Elderly Idiot

Bill Pierce

Bill Pierce

Well-known
Local time
7:39 PM
Joined
Sep 26, 2007
Messages
1,407
I use a variety of cameras. They are tools in a toolbox. But for years almost all of my personal work and much of my journalistic work was done with rangefinders. They were smaller than SLR's. Without a mirror, they were quieter than SLR's and free from the slight image degradation that a moving mirror could cause at some shutter speeds. Obviously, there was no blackout or shutter lag. With wide angle lenses, their wide open focusing was often more accurate. And since they didn’t require a retrofocus design, the image quality of those lenses was often higher while the lenses were always smaller. And the viewfinder and focusing were better in dim light.

Enter the digital mirrorless - and MOST OF THESE ADVANTAGES DISAPPEAR. I can even get a bright line finder in some of the Fuji digitals. Although I probably use a digital rangefinder camera a little less than I did in the film rangefinder days, it is still a favored for personal work. Is it because

(1) I am an elderly idiot.

(2) I like to be seen with an expensive conspicuous consumption item around my neck.

(3) I am living in the past.

(4) I am not fond of the infinite menu choices, most of them meaningless, on other cameras. I prefer simple manual mechanical controls that are always visible and immediately adjustable.

(5) With mirrorless cameras I am constantly switching between shutter release actuated focus, push button lock focus, single point focus, zone focus and manual focus depending on what I’m photographing. Whenever I first pick up the camera, it is always set to the wrong focus method. I am spending too much time thinking about focusing and not enough time thinking about what is in front of me.

(6) All of the above.

Your thoughts and guidance in this analysis are most welcome.
 
"Elderly idiot"......no doubt according to my wife you have just described me to to a "T" - if she were only to admit it. Which come to think of it she often does - albeit using different words than the above ones ("Silly old bugger" comes to mind as her preferred descriptor).

However, as to the question in hand I do not have a specific answer, I do not even fully understand my own motivations for using a digital rangefinder camera so it is difficult for me to opine on yours. Though I suspect that my motives in part have something to do with the pleasure I take in having and using nice things. I could for example drive a domestic car but stupidly (from the viewpoint of affordability and so forth) I drive a German car. In my experience, German cars are like German tanks were said to be during WW2 - big, heavy, expensive, beautifully engineered but in truth actually over engineered and hence with a tendency to unreliability.

Is it questions of status that drive me to do this? Well partly perhaps, but mainly because it confers pleasure to be using a car that when you close the door, it closes with a reassuring "thunk" not a clunk and a "tinny" clatter.

It's a bit the same with, say, a digital Leica (I am an M8 user) - despite some limitations in actual usability it has a nice heavy in the hand feel about it and overall its "haptics" (according to wikipedia ".....haptics is any form of interaction involving touch") are nice. Which having said that is one reason I was somewhat miffed when I bought my Leica M8 given that unlike its analogue precursors, when the shutter was fired it sounded and felt "tinny" with a disconcerting clatter - somewhat like that domestic car I referred to earlier. Still I did eventually get used to it and somewhat overcome my aversion to that feeling / sound. (Though I still aspire to own a camera that fits the description of the shutter sound that was once apparently applied to Hasselblads which according to one person sounded "Like the wheeze of an elderly aristocrat gently clearing his throat". Or something of the sort. )

Having said this, unlike you I now do use mirrorless cameras (and yes my DSLR too) more than I use my digital rangefinder (M8). Simply because it is easier to get the shot. My eyes not being what they once were, by the time I focus the rangefinder on my M8 the moment has too often passed. (The moment passing before I react is something that too often happens at my age - but that's another story). But I cannot deny that it is also nice that every time I am carrying the M8 someone (and surprisingly its usually a young woman) will say something like - "Wow that's a nice camera, is it a film camera? Can I see it?"

Not quite the same as: "Is that a gun in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?.

But nice for a silly old bugger like me, none the less. :)
 
Simple is almost always better in my opinion. The XPro2 is maddening in that I can pick up the camera from the strap around my neck and hit one of the 24,000 buttons on it and have no clue w t f I have done to make it behave like some other camera owned by someone who can understand what all these damn buttons do. The focus point moves around all the time just carrying the thing around my neck. I have finally managed to get the XPro2 “deactivated” enough to be more usable, but still, ugh. Lovely IQ when I don’t screw up by touching it where I shouldn’t (tho I do feel very Presidential at those moments).

I got an M10 recently. Vastly simpler, and much better suited to the capacity of this old moron.
 
Menus and buttons don't bother me. I have a multispeed blender, but only use the Off and Hi button. I ignore the rest. I guess some purists would pay extra for a blender with only an Off/On switch. Same for cameras.
 
I recently needed to upgrade my phone...

The same six points seem to be relevent across different digital technologies...

My choice for personal use was a 3G/4G flip phone that I configured without internet and without email, but with WiFi (hotspot) capability for when I am sitting around at home or in the local coffee shop...

I use the phone to talk to people... when I want to connect to the world I do it the old fashion way on my computer or via the post office ; )

My go to camera for personal use is a Nikon F3P with 50mm f/1.2
 
1/If anyone is willing to produce little red lapel buttons that read. “Elderly Idiot” in Leica script, I’m in. I would also buy the same in a screw-in soft shutter release.

2/I prefer slings and wrist straps. But mainly I dislike camera bounce on my chest. Conspicuous consumption be damned in any case.

3/Wm Faulkner paraphrase “The past isn’t dead, it isn’t even past.” All the youngsters now shooting K1000s and AE1s are living in my teen years, while I live in my father’s teen years whenever I shoot my Ikonta 520.

4/in sincere agreement: if a device can be set up to shoot mostly manually and conditions permit it, I do. God bless Fuji for making aperture and shutter speed legible clickable choices on dials. And God triple bless Leica for never leaving these options off digital M, and simplifying further with the M-D 262. (Resuming snarkiness: Menu-diving is Kama Sutra for wankers.)

1b/I’d accept a black lapel pin that reads in Leica script “Elderly Wanker,” since I was once fascinated by menu diving.

5/As long as I keep the dial on M (GR, RX1, A7K), I’m less likely to have these nasty Murphy’s Law experiences. Which isn’t to say I haven’t had them.

Let the simple fun resume, and may the menu divers enjoy reconfiguring their, um, F-buttons.
 
Points 1 to 4 apply to me to varying degrees and on and off, but Point 5 is the one I most identify with.
I don't have a great deal of experience with mirrorless system cameras, having only ever had/have one, and I don't use it a lot. I prefer manual focus to autofocus mostly, and dither about which autofocus mode I should select for a given situation. If I put a manual focus lens on the camera I find the multistage magnification-focus-demagnify-compose palaver too much to handle, plus I don't trust my eyes without a rangefinder patch, split image or microprism.
 
I'm aged idiot.
I spend time on RFF talking Leica. But every time I need picture guaranteed it is DSLR for me.
It will not have battery dead after few shots, it is not flickering in my eye, here is no guess (a.k.a. framelines) and menus are next to none. Canon 5D which is still in use by many has only one page menu.

And if I look at every gear (a.k.a photo) forum I'm idiot to admit to use DSLR.
But in real live and outside... majority camera users are as idiots as me.
 
The main item for me would be #4, simple mechanical, single function controls just like on a film camera. This is why I would want older manual focus lenses, no 'fly by wire' soulless lenses for me.

Trouble is, I cannot afford Fuji mirrorless or other cameras that have a shutter speed dial. So....guess I'll just stick with a camera that operates exactly like a film camera, and the only camera that does that is......a film camera.
 
I dunno, Bill.

I don't know why you ask questions like this. I don't know why you fiddle with menus and modes when there's absolutely no need to.

I have both a Leica M-D and a Leica CL.
- The M-D is lovely in that it has no options and works just like an M7 does. It produces DNG files that are a delight to render.

- The CL is lovely in that it has a TTL viewfinder that I can use very long to ultra wide lenses with easily, I can do macro work with it, etc etc. I set it up to use my M and R lenses within a day of taking it out of the box and they're all I use it with. I use manual or aperture priority exposure modes, I focus it like an SLR, and I ignore the plethora of features that I have no need for. It produces DNG files that are a delight to render.

I don't care to carry a camera around my neck, don't care what other people see me using, don't care what the price of my gear is unless I'm at the moment of buying it. I have these two cameras because they work with my lenses and for my photography. I bought the CL because I needed a digital camera with TTL focusing to do my macro work, my long lens work, etc. I do photography with both of them according to how I've learned how to do photography over the past 50-some years.

I don't know why you don't do the same. :)

G


Bill Pierce said:
I use a variety of cameras. They are tools in a toolbox. But for years almost all of my personal work and much of my journalistic work was done with rangefinders. They were smaller than SLR's. Without a mirror, they were quieter than SLR's and free from the slight image degradation that a moving mirror could cause at some shutter speeds. Obviously, there was no blackout or shutter lag. With wide angle lenses, their wide open focusing was often more accurate. And since they didn’t require a retrofocus design, the image quality of those lenses was often higher while the lenses were always smaller. And the viewfinder and focusing were better in dim light.

Enter the digital mirrorless - and MOST OF THESE ADVANTAGES DISAPPEAR. I can even get a bright line finder in some of the Fuji digitals. Although I probably use a digital rangefinder camera a little less than I did in the film rangefinder days, it is still a favored for personal work. Is it because

(1) I am an elderly idiot.

(2) I like to be seen with an expensive conspicuous consumption item around my neck.

(3) I am living in the past.

(4) I am not fond of the infinite menu choices, most of them meaningless, on other cameras. I prefer simple manual mechanical controls that are always visible and immediately adjustable.

(5) With mirrorless cameras I am constantly switching between shutter release actuated focus, push button lock focus, single point focus, zone focus and manual focus depending on what I’m photographing. Whenever I first pick up the camera, it is always set to the wrong focus method. I am spending too much time thinking about focusing and not enough time thinking about what is in front of me.

(6) All of the above.

Your thoughts and guidance in this analysis are most welcome.
Click to expand...
 
Delete point (2) and then I agree on all the other points.
On the other hand I do a lot of video.
And when doing video I have to stand all the button the menus and the rest
 
Well, I'm born well after my favourite 35mm SLR cameras (Leicaflex SL, e.g.) have been introduced, so I'm not yet entitled to the «elderly» description, I suppose? ;)

#4, certainly.
 
I went from shooting an M6 to using a Ricoh GXR as a first step into digital with my M-lenses and, despite a few nice pics along the way, I really hated the whole shooting experience for many of the reasons the OP gave. Then I bit the bullet and got a nearly-new M262 and it was such a relief. Optical viewfinder only, manual focussing only, centred-weighted metering only, manual aperture only, minimal shutter delay. It's all about the composition now. My main bug bear now is that my older existing lenses retrocus slightly, which causes me to miss exact focus in some wide open shots, but I will likely get that corrected by Leica in due course... when I can afford it I'll probably send my lenses off one at a time.
 
Old fools generally have significant experience with every kind of camera. The camera that they end up finding they gravitate toward is the best camera there is, for them, because it best fits their needs and desires. Regardless of what “everybody knows”.
Using a laundry list of selling points (no mirror slap, full frame, smaller, bigger, more solid, lighter, auto focus, manual focus, rangefinder, macro capable, AE, fully mechanical doesn’t need batteries, etc.) to reason oneself into a certain camera is less to the point than just eventually using what you like, despite it not having “all the modern conveniences”, and be done with it.
Don’t listen to others, they only know what they like. No need for self doubt about one’s choices just because one isn’t a lemming.
And, it’s fine to hate menus if you hate menus.
 
sepiareverb said:
I can pick up the camera from the strap around my neck and hit one of the 24,000 buttons on it and have no clue w t f I have done to make it behave like some other camera owned by someone who can understand what all these damn buttons do. The focus point moves around all the time just carrying the thing around my neck.
Click to expand...


Reminds me of one of the cell phones my employer has provided over the years. It had an overly aggressive keyboard lock which required about three different steps just to unlock it so I could place a call, but if I set the phone down or picked it up the wrong way it would magically bypass all the locks and it would butt-dial some random person from the contact list. It was enough to make me paranoid!
 
Despite having previously used both film and digital Canon EOS cameras for almost 20 years, I like easily accessed information. Gauges on my car's dashboard, knobs and dials on my Hi-Fi and a camera with the exposure settings right there in front of me without having to turn it on and light up a screen. You know, shutter speed dials and aperture rings and such. Ain't a lot of that around anymore. That qualifies me for points #3 and #4.

Plus, I've used an awful lot of digital cameras in the past 10 years or so. Most of them have been highly capable machines, producing many pictures I still find satisfying. But.... Many of them would qualify as "fidgetal" cameras with their secret menus, menu extensions, multifunction buttons and proprietary language. All of which I find to be irritating. That again fits #4 and also comes in under #5.

But, all things considered, #1 pretty much covers it all.

Now, get off my lawn!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom