The "total photography experience"

[JCdeR]

Bought a near mint 1F last week, love the thingie, love the touch and feel, the engineering.... however looked at lenses for it all this week, looked at CV lenses (nice ones) but thought such a period piece of engineering artwork as the M1 is needed similar optics, so I bought a really nice and "fresh" 1952 50mm 1:2 Summicron collapsable and a SQ 50 viewer, also both fantastic looking and feeling instruments. After having come home I brought the 2 together, introduced them etc. loaded a 100 delta and decided to shoot 36 pic's that afternoon, develop and print them that evening and see the results. Having packed my new set into my bag I set out, chuffed as a cherry to Münich to take the pics. Having found the scene I wanted to photograph (always the same for test purposes) I cam to the conclusion that there was no way in defining the range, the 1F has no rangefinder, hmmmm bummer, anyway not having this get in the way I simulated/estimated the ranges, choes appropriate lens openings, and although really nasty in the beginning it was quite a "the total experience" The pictures didn't turn out all that desasterous, apart from 3 on 36 which were unusable, and about 10 which were at the limit ... I find the experience quite a soothing one, the initial shock being that I, in all my enthiousiasm had totally deisregarded the fact of a lack of rangefinding on the If.
I am contemplating getting a rangefinder, but now after having shot 3 rolls in total one does get extremely good at judging distances ....

 

[Doug]

Indeed! Satisfied buyers of the modern Bessa-L learn this too. A range-judging ability will be at your service with even cameras with rangefinders. It's a common way of shooting quickly. For one, the feel of the lens focusing tab can be learned, to approximate focusing eye-judged distances, perhaps without even looking at the camera, or perhaps in quick consultation with the DoF scale. Not every pic must be precisely focused! Learning distance judging can be made better by noting the distances read-off by an actual RF, sort of an eye-calibration process.

I can tell you're enjoying your 1f... post some pics for us to admire!

 

[akalai]

You should try a wider angle lens....just for variety, as eyeballing or guesstimating the distance with a wider angle lens becomes even easier due to the larger Depth of Field. Thats why I recommended the Voigtlander 28mm to you, great optics, compact, well built and designed to match that 50's aesthetic.

Anyway sounds like your having a lot of fun!

 

[drec]

I feel that I know 15-20 feet on the 50mm lens/by sight pretty well; at f/8, everything should be in focus. As this is most of my photography, I could probably go without a rangefinder, but I like having the training wheels on nonetheless. Honestly, hyperfocusing beforehand is the ONLY way that I feel comfortable raising the camera up so close to someone; I find it agonizing to be so close and then have to fidget for 2-3 seconds after. Lift, shoot, drop! At ease!

 

[richard_l]

When I'm out snapshoting with my 28mm Ultron, I almost never actually focus on anything. I just set it at hyperfocal and forget it until I change the aperture. No need for a hyperfocal chart. Just set the aperture (at f/8 for example) and turn the focus ring until the infinity symbol is centered at the same f-stop (f/8) on the DOF scale.