jlw
Rangefinder camera pedant
One quick pic from last Sunday, which was Asian Culture Day at the museum where I'm occasionally asked to photograph; among the events was a performance by a taiko (Japanese drumming) troupe, which turned out to be very photogenic.
If you've seen this type of drumming, you know that the stick work is very, very fast; getting a good picture depends partly on catching the sticks in the right place.
I was shooting with both a DSLR (a Nikon D80, which is supposed to be pretty responsive) and the R-D 1. The DSLR was useful for tight close-ups, using either an 85/1.8 or an 80-200/2.8... but all the really good action shots came from the R-D 1.
Short shutter lag is only half the battle here -- you also have to be able to sense the movement rhythms in order to know when the picture moments are coming. Since I had never seen taiko before, I couldn't rely on experience to predict the peak actions; I had to learn "on the fly."
I've always maintained that this type of learning is easier with an RF camera -- the finder never blacks out, so you get immediate visual feedback to help judge whether or not your shutter clicks were at the right time. I find this feedback very helpful for "getting in the groove" of movement rhythms -- if you concentrate on watching through the finder, you get a feel fairly quickly for when to trip the shutter.
Tech data for this photo was 1/480 and f/1.5 at EI 1600, using a 50mm f/1.5 Nokton on the R-D 1.
If you've seen this type of drumming, you know that the stick work is very, very fast; getting a good picture depends partly on catching the sticks in the right place.
I was shooting with both a DSLR (a Nikon D80, which is supposed to be pretty responsive) and the R-D 1. The DSLR was useful for tight close-ups, using either an 85/1.8 or an 80-200/2.8... but all the really good action shots came from the R-D 1.
Short shutter lag is only half the battle here -- you also have to be able to sense the movement rhythms in order to know when the picture moments are coming. Since I had never seen taiko before, I couldn't rely on experience to predict the peak actions; I had to learn "on the fly."
I've always maintained that this type of learning is easier with an RF camera -- the finder never blacks out, so you get immediate visual feedback to help judge whether or not your shutter clicks were at the right time. I find this feedback very helpful for "getting in the groove" of movement rhythms -- if you concentrate on watching through the finder, you get a feel fairly quickly for when to trip the shutter.
Tech data for this photo was 1/480 and f/1.5 at EI 1600, using a 50mm f/1.5 Nokton on the R-D 1.
