Rangefinder Class - Photo 101r

[albrigh]

So I've taken Photo I and Photo II at a local community college with an excellent teacher. It was a black and white only photo class in which I mostly used my Canon AE-1 where they teach negative development and printing. I learned a lot, but I'd like to take a Rangefinder class. Since there aren't any.....***

I figure that going through the same set of assignments might help me learn how to take better technical pictures and improve my composition with my rangefinder. However, there might be some new assignements specific to rangefinders or perhaps some of these are more important for rangefinders. Would any experts add any subjects if you were to teach a rangefinder class?

Photo I
Depth of Field
Perspective
The Thing Itself
Movement

Photo II
Multiple Exposure
Still Life
Landscape
Sequence
Take a picture of something ugly
Take a picture of something beautiful
Make a beautiful picture
Special project

A lot of these subjects I wouldn't shoot on my own; however, after I'm done I know that I have learned something.

What I would add/change
1. Light/exposure guessing (I use old RF's with poor or no TTL)
2. Take a good picture at each depth of field
3. Learn where the rangefinder is in the viewfinder
4. ????


Andrew Albright




***I'm new to this forum and haven't found any post like this, so if someone already covered this please point me to the link.

 

[FrankS]

Welcome, AA.

Obviously all of the basic principles of photography apply to both SLRs and RFs. RFs have traditionally been used differently and for different purposes. A good RF assignment might be to stand on a street corner, set the camera's shutter speed and aperture for the existing light conditions, pre-focus the lens to a distance where you anticipate you subject to be (take into account shutter speed and f-stop again so you will have sufficient depth of field),

hold the camera in your right hand, then just hang out and blend in.

When you see something interesting approaching, say a bicycle courier with a big box, wait for the subject to enter your picture field, then quickly raise the pre-set and pre-focused camera to your eye, frame as quickly as possible, take your picture, and lower your had and camera back down.

Then continue to hang out and blend in. Pre-adjust your camera's exposure controls if the light changes, and change focus if you anticipate action closer or farther from you. Hang out and blend in. Stroll a bit if your location is not as interesting as somewhere else.

In my opinion, this modus operandi is the biggest difference between typical SLR use and traditional RF use. RF for the street, for discrete photography. With an SLR you would typically bring the camera to your face, focus, adjust something, focus again, and eventually take a picture, No one is saying you can't use an SLR like a RF or a RF like an slr, but the beauty of a RF is to use it's strengths, IMO

Have fun!

 

[jlw]

Your course outline sounds well-applicable to general photography regardless of camera type. Here are a couple of specific suggestions for adapting it to cover skills that are more RF-specific:

Depth of field -- you don't have a DOF preview button (which only shows an approximation anyway) so it's good to learn how to interpret the DOF scale on each lens:

-- How to estimate the near and far limits of sharp focus beyond your intended subject, for the aperture you want to use.

-- How to use the rangefinder and the DOF scale to find out what f/stop you'll need to assure sharp focus from a certain close point to a certain far point.

-- The concept of hyperfocal distance; for a given aperture, set the distance scale to this distance and everything will be in focus from half this distance to infinity (useful for "grab-shot" photography.)

For this lesson, you'd want to take actual pictures so you could compare the appearance of the results to what you might expect from the DOF scale. Remember that DOF is actually an optical illusion, and that it varies depending on the degree of enlargement, your own visual acuity, your expectations of what constitutes "sharp" focus, etc., so ANY DOF scale or calculation is always only an approximation!

Parallax -- The viewfinder of an RF camera doesn't show exactly the same field of view as the lens sees, because its finder window is some distance from the lens; this phenomenon is called parallax. Even though most modern RF cameras include compensation for parallax, it's still not a complete correction; it's important for you to have a sense of how the finder view differs from the actual lens view. You might gain this by an exercise such as:

-- Seeing the effects of parallax: Choose a subject that lets you define positions very exactly, such as a brick wall, a set of windows, a row of bookshelves, etc. Place your camera on a tripod and and line it up exactly parallel to the subject. Using a tape measure, yardstick, etc., take measurements to determine what point of the subject should be exactly centered in front of the camera lens. Now look through the viewfinder and notice the difference (if any) between the finder view and your measured center point. Repeat this at several distances.

-- Testing framing accuracy: Again using a subject with regular patterns, set up your camera so that the frame edges shown in the viewfinder are lined up exactly with identifiable features of the subject. Take careful notes so you will remember where these edges should be. Take pictures and compare the finished images to your notes, noticing differences both in the position and the area of coverage in the actual pictures, as compared to what you had expected from looking through the viewfinder. Again, repeat this at several distances, and with different lenses if you have them.

These two exercises will help you understand the effects of parallax, so you will be aware of situations in which it might become a problem and will have an instinct for what allowances you should make.

 

[tetrisattack]

--- Using your rangefinder to check precisely how far your car is parked from a stopsign labeled "no parking within 30 feet." 🙂

 

[albrigh]

These are some excellent suggestions with which to get started.

Does anyone know a handy link that has DOF's listed for each f-stop? The reason that I ask is that at least two of my RF's do not have the DOF listed on the lens. (I presume I need this to figure out the 30ft problem?)

Also, what has been posted already by jlw explains something to me. Because I was cutting people's heads off with my Leica III + 9 cm Elmar, I setup a yardstick against the back wall and the camera on a tripod about 8 ft away. I focused the rangefinder and noted how much of the yardstick I saw with both the range and viewfinders. The viewfinder shows a lot more than what is on my negative, the rangefinder less. However, if I center a subject in the rangefinder, the subject always ends up in the bottom left! By doing jlw’s exercise with my 9cm lens, I bet it will make 50 and 35mm lenses (which I’m planning on purchasing) much easier to use.

 

[FrankS]

AA, that parallax problem is greatest with longer lenses and closer distances.

Another big difference between SLR and RF photographyis that with an SLR, you spend a lot of time looking through the camera lens at the focusing screen to get ready to take a shot. With RFs, I spend more time looking without the camera to my face to get ready to take the shot

 

[VinceC]

I think one of the most important things to do is to learn the viewpoints of lenses. If you haven't got fairly reliable finders for your focal lengths, that can be very tough. The 35mm, 50mm and 90mm focal lengths are classic.

I'm a big believer in learning photography with the 50mm lens. It used to be ubiquitous but is now actually pretty uncommon in the consumer-photo world. It can be used for tight portraits, scenics, interiors, exteriors, street. It has a classic look, in part because nearly every photo taken before, say, 1955, used this lens or its larger-format equivalents.

I'd also say that, if you have a Canon AE-1 SLR, there is no harm in spending a lot of time looking through it to physically see the field of view and characteristics of different lenses. If it has depth-of-field preview, that can be useful in helping you to build a visual imprint of the lens. Your goal, after a few weeks, should be to have the ability to look at a scene and be able to mentally frame it with a 50mm lens or your preferred focal length. I definitely would not do a lot of lens changing or camera changing. Spend some time with each lens or camera so you get to know it. Some photo instructors have their students take a lot of pictures WITHOUT film, just to get used to the process. It's not a bad idea.

Learning depth of field is very critical, and thats where an SLR can help speed up the process of learning the relationship between aperture and depth of field. You also might want to hunt for some old photo how-to books at a used bookstore -- books from the 50s and 60s have lots of now-forgotten lore like depth-of-field tables. They also help get you in the right mood.

Finally, one of the most important ways to improve your photography is to look at examples of good photography. The used bookstore or a library will have many old photo books such as Life magazine anthologies and the like. Just as in learning music, it's important to study the classics, even if your own style takes a different path.

 

[kmack]

I use the Camera Assistant calculator on my Zaurus. It has been real handy.

There are also quite a few DOF calculators on the web, a quick google search will net you a bunch of them. You can always chart up a few of your favorite lenses and keet them in your camera bag for reference.

 

[FPjohn]

Dof

Dof

These are some excellent suggestions with which to get started.

Does anyone know a handy link that has DOF's listed for each f-stop? The reason that I ask is that at least two of my RF's do not have the DOF listed on the lens. (I presume I need this to figure out the 30ft problem?)

Also, what has been posted already by jlw explains something to me. Because I was cutting people's heads off with my Leica III + 9 cm Elmar, I setup a yardstick against the back wall and the camera on a tripod about 8 ft away. I focused the rangefinder and noted how much of the yardstick I saw with both the range and viewfinders. The viewfinder shows a lot more than what is on my negative, the rangefinder less. However, if I center a subject in the rangefinder, the subject always ends up in the bottom left! By doing jlw’s exercise with my 9cm lens, I bet it will make 50 and 35mm lenses (which I’m planning on purchasing) much easier to use.

Hello:

Much of this issue is treated in the Leica Manual (11th ed, 1947) in The HW Zieler article "Leica Camera Lenses" pp61- 69 and in Copying pp322-334.

You can use both the formula

NPF A= LxBxF
(LxF) - C(B - F)

or

FPF Z= LxBxF
(LxF) - C(B - F)

where

L is Lens diameter, L= F /f, f is lens aperture

B is distance of object from the diaphram

C is the circle of confusion, 0.03mm

F is focal length

NPF= Near point of focus, FPF= Far point of focus

to get depth of field.

A DYI calculation project for a cold winter!

yours
Frank

 

[VinceC]

Interesting. My 1957 Nikon Handbook suggests 0.01mm for the circle of confusion.

 

[FPjohn]

Not...

Not...

not everyone approves of Leitz's choice.

yours
Frank