Obsolete?

[photogdave]

This is why I sold my Canon 5D and am switching to Nikon for digital.
It's one of the main reasons why I desperately wanted an M8.

In Canon's infinite wisdom and drive for total automation they crippled the distance and aperture scales on their lenses, so it is difficult or impossible to scale focus.

For street photography, documentary work and general shooting this is a disaster and probably the reason why you see so many photos these days with the subject centred in frame...

Nikon has followed a similar path, but at least they still give you the option to use older manual focus lenses on their newest digital bodies. With Nikon you get the best of both worlds.

I do not think that the RF concept is obsolete; it's just mostly forgotten.

HL

You should have hung on to your 5D! The Canon EF mount is far more accommodating to older manual lenses than Nikon. With adapters you can mount Nikon F, Leica R, Contax Yashica, and probably other old manual lenses, with the only linitation being stop-down metering.

 

[Dektol Dan]

Of course the rangefinder model is obsolete. My Canon 5D with an ST-E2 in the hot shoe will focus the fastest Canon EF prime perfectly every time in total darkness.

And just what is it focusing on?
The inherent problems with auto focus systems get better by increments, but they are far from being successful in all applications.

Recalling the shots I took at my son's wings graduation, my late model Canon Rebel couldn't discern the laurel hedge from my son standing in front of it. The hedge filled the rest of the frame and completely confounded the 7 point (or whatever it is) auto focus.

And, if its big, heavy and requires batteries, it's one step forward and two steps back in my book.

 

[squirrel$$$bandit]

I use 'em for the small size, attractive design (IMHO), and little bitty lenses. I don't take better pictures with them than I do with my DSLR.

There are just too many great lenses out there for RFs to ever totally vanish. SOMEBODY will keep on wanting to shoot with them. I certainly do.

Man do I ever want an affordable digital RF. That would be amazing.

 

[kevin m]

Saying that "auto-focus doesn't work" is like saying that anti-lock braking doesn't work. In some small number of cases it's true, but it hardly makes auto-focus or anti-lock braking inferior to the manual alternatives. In most cases, the camera/car is so much better and faster at that function than a human could ever be, and for those times when it's NOT true, any decent tool will have a manual override function. It's up to the operator to know when to turn off the automation. Insisting in the superiority of manual focus in all cases is an act of faith that can't be proved with photographic results.

 

[M2user]

It is easy for Dslr users with their latest electronic battery dependent cameras to dismiss Leica manual rangefinder cameras as "obsolete" but any battery dependent camera has obsolescence built in,and within a few years will be become "dustbin fodder".With the proliferation of battery types with each new Dslr, how many of these batteries will still be available in a few years time.
Think also of the many photographers who have used Leica manual rangefinder cameras in World War 11,the Korean conflict and Vietnam War.
I cannot think what results a modern Dslr used in these war theatres would have missed with no power source available on the battlefield or behind enemy lines. If David Douglas Duncan had been given a Dslr in the Korean War certainly his landmark book "This is War" would not have been produced due to battery recharging "not available" on the battlefield or any warzone for that matter.It is a pity that we cannot go back in time and put a war photographer behind the lines in Normandy in 1944/5 with a modern electronic battery guzzeling Dslr and and another war photographer with a Leica manual rangefinder and compare their portfolio's after spending 2 weeks on the battlefield.I know who my money would be on.
The Leica rangefinder camera is a true "miniature camera" whilst some of the top range Dslr cameras from Canon or Nikon are so large and cumbersome that they are outside the term "miniature cameras" which they supposed to be.
Any manual camera and particularly Leica rangefinders will still be around and used when most electronic wonders of this so called "throw away modern age" have long been despatched to the dustbin as "useless junk".
"Long live the dependable manual rangefinder Leica camera - over 50 years old and still going strong and a reliable photographic tool".

 

[M2user]

The Jeep and the tank and the airplane in WWII and Korea were battery dependent.

Jeeps,tanks and aircaft were military equipment and dependent and limited to military supply lines and logistics.I can't see the military providing the means for photographers to receive battery supplies in preference to weapons,fuel or food in any future warzone or under war conditions.War photographers were and still are expected to look after and supply their own equipment and needs in these warzones, so your statement does not apply in these circumstances.

 

[M2user]

WWII photographers didn't have battery dependent cameras because battery technology hadn't reached the point to make it possible. Otherwise, they would have had them. They didn't use cameras with batteries because such cameras didn't exist, not out of choice. Modern war photographers use battery dependent cameras. I don't see your point.

I didn't say that WW11 photographers HAD battery dependent cameras in WW11 (READ MY 2 POSTS)and its a damn good job that they didn't as your argument that they would have been supplied batteries if they needed them in the warzone is rubbish.
Who the hell would have supplied them to war photographers in that onslaught.The allies were lucky to get equipment,ammunition,food or fuel in the Normandy campaign never mind thinking about getting batteries to War photographers if they HAD needed them.You should read up on what conditions were like for troops who had survived Omagh Beach and in the push through Normandy in WW11 before making ridiculous statements as per your quote above.

 

[M2user]

You stick to your Canon battery dependent Dslr camera and I'll come back to you in 10years time and see if your "all dancing electronic wonder machine" is still around,which I very much doubt and you will see that the Leica manual rangefinder (M2 - 50years old even now) that I use will still be fulfilling its function as a reliable photographic workhorse even then.

 

[climbing_vine]

Why not organize all human reproduction to be done via in vitro fertilization? It would surely be more efficient. However, I'm told that many people still prefer the obsolete, less efficient means of fertilization. ;-)

I know this was supposed to be humor, but (respectfully) that works better when our analogue is actually, well, true. The good old way of procreation is orders of magnitude more efficient and effective than any newfangled ways. If bonking is a rangefinder, in vitro is an early SLR with a mirror so dim you can't see what you're shooting.

 

[caperunner]

Getting back to the original proposition that RF cameras are obsolete-yes or no.
Answer = Yes

They were surpassed by SLR technology some years ago.
We all know this and in spite of the above fact still use RF cameras. 😉

In my case because they represent a quaint method of focussing a picture and in general had excellent lenses. I might even attract some kudos while doing so too, perhaps not.

Almost without exception the camera will be mistaken for a new kind of digital..


I saw a photog a little while ago in town using a plate camera with yards of black cloth into which he disappeared. I assume he took a photo! Kudos and quaintness to him. Wonder what he thinks about his camera? Certainly an attention getter!

 

[pachuco]

I think that at least for me the fact that a rangefinder is not the latest in focus technology is what I like. It forces a slow down that is a great escape from the auto focus 9 frame per second world many of us live it to make ends meet. A rangefinder is, for me, the opposite of of a DSLR. I have often said that I love my rangefinder for what it can not do, not what it can do. With a rangefinder I do not have to check my work as I do it (yeah, I check my images from time to time when using a DSLR) and it keeps my love for photography alive. I get paid for work with my auto focus DSLR but I get joy from my rangefinder. Obsolete? Yes, and thank god it is!

 

[Roger Hicks]

They were surpassed by SLR technology some years ago.

You mean I'll get better pictures if I stop using my Leicas and go back to SLRs?

On focus speed, I'd add that often, I'll prefocus on a given spot and shoot when the subject is there. Or I'll focus at a given distance and shoot as the subject comes into focus. Either is quicker (from pressing the release to taking the picture) than any autofocus can be.

Then there's zone focusing...

Cheers,

R.

 

[Harry Lime]

You should have hung on to your 5D! The Canon EF mount is far more accommodating to older manual lenses than Nikon. With adapters you can mount Nikon F, Leica R, Contax Yashica, and probably other old manual lenses, with the only linitation being stop-down metering.

I had an adapter that allowed me to mount my Leica-R glass on the 5D.

Stop-down metering isn't the end of the world if you are shooting landscapes or a still life, but it's not practical for normal work.

HL

 

[mfunnell]

Who the hell would have supplied them to war photographers in that onslaught.The allies were lucky to get equipment,ammunition,food or fuel in the Normandy campaign never mind thinking about getting batteries to War photographers if they HAD needed them.

The US military and the battlefields they work on are, these days, very different and very high-tech places. If power is needed, if battery charging is required, the military has any amount of ability to supply those services, if only because they need 'em to support their own gagetry. Further, the US military runs a very slick media management operation, and knows full well that reporters need to be fed whatever they want, whenever they want it, even at the expense of troops, if good ink is to be generated. If embedded reporters want it, they're going to get it. Charged batteries are at the lower end of that difficulty scale; fresh lobster and caviar is at the high end but can be done for a sufficiently prominent "media personality" purporting to be a reporter (I am not making the latter up - though the particular individual I'm thinking of was operating in East Timor and the US military wasn't involved).

If feeding the egos as well as the bellies (and even the gadgets) of the press is required to get "good press" then they're to get whaever they want. No trouble or expense spared.

Outside any military-controlled "embed" system, however, logistics may be a little more difficult (often ranging quickly towards the impossible). Therein, I imagine, lies a real problem in journalistic ethics (for those who have some, rather than seeing it as the oxymoron it all to often is).

...Mike

 

[mfunnell]

Stop-down metering isn't the end of the world if you are shooting landscapes or a still life, but it's not practical for normal work.

For some, landscape and/or still life is normal work. Not my thing, generally, but there's nothing wrong with it.

...Mike

 

[David Goldfarb]

Stop-down metering isn't the end of the world if you are shooting landscapes or a still life, but it's not practical for normal work.

HL

I don't know about that. I use a handheld meter for most of what I do. Unless you're shooting in rapidly changing lighting conditions or moving in and out of the macro range, it isn't necessary to meter every frame, and I'd say it's usually better (more consistent frame to frame) to take one meter reading, set the camera, and leave it that way until lighting conditions change or you want a different aperture.

Even if lighting conditions are changing, it's often between two situations--sun and shade, or sun and clouds. In those cases, I take two readings, pay attention, and switch back and forth between them as needed.

Sunrise/sunset--then TTL metering and auto aperture lenses really are more convenient.

 

[David Goldfarb]

Harry Lime was talking about stopped down metering with manual lenses on an SLR. On a rangefinder it's different, because you aren't composing and focusing through the lens, so there's no advantage on those points to auto aperture lenses.

There is another issue though, in low light, that some SLR meters aren't entirely linear, and if you use stopped down metering, you might end up in the non-linear zone more easily. On the other hand, if you're doing it with a digital camera, you can also check the histogram to be sure.

 

[kevin m]

This gets ridiculous, doesn't it, imaging all the hypothetical scenarios where ONLY a rangefinder camera can get the shot. Some of the arguments would be pretty convincing if it weren't for the overwhelming amount of high-quality photographic evidence that contradicts them: If Nachtwey's that good with a lowly Canon, just imagine what he could do with a Leica MP!

Use whatever camera that makes sense, or makes you happy, but leave the mythologizing to the advertising department.

 

[Harry Lime]

Harry Lime was talking about stopped down metering with manual lenses on an SLR. On a rangefinder it's different, because you aren't composing and focusing through the lens, so there's no advantage on those points to auto aperture lenses.

Exactly.

Shooting an SLR camera without an auto iris function is a PIA. If you have the aperture set to f16 on a sunny day, the view though the viewfinder is like looking through a pair of welders goggles.

None of the Canon adaptors support an automatic iris, as it is controlled electronically by the camera body. 3rd party lenses obviously do not talk to Canon bodies, nor do they have the linkage or other means for the iris to be manipulated.

On an RF camera it obviously doesn't matter that the lens doesn't have an auto-iris, because you are not looking though the lens.

I rarely use the built in meter in any camera. 99% of the time I use a handheld meter, even when I am shooting with a digital body.

 

[tmfabian]

M2user, you have completely lost me. Who is supplying batteries to modern photographers in wars? In the documentary "War Photographer," James Nachtway is shooting an EOS 1, a totally battery dependent camera. Where was he getting batteries and recharging them in bombed out countries? My 1DsMkIII will shoot the equivalent of almost 200 36 exposure rolls on a single charge. How many rolls of film did Bob Capa have in his pocket when he stormed a beach?

I'm confused.

Hold on there cowboy....you have a 1dsMkIII that ACTUALLY focuses?
My wifes has been back to canon 5 times and it still can't get a focus lock.