Tips for a new Leica user

[lars_bergquist]

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I agree with everything you say here, Lars, except for the gratuitous insult to SLR users. Some of us can "see the picture" even if the thing round our neck is a big DSLR with an ugly great AF zoom lens. Footwork adjusts perspective, zoom adjusts framing: there's less need to compromise or crop in post.

Yes, it is possible. I learned to do it (I have also used SLR cameras since the late 1950's). But it is a fact that the finder system is a handicap when you are learning this, and a zoom makes it difficult indeed because it postpones the 'seeing' decision, and indeed the choice of 'eyes', until the camera is already raised and you are looking through the opening of a tunnel. For most SLR users, and indeed very many 'pros' (in the sense of people who use their cameras commercially) my characterization is true.

 

I have used zooms but did never love them. In fact, I mostly used a zoom as two different prime lenses at the ends of the zoom range, with nothing in between. Everything else slowed me down intolerably.

 

The old man from the Age B.Z. (Before Zooms)

[lars_bergquist]

The beauty of a Leica RF is that when you are experienced with it shooting becomes an almost unconscious act. The pieces just fall into place.

 

Doug

This is very important. After you have used the rear 'interface' to set the camera up for the situation (ISO, WB -- but AWB has improved markedly and is actually useable now) then you have the fingers on all controls you need, and these are very few. There is nothing between you and the camera, and in time, you will find that there is nothing between you and the subject. The camera has become an extension of your visual mind.

 

It's like a classical British sports car -- a 1950's MG or Triumph. Stick shift, the steering puts your hands practically on the front wheels, you hear every cylinder working, your arse is down on the blacktop and the wind is in your hair.

 

The old man from the Age Before Zooms (and all those buttons)

[giordano]

I have used zooms but did never love them. In fact, I mostly used a zoom as two different prime lenses at the ends of the zoom range, with nothing in between. Everything else slowed me down intolerably.

 

Yes, for some shots there's no time to think about the zoom setting. But (at least for me) there is often plenty of time between seeing the picture and taking it: waiting for a cloud to move into the right position, waiting for a pedestrian to reach the right spot, or whatever.

 

I used to think I'd never love a zoom, but the Nikkor 17-35/2.8 has changed my mind.