Why do we choose RF?

[micromontenegro]

When I started out, I had to make do with what was available to me: my dad's rangefinder. And in the mid seventies, when I graduated to a 35mm of my own, SLRs were unattainable from a monetary standpoint. Oh, how I craved for an SLR.

As years passed and I could afford SLRs, I was too set in the rangefinder way to change. I still think SLRs are better tools 99% of the time, and even own some. I just don't use them.

 

[LeicaMSeattle]

Because we can focus the camera ourselves and use depth of field to control the composition. I prefer RF photography when I can relax and take in the surrounding environment while I devise ways of capturing it.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Two things which seem important to rf users are the bright line frame and the smaller size compared to DSLR and SLR. I use accessory bright line finders, not only on SLR bodies to give me 2 in 1 viewing options, but also on small point and pushes like the little Contax or the Canon G10 (not quite the correct frame format). Any thoughts? Anyone else doing this?

 

[TomBob]

i work 90% film for my work, the rangefinder gives me a good quality small camera to keep on me all the the time for those subtle moments in life that we observe. the Bright line finder gives me notice of what other people around me are doing and how it interferes with my photo. its by far not my main tool of the trade (thats my rz) but its always there, and its always ready

 

[Graham Line]

Two things which seem important to rf users are the bright line frame and the smaller size compared to DSLR and SLR. I use accessory bright line finders, not only on SLR bodies to give me 2 in 1 viewing options, but also on small point and pushes like the little Contax or the Canon G10 (not quite the correct frame format). Any thoughts? Anyone else doing this?

Using the bright line finder makes for a pure, undistracted experience -- it removes the impulse to fiddle with focus and meter settings.

 

[CK Dexter Haven]

1. They're neat-looking gadgets, and elegantly designed.
2. They provide the opportunity to use a wide range of lenses, with historical context and characteristics, all the way up to the most modern pieces.
3. They're small-ish and light-ish.
4. The mirror-slap paranoia thing that never occurred to me until i started reading about rangefinders.
5. They're quiet and unassuming when traveling in potentially unsafe environments.

But, i really DON'T like composing with a rangefinder. I hate seeing the 'extraneous' bits - it just 'confuses' me, since what you see in the viewfinder is never a beautiful, clean composition. I have to look at all the stuff i've decided i don't want to preserve in a photograph, so i when i click, i don't get the same feeling that i'm looking at/capturing something nice. I have to trust too much - that i've included/excluded enough; that the DOF is right....

I really don't understand the contention that SLRs are overly complex. Even the most advanced dSLR has the same controls as a rangefinder, and the other controls can be set once and then ignored. Moreover, any automobile is infinitely more complex than any camera, and carries with it the potential of death. Yet, i've never heard anyone complain that a car was too difficult to drive. Everyone in the forum that's complaining about SLR complexity is doing it on a computer that is more complex than that camera. People also use computers simply, ignoring features they don't need, want, or can't understand. Does a Macro function get in the way of typing an email?

 

[DRabbit]

Probably, because of my dad.

He was into photography. He shot with a Pentax SLR and some of his photos hung around the house when I was growing up, though I don't remember him talking about it all that much. Growing up I was always the artsy kid... always sketching and painting. When computers entered the world and I got into graphics my father somewhat disapproved. "That's not the same as real art" he would say.

I was always interested in photography but never seriously pursued it until the digital world was upon us. After several digital P&Ss and SLR-like digicams, my first serious camera was a digital SLR. I was happy with it, but something I couldn't put my finger on always bugged me. I went through a couple of Canons and lots of gear.

Two years ago I discovered the M8. It intrigued me. I loved the way it looked. I loved listening to other M-users talk about their rangefinders in that mysterious way only they can do. I read everything I could get my hands on and I was sucked in. I learned about rangefinder focusing and framelines and M-glass. I sold off all my Canon gear and bought an M8.

In the last two years, I've come to realize that I LOVE a rangefinder camera. Why? For all the reasons you always hear... it's smaller, it's less intrusive and intimidating, the great glass... but ultimately, I think it goes back to my dad and what he used to say. It doesn't feel like I'm capturing an image with a computer... it feels like I'm taking a photo with a camera. It feels like I'm taking the photo. I don't feel disconnected from the world around me. I wish I could point to just one feature that could help quantify how I feel, but I think it's the whole experience. I think it just caters to the "artsy-fartsy" person that is me.

Now, late in life, almost 40, for the first time, I've bought a FILM rangefinder and will even be exploring the world of developing it myself (thanks in part to a lot of members here). I'm excited. It's like Christmas morning.

And from the great darkroom in the sky, my dad is saying, "now that's a REAL camera."

 

[amateriat]

For me, it was a matter of switching back to RFs, although it took the better part of 30 years. They were what I got started with when I got "serious" about photography. A pair of Yashicas (5000e Lynx and GTN, respectively) informed the first four years of my growing interest in photography. Then, when I came into a bit of money, I ditched the Yashicas for my first, new camera, a Canon F-1 (my start-at-the-top habit stated rather early...), and, with a few exceptions, I rigidly stuck to SLRs until early 2002 (that's, let's see...27 years? Ouch...), when I tired of big cameras and even bigger lenses, and my first taste of a pro digital SLR (early Canon EOS 1D) left a really bad taste in my mouth. You could practically hear me muttering the last lines of Billy Joel's Movin' Out. The experience was similar to when I decided not to watch TV on a regular basis anymore, also, interestingly, about 25-30 years ago: I didn't just wake up on the wrong side of the bed one morning and say, "---- this nonesense, I'm kicking the habit once and for all!" I just decided it wasn't doing anything positive for me, and just left it behind.

I like to think this change was akin to opening the all shutters and windows in the house after a particularly gruelling thunderstorm, breathing in that fresh, ionized air and basking in the first hints of sunlight through the heavy overcast, but that's probably mostly in my mind. I was working with gear that was smaller, (mostly) lighter, and I had a lot less of it; my current setup fits into one mdest-sized bag (a rather tired-looking Domke 803), which I've carried with me around the country with the greatest of ease.

The viewfinder experience working almost exclusively with RFs is something I wouldn't trade for the world. The fact that I much prefer the gestalt and workflow of film dovetails nicely with this.

At the tail-end of my SLR-shooting days, there was a a soccer match I wsas shooting, and I had my pair of Minolta 9xi bodies, stovepipe 80-200 f/2.8 APO on one, 28-70 f/2.8 G on the other, running first here, then there, then back, for the better part of an hour, which was about all I could take. Galfriend noticed my having a bit of a scowl on my face. I pulled the collar of my t-shirt away to reveal a purple welt running across my left shoulder. My only response was a quote from a Who song: "You know, this used to be fun."

I'm a much happier camper now.


- Barrett

 

[dee]

Because I picked up a Leica II in late 2006 , and found that the distraction of focus etc with a lifetime of SLRs had gone .
I am not so concerned with precise framing - strictly snapshooting - but my Autistic Glitch is settled by the constant '' window '' .
This has freed me to be able to edit and capture an out of phase world .
It's not size , because a Contax III is even more integrated twix hands and eyes .
[ no other cameras offer the same sense of integration / reality .

 

[ailardi]

I bought my first Leica in 1969. I already had a couple of Nikon Fs and before that a Pentax. I bought the Leica, an M3, after trying a roll and develpiong it. I did not have a darkroom, so this was based on a review of the negatives only. There was something in the images -- not technical, not sharper; but in the way I saw using the M3. (Indeed, see Bill Pierce's article in the long out of print ASMP magazine, Infinity from years ago (before 1969, I think) where he shot with three Leicas and three Nikons and, when printed, no one could reliably pick out which camera made which image from a technical viewpoint.)

Fast forward 40 years: I still have two Leicas, M6ttls now, as well as a Canon 5D. For a long time my view of the Leica was that using the RF was as close to taking pictures without a camera as I could come. Nonethless, I find that often I can get the same types of images with either type of camera. Still, last week, when I was in NYC, I brought the Leicas -- small, discreet and, to be honest, habit for that type of city street shooting.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

"SLR" has too many syllables. Besides, saying "RF" sounds like a puppy barking, and puppies are cute.

Chris

 

[Pavel+]

I am new to the rangefinder experience. I used to look down on rangefinders. Old stuff. Limiting.
I've gone through just about all of it. Film with 35 slrs, medium format, large format .... and then in the late nineties I got on board. Digital. The new way. Easier, more efficient - cutting edge.

It seems that after ten years, the cutting edge cut something out; Me.
I don't care what they say, that it is the photographer who takes the picture. It is no longer true. It once was, but now the engineer at nikon has made a product where " the photographer POINTS towards the picture". Nikon takes care of the rest. I don't want to argue that point ...so lets say that such is simply how I feel - something lost.

So after this long and expensive journey I decided that photography (for me) was not simply about the "best" image quality. Not even strictly speaking about the results. No, it can be, with a lot of effort a personal expression, but to be that it has to be more pure. Back to the basics, back to control, and as a luxury ... back to that wonderful minimalist feeling.

The rangefinder is that. The last example left in photography. Pure machine. Does not help, does not get in the way. The photographer has to master photography.
I'm not looking down on rangefinders as limiting any more. I'm looking up at them ... as enabling. If the picture is not good ... it is not Mr. Nikons focus algorithm - it is me. The mechanical quality now then becomes important because for the first time I realize I have to live with the camera a long time ... to hope to make it sing in my hands. It is kind of humbling, in a way.

I bought the M8 first. Digital insecurity. Kind of like wading slowly into the waters. But a week later ... I bought a M4-P. It will likely be a while before I show anyone any photos. This is tougher than a point and shoot. The directness between the photographer and the photograph. The essence of photography. This is why I went to a rangefinder. And I'm smiling - finally.

 

[John Rountree]

I shoot with a Leica for a variety of reasons. In no particular order: it is the best camera made. I have used Canon and Nikon, but neither compares with the feel and performance of the Leica. It is such an intuitive camera to use that it is almost automatic. It feels so right in my hands, and the sound of the shutter is habit forming, if not addictive. The Lieca is about one quarter the weight and size of the Canon 1N and a 35mm "L" lens. Shooting in public, it is invisible to the naked eye, or at least ignored. But probably the most significant reason is, knowing that I have the best camera available I have no excuses for bad images, other than my own limitations as a photographer.

 

[dseelig]

rf why

rf why

For me it is about the intimacy with the subject, lack of noise form a mirror bouncing around. And lack of size and weight compared to these huge dslr's

 

[NathanJD]

Firstly I want everyone to know that I have read this thread from beginning to end – each post – sometimes without a direct comment pouring one’s feelings into this kind of thread can feel a little unrewarding, so thank you everyone although I’m not the OP I’ve enjoyed everyone’s take.

It’s a bit of a long story for me and it’s not easy for me to explain in the cold light of day why I love my RFs so much. Some of it is passion some of it is practicality and some of it is good old fashioned mysticism.

I started off on the RF road one day thanks to an advert for the M8 on the back of a photography magazine, I saw it and thought ‘that’s a sexy camera, and expensive too, I wonder why?’ and proceeded to research Leica and rangefinders on the internet. I read all the hype, fell in love with the street photographs I saw and admiring those using this equipment and so eventually found myself ebaying ‘rangefinder’ only to find a huge back catalogue of cameras in a massive range of prices.

About this same time I had gotten to the point in my digitally lead zoom lensed and razor sharp image qualitied photography life where I had switched the camera to manual and was using MY brain to create images and not the camera’s. One night while unable to sleep I went into my study and picked up my partner’s Minolta Dynax 5 that had sat dormant since the week of her birthday some 2 years earlier when she unwrapped the camera she had asked me for and never used since and realised that I had now learned how to use cameras and not just become familiarised with the workings of a digital gizmo and I wanted more - more freedom and more of a challenge.

Having chosen rangefinders I find myself hooked. What keeps me hooked are all the old clichés of excellent glass, portability, no shutter bounce, no shutter life span, no batteries for the most part but on top of those is the ability to fail! The fact that if you drop the ball there is very little you can do and this keeps me on my toes and makes me feel like there is a goal to achieve. No point and shoot options laced through the core of the technology like in digital equipment (including DSLRs I thing they are P&S too), no through the lens viewfinders or DOF previews and for me this is bliss. Add to it freedom from photoshopping 500 images the day they were taken and changing this, tweaking that and as someone else said - taking 10 photos of a very uninteresting thing just because you can. snap snap snap with very little of substance to show. now i take a week to fill a roll of film but i like what i see and even better - so do some other people too. i also LOVE processing film! it's far more gratifying to put on a good album and partake in some alchemy than it is to plug in a computer chip and download your RAW files that need heaps of work to make them what you want them to be.

What my M2 is is a film holder for my eye. And a paint brush for my life. It shoots what I do and where I go and I have to go there and do it to shoot it.

 

[robert blu]

I bought my first RF because I was curious about the 15mm lens CV. The camera was a Bessa R. I was surprised by the easy of use and the small size, compared to my srl. In that time I was travelling a lot because of my work and I did not like to go on a business trip, sometimes together with my boss, bringing an huge bag of gear. So I bought a 35mm for the Bessa. This was the beginning, why not a 75 for some portraits ? More I was using it less i use my srl kit. Next point is that I'm getting old and like to take pictures. I hope to do it for many years but without bringing with me an heavy camera. I bought recently an M7, one lens on the camera and one in my pocket, it s all! I like this !
robert

 

[F456]

I go along with all the usual arguments for using a rangefinder for its suited uses. I should add I'm talking about the Leica M cameras and haven't used other types unless I can include simple direct vision cameras like the Nikonos V, which I find very similar in use.

My particular like is the simple, uncluttered body shape that lies nice and flat and draws little attention. The lack of bulk is the main thing for me (a) so I don't notice its weight when carrying it around; (b) so others don't immediately notice it in use.

I would extend this to simple SLR designs like the Olympus OM series, but the Leica shape with a small Summicron or Summaron or collapsed Elmar is the least serious looking: it says 'I have no pentaprism, so I'm not worth noticing'.

HTH,
Tom