This is a continuation of a conversation that was started in the "Rangefinder Renaissance: your opinions?" in this thread
Rangefinder Renaissance: your opinions?
Doug said:
Stephen, thanks for your observations, and I largely agree. But I've been told that in general the modern auto-focus SLR focusing screen is optimized for viewfinder brightness at the expense of focusing ease. Makes sense, as the ubiquitous zooms tend to be slow, dimming the viewfinder, while the AF handles the focusing. Do you find this to be true? And doesn't this undermine the ability to use manual focusing?
For consumer version lenses and cameras, I would pretty much agree with you. However, I generally use professional level equipment (Nikon F5, Fuji S2Pro, etc) and they are very very fast to focus, and only in a few circumstances do they tend to hunt. Then I just switch to manual and continue without issue. There are also additional viewfinder screens that one can use to aid in focusing if someone is having trouble with the split viewfinder, which I agree is hard to use with slower lenses. The matte screens make a big difference. I find that AF works in 95% of the situations that I decided to use for. The rest of the time I turn it off, and rarely have an issue with manual focusing. Granted, I still have better than 20/20 vision which may or may not be a factor.
I have no problem focusing any of my lenses with the exception of the Nikon 70-210mm f3.5/f4.5, which is the slowest lens I own, save a couple very wide angles which really don't need much focusing anyway
🙂. I also have a consumer 28-105mm f3.5/4.5, but I have no issues with focusing this lens manually even though it is a slower consumer lens. Well call this one an enigma. I think the real issue comes in the longer f4 and f5.6 lenses which are indeed hard to focus as you point out. I tend to avoid the slower consumer lenses due to the reduced image quality anyway, and only have a couple wide range zooms for a light travel kit.
All my main lenses are high quality glass, and very fast. Basically, from 2.8 to 1.4. None of these give me any trouble with focusing at all. The 70-200 2.8 VR lens is probably the best lens I've ever used, and the best Nikon has ever made. Its fast for a med-long tele zoom at 2.8, has vibration/motion reduction which lets me handhold down to 1/60th even at full zoom, and it snaps into focus very quickly and quietly. Its very sharp, and has excellent contrast and bokeh. I can manually override the AF when needed, and I believe I can focus this lens just as fast as any of my rangefinders. I really don't see the difference between the two as far as focusing except in very dim light. In that case I use AF with the illuminator, and get excellent results. And I don't even own the AFS lenses, which are even faster to focus that the ones I have.
Then again, this all comes down to what you shoot. Shooting still lifes, portraits, landscapes and the like, the AF is best turned off which is what I do. For action, sports, street, etc, the dynamic tracking AF can't be beat. It can give you 5fps tracking a moving object in any direction, even with the lens wide open for blurring the background, and give you a series of images all in focus and properly exposed.
I'd also like to apologize for my statement, 'for serious photography I'd grab my SLR'. I was actually referring to being paid for work by a client vs not being paid as in personal work. I certainly never meant to imply that work done on a rangefinder isn't considered serious work. I've done what I considered serious work on my rangefinder myself, and would feel slighted if someone stated otherwise. But for serious, I mean the following;
I recently spent 5 days in So Carolina on an editorial assignment for a 6 page spread. I shot just about 400 images per day, or 1823 images total (I would have shot much less if I was using film
🙂. The conditions and subjects varied and were all over the map. I used extreme wide angles (14mm), to a 400mm f4. Night photography, time exposures, daylight fill flash, action, editorial portraits, general stills, some macro, and a couple panoramas. This is what I considered serious work. The need to bring back the goods, with no excuses, and not knowing exactly what will be thrown at you during your assignment. You need to be ready for anything. Only about 1/2 of what I did in SC I could do on my RFs. The rest would be a huge compromise, and some impossible at best. I never knew exactly what I would need to shoot, and thus needed to be very flexible and have the most versatile equipment I could. This is why I feel the SLR is far more versatile than a rangefinder. It handled everything thrown at me, did so with excellent results, and the minimum hassle on my part.
If you ask most medium format or large format users what is the most versatile format to use in all situations, they will most decidedly agree its the 35mm SLR. Portable, accessories galore, compact, lenses to cover just about anything including connections to microscopes, telescopes, electroscopes, high speed photography, 250 exposure film backs, Polaroid backs, data backs, you name it. Its a very versatile format. They may prefer their chosen format for their type of work, but if they knew they might be needed to cover almost anything from studio, macro, journalism, portraits, aerial, sports, scientific, technical, medical, etc, the 35mm SLR format is very hard to beat.
The following would be the question I would ask if someone had to decide which camera system was the most versatile for all round photography;
"If you were a professional and could only have one camera, with every lens and accessory offered for that camera, and would be required to adapt to just about any photographic situation you can conceive of, what camera system would you choose?"
My answer without a doubt, would be a Canon or Nikon 35mm SLR system.
