New MP owner with some questions

You are totally right, John... Technical details are often overrated, and a lot less important to real photography than most people think... And just as you said, a very sad situation if you're inside that trap precisely in the moments you should be delighted enjoying and dreaming...

Cheers,

Juan
 
If your new and want to learn, lose all the stuff and just take the camera and one lens and one film.

PS: dont forget to focus;-]
 
Be aware that the MP (and M4P/M6/M7) framelines are sized for accurate (?) framing at minimum focus. At greater distances there will be more on the negative than you saw inside the framelines. This is especially true of the 50m frame, so if you bring the 50 (and I think you should) you need to be aware of this. The 50mm frame, at around 15 feet, covers only the same area as my 60mm Elmarit on the R6. So it's 20% undersized at that distance. Therefore, "shoot loose" especially with the 50! Otherwise your negatives will have "No Parking" signs at the edges, and you won't know how that happened.

Other than that, I think it's all been covered. Enjoy, it's a great camera, despite this one flaw. I've got two of them!
 
blimey said:
Sunny 16 rule is quicker to learn
Click to expand...

Quicker for shooting under direct sun and nothing else... That's a very small percentage of real shooting. And there's nothing to learn there: it's an absolute value that remains forever, so it's learned in 10 seconds.

The rest, I mean, almost all in photography, takes lots of years, even for dedicated people...

For B&W it's necessary to develop and print, unless you don't want to master that field. But even more important are exposure and previsualization: real light and 3D converted to high contrast 2D. That, contrary to what lots of people think, can't be easily seen using a digital camera... There's no better investment for someone caring about serious photography, than shooting some rolls of slide film. Nothing comes close IMHO...

Cheers,

Juan
 
Hey guys, the MP has a meter. There is no need for the new owner to be messing about with Sunny 16 and adjusting for this and that. I suggest knocking 1/3 stop off box speed, tilting the camera down a bit if there is a bright sky and adjusting aperture and shutter dial until there is a nice round red circle :) He will then learn from there how the meter behaves but I can bet there will be more good exposures than not. Nice and simple, eh?
 
What an enjoyable event in your photographic life ! I am sure you will get the hang of it very quickly. I think I understood film photography after a brief stint in digital. You just let go and shoot, the meter is the best.
 
Just another quick thought on this. I've been using film & digital SLR's for 16 years and picked up my first RF last Autumn. Yellow & Red filters, great. Forget to remove them when putting colour film in? Not so great. Just something I thought about but haven't gotten round to doing yet.

Steve.
 
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Thanks for all the information and advice. Last night I spent some time practicing how to tension and load the film. This went much quicker than I expected and I think I have the hang of it. I guess I wont really know until I am out shooting and need to remove and load new film.

I also spent some learning how to focus and use the meter. The focusing was pretty easy to get the hang of and I like the RF system much much more that I thought I would, it really is so simple. Using the meter, the aperture settings and shutter speed dial is going to take bit more practice.

I shot about 15 exposures last night practicing with the focus and meter. I am going to walk through my neighborhood and shopping center tonight to finish the roll and practice focusing in the real world.
 
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