Using RF cameras has made me sloppy..

nobbylon said:
Must admit Huss, this smells a bit! I can hand hold my F6 easily at the same speeds as my M4 and get better exposures with the same accuracy of focus.
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Nothing wrong with my F6. All the fault is on me for being lackadaisical with the handling of it.

:):eek:
 
Huss said:
Yep. The RF cameras do not have a mirror slapping up and down.
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The F6 (and also the F4 and the F5) have a mirror balancer - when the mirror flips up the balancer creates a vibration of equal strength towards the opposite direction to counteract the mirror slap.

I don't have a F6 but it works well on my F4s and F5. The increased weight helps too.

I am not a RF person so i cannot comment further.
 
Huss said:
Nothing wrong with my F6. All the fault is on me for being lackadaisical with the handling of it.

:):eek:
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Sadly my rangefinder days are done. My eyesight is no longer good enough to manually focus so I’m selling off my Leica gear. Back to Nikon and happy I kept the F6. It’s by far the most capable 35mm film camera I’ve used or owned. I seem to use my iphone instead of a carry round these days anyway.
I’ll miss the smaller lenses on the r/f’s.
 
fenixv8 said:
SLR require a bit more steadiness than RF at same shutter speed?
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I doubt that.

Anyway, I wonder what extraordinarily steady hands many of you have. I never use anything below 1/250s when shooting without a tripod. With my 50-135mm APS-C telezoom I use 1/500s as a minimum, with my 8/500mm tele at least 1/1000s.

Tompas with the shaky hands? :)
 
Tompas said:
I doubt that.

Anyway, I wonder what extraordinaryly steady hands many of you have. I never use anything below 1/250s when shooting without a tripod. With my 50-135mm APS-C telezoom I use 1/500s as a minimum, with my 8/500mm tele at least 1/1000s.

Tompas with the shaky hands? :)
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1/30, 1/60 is quite a normal speed when I shoot with RF or TLR (with the normal focal length). 1/15 requires a bit of concentration and practice, but not beyond impossible...
 
Might simply be that the distance from the front of the lens to the film plane (or the distance between your right and left hand) is longer on an SLR (generally) so any shake would be more pronounced, if you see what I mean?

I shoot at 1/8th at night but it's definitely harder the heavier the camera is. I attribute shake more to camera weight than anything else.
 
Sorry don't buy this. No problem handholding something like a Mamiya 645 at 1/8. Something else is going on and you try to blame it on the mirror.
 
The old formula of using a shutter speed greater than the focal length of a the lens is a bit old fashioned and fine if all you do is make 6x4 prints.
I would think nikon would have thought about vibration coming from the mirror by now. Is it not more the case that you shoot a bit more slowly taking more time to press the shutter on the Leica?
 
Some, but not too much weight, a leaf shutter, good technique, all this combines to help lower camera shake. Would think a 6X6 TLR could be used at 1/15 if need be. I have a Olympus Pen D, with the 32mm f1.9 lens and a 5 blade Copal shutter with timed speeds down to 1/8 sec. and I don't hesitate to use that speed if I can brace myself. The problem with that camera is scale focus, wide open and closer than 10 ft., well you better get it right, there's not much DOF to cover you.
 
sepiareverb said:
Could it be the lenses?
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Nah, I used a Zeiss ZF.2 35 f2. That lens is a cracker.

I just shot a test roll taking more care w my technique and will see the results tomorrow. Half with the Zeiss and mf, the other half with a 50 1.8g and af. To compare my mf to af as well as holding the camera steady.
 
Got my test roll back, and all the pics are pin sharp.
So yup, camera shake cuz of my sloppiness was to blame.

Thankfully - I didn't want there to be anything up with my F6!
 
Ronald M said:
Too many moving parts in SLR. Leica at least had mirror dampers in R6 and later and the early German tanks like sl.
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The F6 has counterweights on the mirror (as does the F5 and I think F4) that balance out vibes much better than any other film SLR.
But that doesn't help if the user has shaky hands like I did!
 
BLKRCAT said:
I agree with huss. If you are a rangefinder user you will get into habits that would lead to critically unsharp images with a film slr. Things like shooting 1/30th, shooting wide open. Shooting wide open still yields good results with a rangefinder because the lens is so much closer to the film plane. The amount of optical compensation to get the lens out past the mirror box on an SLR degrades the image more so than with an RF.

Been there, experienced that. SLR's aren't the way to go for me for 35mm but my P67...
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This whole thing seem to me like which is better, film or digital. :p

Huss has plainly shown that he got carless in his technique with his SLR. I don't know how that would happen just because he uses and RF also. To me, one still needs to brace ones body for steadiness, and push the shutter button correctly. Regardless, I am glad to hear he has worked it out for himself to get better photos.

Nor do I know how the rear lens element being closer to the film plane would default to sharper photos. Even if one agrees that more compensations are needed for SLR lenses, there is no compensation possible for the circles of confusion being more oval when the rear element is close to the film plane. I would think the two things, closer to the film plane, or needing more compensation (which might make the distance factor of no consequence) would be very minor compared to each other, and second, would tend to cancel each other's advantages out.

But I am certainly not educated in lens theory or mathematics, so I could be all wet.
 
willie_901 said:
I appreciate this reminder to switch mental gears when changing cameras.
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Good advice there. SLRs and RFs require different techniques and mindset.

I have found that with my M-P 240 it is better to use focal length x 2 or 3 = shutter speed (50mm minimum of 1/125, 90mm minimum of 1/250) for hand held shots. Digital sensors relentlessly reveal camera movement when printing large. If I can brace against something solid, 2x seems to work.

Using a monopod is a great help, too. I was able to get sharp shots in a Buddhist temple in Mongolia with my M240 and 50/1.0 combo at 1/45 using a monopod.
 
I think with SLRs it is just the viewfinder blackout that leads to problems with lower shutter speeds, particularly 1/30th and below, and perhaps even higher speeds, though we are perhaps not as conscious of those. Simply: if I can see where I'm pointing while the shutter is open, I'm less likely to move. If all I can see is black, then...

I love both kinds of cameras though.
 
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