The Habit Of Seeing - How Has It Changed?

[Ajax]

The following is an extract from a piece I wrote a few years ago;


I don't buy a manufacturers attempts to fob me off with some marketing crap about how convenient large rear screen LCD viewing is. In the field, it may work for landscape artists or natur mort buffs who can spend hours with their digital capture device on a tripod waiting for or arranging the light. I know that when I'm bouncing around on the ocean or in the midst of an event melee, or stalking the streets, only one viewing system works. I need to be able to see the subject clearly, focus accurately first time around and when I release the shutter, know it is going to happen without delay. I don't want to do the mental transposition game that wastes precious split seconds and misses the moment.


My habit of seeing is so ingrained and my awareness of the mechanical and aesthetic pitfalls of digital capture so acute, grasping the opportunity to expose ones favourite film stock on any camera which has come to be a soul mate over the years is a blissful experience; a release from having to endure the grid lock of a technology devised by those who do not know.

the whole piece can be read at,

http://ajaxnetphoto.blogspot.com/2006/06/habit-of-seeing.html

How have things visually changed in the last five years? Or have they not? Is the experience of using Digital M's endowed with the same sublime thrill manifest by an MP, an M3 or any tool that cranks another frame of polyester in place? What are the emotions of a user upon seering the perfect frame on an LCD within seconds of grabbing it compared with those who think they have got it on film but will never be certain until the film is dunked?

saludos
Jonathan

www.ajaxnetphoto.com

 

[hendriphile]

I've only used non-Leica digital cameras. But I can say that the experience of pressing the shutter release, and then waiting in agony for the shutter to actuate while the moment is lost, makes me want to gouge out my eyeballs with a grapefruit spoon.
With the M3 you press; it takes. 🙂

 

[Pico]

You miniature format people are a strange lot. Real photographers go about with 4x5" rangefinder cameras such as the Linhof Super Technika, or at least the venerable 6x9cm Super Ikonta. I'll never understand your snapshooty ways.

Ranting goes way back.
Look at this for some viscous (thick and sticky) rhetoric.

 

[Archiver]

Although I briefly dabbled with photography in the early 80's, it was not until I got a digital camera that I began to take photography seriously. I did the majority of my photographic learning on compact cameras and DSLR's, and it was not until a lot later that I got into film and bought a rangefinder.

So I'm in the position that many of the newer shooters are, which is the reverse of your situation. I always saw my composition exactly as it would be on the screen before I took it, or thereabouts. I never had to consider framelines or parallax error in composition. I never knew what was outside the frame or what was about to come into it.

Shooting with a Zeiss Ikon, and later with the M7, has taught me to cherish each frame and do my best to make them count. It has shown me how much crap I can photograph when shooting digitally, as the throwaway mentality is really high when you can 'shoot for free'. What I thought was a reasonable composition looked mediocre or just plain boring when it ran off the printing machine in the photo lab.

Nowadays I aim to take those lessons back to digital shooting, so that I do more to make each shot count. I still shoot a lot more with digital, but with a greater sense of quality control.

 

[Pickett Wilson]

"Is the experience of using Digital M's endowed with the same sublime thrill manifest by an MP, an M3..."

You are speaking of religion, not photography. I endured the "sublime thrill" of film for 40 years before digital, and embraced digital as soon as it was developed enough to use professionally. Yeah, Leica M's are great. Have them. Use them. But for me, digital cameras are just so much better tools to actually make photos with.

"and when I release the shutter, know it is going to happen without delay."

lol. You've obviously never shot a 1DmkIV!

 

[_larky]

"Shooting with a Zeiss Ikon, and later with the M7, has taught me to cherish each frame and do my best to make them count. It has shown me how much crap I can photograph when shooting digitally, as the throwaway mentality is really high when you can 'shoot for free'. What I thought was a reasonable composition looked mediocre or just plain boring when it ran off the printing machine in the photo lab."

I feel you. With the X100, the shutter release is instant, but I stil shoot 99% crap, mainly because it's free. So why not? But then I have to edit it all.