Rolleicord vs. Leica M3 - totally unscientific comparison

digitalintrigue said:
My point: pick the camera you prefer to shoot; onlookers are irrelevant. It is not of any concern which would gather more attention...
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No, I don't think you have been to India. Frances and I often worked a double act: one to distract the onlookers, the other to do whatever needs to be done (such as reloading). The speed with which a crowd can gather in India, and its density when it does, have to be seen to be believed. Onlookers ARE a concern.

Cheers,

R.
 
graywolf said:
Am I the only one who noted that he took the two photos on different days?

Different days, different lighting, the Roleicord being an camera he was not as familiar with as he was with the Leica, different film, mean entirely different photos. He does not post the photos, so no one can tell anything about his test except that the post seems to be a troll as this is the TLR forum.
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That's rather impolite, Mr Gray Wolf. Don't trolls usually post under a pseudonym? I merely thought that my little story might be of interest.

Sean.
 
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Last spring, I traveled for six weeks in France, Spain and the UK, shooting every day with a Rollei, and no one ever even glanced at me, not even the guy in Normandy who was shooting with a Mamiya TLR. His newly-acquired hernia may have distracted him.
 
Sean Moran said:
That's rather impolite, Mr Gray Wolf. Don't trolls usually post under a pseudonym? I merely thought that my little story might be of interest.

Sean.
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And to some of us it was of interest.

The factors that make a camera work for one person and not another are so hard to peg down. And as you saw, why one camera will work better on one scene than another camera, hard to say. But it happens, as your story shows. Now of course the 'science' part of your experiment is seriously lacking, and many here have been seemed determined to shred your post on that basis. All this for a post which title included the phrase, 'totally unscientific comparison.' Go figure...

Nice that you have reduced your travel load by a bit. I always enjoy those periods where I am 'at peace' with my camera choice and focus on shooting, not on cameras.

By the way, if you get a chance to use a Rolleilfex with a Planar or Xenotar lens, give it a go. Slightly different look than the Xenar.
 
I enjoyed reading your post. My travel camera that goes everywhere with me is a Leica M3 with Zeiss 50mm Sonnar lens and either Ilford Pan F+ 50 ISO or Tri-X 400. I also have a few TLRs and a couple Hasselblads that occasionally find their way into my bag, but the Leica is always there - Germany, France, Iraq, Michigan...
 
As promised ... Pics

As promised ... Pics

Hello Again,

As you requested ... here are the two photographs we have been discussing. I haven't processed them at all, apart from shrinking them to a reasonable size and saving as JPEGs.

Neither is great, but which do you prefer?

Sean.
 

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The landscape format- left- is more dynamic in composition that the square one- right. I wonder what would happen if in the right shot, the tree on the right had been split by the frame edge as in the left shot It 'contains' the composition against the backlight in the 35mm shot. The space to the right of the tree on the square one throw it out of balance and causes the fountain to be cramped against the left edge.

Seeing a horizontal composition and a square composition are simply different. I look for scenes that will work with the camera I have. It's no surprise to me that the scene that grabbed your eye while you had a Leica in hand is better. Some day, try the other way around? If you ever carry just a 6x6 again, of course.
 
I prefer the one shot with the Leica. Not because it was made by a Leica, but because it is rather more well composed compared to the shot taken with the rollei.

The old saying "it's not the camera..." certainly rings true here.
 
tunalegs said:
I prefer the one shot with the Leica. Not because it was made by a Leica, but because it is rather more well composed compared to the shot taken with the rollei.

The old saying "it's not the camera..." certainly rings true here.
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I agree. They are two very different pictures.
 
tunalegs said:
I prefer the one shot with the Leica. Not because it was made by a Leica, but because it is rather more well composed compared to the shot taken with the rollei.
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I agree. The composition used in the Leica shot has something going for it, while the Rollei photo looks (to me) somehow awkward. I don't think that has anything to do with the camera or rectangular vs square frames. I think one photo is just plain better than the other.

...Mike
 
I think the car in the bottom left of the first balances out the composition. The second shot is too tightly framed... Simply there's more going on in the first, after looking around a bit your eyes then set on the subject with the pleasant lighting.

Hope that comes out making sense.
 
The difference isn't in the cameras. It's in the poor use
of the square. The square's foreground -- nearly a third
of the frame -- is empty roadbed. Had you tilted the
camera up, so that the curb was at the bottom of your
frame, and more of the light streaming through the tree
was visible at the top of the frame, you might have made
something remarkable.

I completely disagree with the people who are saying that
the rectangle somehow is more "energetic" or pleasing
than the square. I like HCB. I like Doisneau. One shot
rectangles, the other squares. Both work. The energy comes
from the composition, not the frame.
 
I too am of the opinion that what makes the leica picture more appealing is the person beyond the fountain, the car and the natural framing. There is so much happening

However I believe your point of your experiment was to determine if you require medium format AND 35 mm to satisfy your photographic needs. This small unscientific test shows that you personally don't need both. It's great to be able to simplify... especially for travel.
 
Sanders McNew said:
The difference isn't in the cameras. It's in the poor use
of the square. The square's foreground -- nearly a third
of the frame -- is empty roadbed. Had you tilted the
camera up, so that the curb was at the bottom of your
frame, and more of the light streaming through the tree
was visible at the top of the frame, you might have made
something remarkable.

I completely disagree with the people who are saying that
the rectangle somehow is more "energetic" or pleasing
than the square. I like HCB. I like Doisneau. One shot
rectangles, the other squares. Both work. The energy comes
from the composition, not the frame.
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My feelings exactly.
 
This is not about the camera (Leica vs Rolleicord), it is about the composition of this particular scene, where, in this case, the horizontal rectangle works better than the square frame.
 
Sean Moran said:
Hello Again,

As you requested ... here are the two photographs we have been discussing. I haven't processed them at all, apart from shrinking them to a reasonable size and saving as JPEGs.

Neither is great, but which do you prefer?

Sean.
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Hi Sean,

I own both a Rolleicord and a Leica M3. Now having done some printing tonight from some negs I shot in NYC this past spring on a Rolleicord. On the surface I say I got some really nice prints. That being said I just uploaded a shot to the gallery this evening that is every bit as powerful, even as a negative scan.

What I'm saying is, I like both cameras, they both make great photographs, end of story.
 
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