracy, relying on my Nikon's AF to get the focus right. When you're shooting in a poorly lit subway car, I've got the ISO way up and my aperture way open, but man, if that's not a guaranteed way to mis focus.

Processing in my soon to expire copy of Lightroom is such much fun. The greyscale conversion is very enjoyable and I think I'm getting there... but I could really do with some pointers on how to make a BW image sing.

I need to get another battery ASAP. Cold weather and inexperience means lots of hasty LCD chimping. I might bring two spares next time.

Enjoy the photos and feedback is welcome.

thanks

George

 

[kbg32]

It is not easy shooting from the hip with a 50mm lens using the hyperfocal distance for a particular lens aperture. That's why so many street shooters who use this method use wide lenses such as 35, 28, and 21. You can set the hyperfocal distance and shoot away, getting a reasonably usable area within focus.

 

[Topdog1]

"When the camera is cocked and left on, and it's goes to sleep, don't expect the shutter to release on one press. It needs one to awake and then one to fire. ARGH! I must have lost several dozen shots until I got understood the issue."

Upgrading to the R-D1s firmware fixes this problem.

" 75mm makes for a very tight crop when you're only 5 feet away from someone. "

Yep, Use a wider lens, maybe 21mm with external finder. That should also give you enough DOF to shoot without having to look through the viewfinder to focus.

/Ira

 

[rsl]

Zone focusing (if that's what i'm doing) is hard. Damn hard. I am just so used to shooting from my hip with reasonable accuracy, relying on my Nikon's AF to get the focus right. When you're shooting in a poorly lit subway car, I've got the ISO way up and my aperture way open, but man, if that's not a guaranteed way to mis focus.

When you're in a poorly lit place, zone focus sometimes is impossible. What you learn to do after a while is accurately estimate distances. It's not too hard to do if you work at it, but it does take practice. At least nowadays you don't have to learn to estimate dim light exposure too.

Nice shots by the way.