Rangefinder advantages?

[Jeff Charles]

The X100 is technically not a rangefinder camera, because it does not focus using a coincident rangefinder. However, it should provide several of the advantages usually attributed to rangefinder cameras over SLRs:

• No blackout while the mirror is raised
• Brightline finder that lets you see what's happening outside the frame
• No mirror slap vibration, which allows handholding at slower shutter speeds
• Quieter

Which leaves the focusing mechanism as the primary difference. So, what are the advantages of rangefinder focusing? Greater ability to focus in very low light? Other advantages?

Jeff

 

[Roger Hicks]

The X100 is technically not a rangefinder camera, because it does not focus using a coincident rangefinder. However, it should provide several of the advantages usually attributed to rangefinder cameras over SLRs:

• No blackout while the mirror is raised
• Brightline finder that lets you see what's happening outside the frame
• No mirror slap vibration, which allows handholding at slower shutter speeds
• Quieter

Which leaves the focusing mechanism as the primary difference. So, what are the advantages of rangefinder focusing? Greater ability to focus in very low light? Other advantages?

Jeff

Dear Jeff,

Manual focus.

And, of course, in this case, interchangeable lenses.

Would I prefer an X100 to a fixed lens film rangefinder? Yes.

Does it compare with an M9? Not really.

Cheers,

R.

 

[JRG]

The X100 is technically not a rangefinder camera, because it does not focus using a coincident rangefinder. However, it should provide several of the advantages usually attributed to rangefinder cameras over SLRs:

• No blackout while the mirror is raised
• Brightline finder that lets you see what's happening outside the frame
• No mirror slap vibration, which allows handholding at slower shutter speeds
• Quieter

Which leaves the focusing mechanism as the primary difference. So, what are the advantages of rangefinder focusing? Greater ability to focus in very low light? Other advantages?

Jeff

Add to your list that most SLRs cannot use a true wide angle lens design (e.g. the Biogon) because there isn't room; retrofocus designs are typically required.

 

[shashinka-ichiban]

The ability to manually focus better in low light is subjective.

 

[Sparrow]

Looking really cool, and the first among your hipster friends to have the latest camera fashion? whatever a hipster is 🙂

This could be the first camera to go out of fashion before it's actually available, killed off by speculation fatigue

 

[Jeff Charles]

Dear Jeff,

Manual focus.

And, of course, in this case, interchangeable lenses.

Would I prefer an X100 to a fixed lens film rangefinder? Yes.

Does it compare with an M9? Not really.

Cheers,

R.

I had a Hexar AF a few years ago. The AF worked great, but I found it annoying to have to focus and recompose for each shot of an off-center subject. I guess manual focus would help in that situation if there was sufficient DOF to rely on the initial focus acquisition for multiple shots. I did that with manual-focus SLRs, but they also supported AF adjustments using the ground glass.

The M9 is clearly in a different league than the X100. Given the price difference, it darn well better be!. Still, each camera has capabilities that the other doesn't. It remains to be seen how well the X100's output compares to the M9's.

Jeff

 

[Sonnar Brian]

The rangefinder is a sophisticated opto-mechanical unit designed to provide accurate assist for man-in-the-loop focus mechanisms.

Now we're 21st century, baby...

 

[steveyork]

The X100 is technically not a rangefinder camera, because it does not focus using a coincident rangefinder. However, it should provide several of the advantages usually attributed to rangefinder cameras over SLRs:

• No blackout while the mirror is raised
• Brightline finder that lets you see what's happening outside the frame
• No mirror slap vibration, which allows handholding at slower shutter speeds
• Quieter

Which leaves the focusing mechanism as the primary difference. So, what are the advantages of rangefinder focusing? Greater ability to focus in very low light? Other advantages?

Jeff

Doesn't the existing 4/3 cameras from Panasonic and Olympus have most of these?

 

[kmallick]

Doesn't the existing 4/3 cameras from Panasonic and Olympus have most of these?

Not at all. The micro 4/3 cameras have a very bad blackout in the LCD and the EVF (not in the attached OVF of course). The shutter noise is not as quiet as you would expect either. But technology is evolving towards electronic shutter that might be very quiet some day.

I would like to add couple of advantage that RFs have typically:

1. smaller lens
2. no zooms so you can concentrate on composition with the only prime you have attached
3. conspicuous at times compared to large DSLRs

 

[rpilottx]

You don't have to mortgage your children to own one and it actually has features as good as current generation dSLR's.

 

[jsrockit]

Doesn't the existing 4/3 cameras from Panasonic and Olympus have most of these?

No, not really.

 

[Jeff Charles]

...

1. 
   ...
2. no zooms so you can concentrate on composition with the only prime you have attached
   ...

I find that a shooting with prime is quicker and more spontaneous than with a zoom, because my mind and eye adapt to the field of view.

 

[Jeff Charles]

Looking really cool, and the first among your hipster friends to have the latest camera fashion? whatever a hipster is 🙂

This could be the first camera to go out of fashion before it's actually available, killed off by speculation fatigue

A definition of hipster from the Urban Dictionary: "One who possesses tastes, social attitudes, and opinions deemed cool by the cool." I am not cool, and I have no cool friends, or even any friends who can tell one camera from another, so I guess I am out of luck 🙂

You have to admit that Fuji has done a great job rolling out this camera. They have created "desire", which is the essence of marketing a product, no matter how good, that nobody actually needs. I certainly want one.

Jeff

 

[unixrevolution]

Dear Jeff,

Manual focus.

And, of course, in this case, interchangeable lenses.

Would I prefer an X100 to a fixed lens film rangefinder? Yes.

Does it compare with an M9? Not really.

Cheers,

R.

Are you implying that the X100 has no manual focus, or that its manual focus is inferior to a rangefinder's? If the former, you're wrong, if the latter, I'm pretty sure you're right. The coincidence rangefinder system is the apex of manual focus systems...so much so that even SLRs adopted a sort of version of the idea, the split-image focus screen.

Keeping in mind of course the X100 has the option of AF, which no true rangefinder I know of has. And it's cheaper than any digital RF by a lot.

 

[Roger Hicks]

Dear Erik,

The latter. I'm certainly wrong sometimes, but rarely that wrong. Bear in mind that I saw and handled prototypes at photokina and wrote it up for Shutterbug several months ago.

An AF option is not really an option on a true rangefinder - the systems are too incompatible - and I'd certainly prefer a real rangefinder to a 'focus confirmation' system.

And yes, it's cheaper than any digital RF. So is a Holga. So is a (modern) Olympus Pen. If it didn't look so nice, with its retro styling, I really think it wouldn't attract the comparisons to RF cameras that it does. It's a very nice, well designed point and shoot with manual overrides -- much like the Rollei AF35M, or whatever it was called, apart from the trick viewfinder.

Cheersd,

R.

 

[Jeff Charles]

...If it didn't look so nice, with its retro styling, I really think it wouldn't attract the comparisons to RF cameras that it does. It's a very nice, well designed point and shoot with manual overrides -- much like the Rollei AF35M, or whatever it was called, apart from the trick viewfinder.

I think you are right about the styling, at least for many people. But then, it is a photographic tool and a consumer product, and looks are part of the consumer product game.

There's hardly a digital camera available today, including most DSLRs, that does not have a "point and shoot" mode. The X100 will be no different.

I do not see the viewfinder as a "trick." The OVF and the EVF have different uses. The OVF has bright-line framing and minimal lag. The EVF provides a 100% view and no parallax error for close-in shooting. At the X100's minimum focus distance of 10cm, the optical viewfinder will not be much good.

One concern that I do have is the lack of manual focusing with the OVF. Sometimes that would be useful. Maybe switching briefly to the EVF to focus manually will work, but it seems like that would be awkward.

I am leaning towards the idea that I will have to buy an X100 and use if for a while to find out if it "works" for me.

Jeff

 

[Catto]

At the X100's minimum focus distance of 10cm, the optical viewfinder will not be much good.

In fact, the 10cm focus distance is only in 'macro' mode, which automatically selects the EVF or the LCD on the back - you actually CAN'T use the optical finder. Minimum focus distance for non-macro / OVF use is 80cm...just so you know.
R!

 

[Snapper_uk]

The ability to manually focus quickly and accuately is one of the big appeals of rangefinders for me. None of that bleep bleep bleep, flashing red squares rubbish....

 

[Tompas]

I am not cool, and I have no cool friends, or even any friends who can tell one camera from another (...)

Well, I am very cool, and staring at a micro TV screen at arm's length is uncool in the extreme -- so yes, the X100 is a camera for the cool.

Hipsters, by the way, don't photograph at all. They are being photographed.

 

[Roger Hicks]

I do not see the viewfinder as a "trick." The OVF and the EVF have different uses. The OVF has bright-line framing and minimal lag. The EVF provides a 100% view and no parallax error for close-in shooting. At the X100's minimum focus distance of 10cm, the optical viewfinder will not be much good.
Jeff

Dear Jeff,

Not 'a trick', just 'trick'. A difference between the English and American languages, perhaps? 'Trick' is also used to mean 'clever', 'special' or just 'unusual'. The usage goes back to the 16th century.

Cheers,

R.