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How to be stealth with your M9?


Pophoto

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I find that not thinking about being invisible makes you invisible. The more 'stealth' I try to be, the more people notice me - usually in a rather negative light. Just standing there, doing your thing, interacting with your subject... that's all that's needed for them to just ignore you and get on with what they're doing... If they do notice, and you smile, they usually smile back. In two years, I've only had one guy get properly antsy...

 

3406890618_a9f32d2fe8_o.jpg

 

As for quick focus, I try to guestimate the pre-focus as much as I can. For instance: if I'm in a crowded place where all the interest is pretty close, I'll leave the focus at ~1.5m. Across a street it'll be left at ~5m, while standing on a bridge, it'll be closer to infinity. Then the adjustments, when something comes along, are minute.

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Very simple. Like this:

 

:D:DAhhh cracker! Hes just missing the lolipop for the kiddiewinks.

Where did you find that!!:D:D.

 

......

Welcome, dear visitor! As registered member you'd see an image here…

Simply register for free here – We are always happy to welcome new members!

 

Just picking meself up off the floor here. Priceless!

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Guys, glad you enjoyed it. It's from Gunter Osterloh's Leica M Advanced Photo School - I remembered seeing it from the book and just googled for the image. The first time I saw this guy I laughed so hard, my wife thought I needed psychiatric help.

 

Sad to say I don't think Mr. Osterloh was being ironic .......

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@Bill: Thanks for the link, I will save that for my afternoon read, as soon I wake up again!

Please share some more photo examples or scenarios you may have faced, or humorous learning experiences, I find that I am often shooting alone, although, we're never really alone. Hence the reason I frequent this forum. :)

 

Feel free to follow the "Rangefound" link in my signature for all my photo-related ramblings; I update slightly faster than once a month. Given your comment, you may be particularly interested in this one: Rangefound: It's not a team sport, is it? ;)

 

Regards,

 

Bill

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I work the same way for 28mm to 50mm focal length as Bo does and describes it . For 21mm I preset a distance of 2 meters and F8, that works for almost 100% of my 21mm pictures.

You definitely need a lot of practice to focus fast on a target, and there will be not just one occassion where You miss it, but You need not spend film (I still spend film in my rangefinders) to practice, You can do it at home, where nobody can see You. Just take Your camera and walk about Your flat and focus on anything You see. The thing is, focusing action must be calm and easy, not hectic, as You will need this calmness for pressing the shutter button at 1/8 or even 1/30, otherwise You will replace bad focusing by camera shake:)

 

Regards

 

Oliver

 

Oh Oliver, you have no idea I often I do this, both with my M9 and D700. My wife definately thinks I'm a nut doing this! :p

Although I'm trying really hard with my M9 right now while I adapt to focusing with my rangefinder. I survive fairly well shooting 1/30 say 80% of the time in focus as an estimate, it's 1/15 or less that I struggle with.

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Let me just add an alternative viewpoint: as compelling as street photography is, so are street portraits. If you find an interesting character (I've lived in the area for 10 years--there are PLENTY of interesting characters here), approach them and talk to them. Get to know them a bit, ask to take a photo. At that point, you have a photo and a small story to go with it. And to me, this takes a lot more courage and skill than "trying to blend in" and the photos, even if they're more subjective than objective, can be equally revealing about the human condition.

 

Don't get me wrong; I love street photography. But you can tell in a lot of photos whether the photographer just didn't have the guts to move closer or engage either spatially or in dialogue with an individual or crowd. The end result is generally photos taken from quite a distance of a bunch of people with their backs turned or photos of homeless people sleeping. And those photos are, to me, rarely compelling and tell me more about the photographer than they do about the subject.

 

As for so-called "being stealth" I wouldn't worry about it in San Francisco. There are usually enough tourists walking around snapping away at everything that the general public is more-or-less immune to being photographed. Also, there's always someone freakier than you within a 15 foot radius.

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@gutguido: Have you noticed his grip with his thumb on the shutter release? So cool! :p

 

@mongrelnomad: Thanks for sharing your photo. I've been practicing all day estimating my pre-focus distance, hence my late replies... plus reading the other threads!

 

@Bill: Yes, I have slowly been going through your "Rangefound" and have been enjoying when I'm back at my computer! You are right, I did particularly enjoy this one, but have you or others maybe, ever tried to make a team sport? (Just kidding, or not!)

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I quite like the Osterloh method: Start building up a tripod in a busy place, as slowly and elaborately as possible. Within ten minutes everybody will have lost interest in the goofy photographer and you can take pictures to your heart's content.

 

Unless you are in London, within five minutes you will be a guest of the Met. police.

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@etherfarm: Thanks for sharing. I just read your post, and I too have been in this area for 10 years, I came originally from London (@ trisk), anyways that's another story.

 

You are right, but I think they are two different things to have a portrait, the subject looking back at you or aware of your presence and catching someone in their decisive moment.

 

I do, however, agree while there are many people who are not gutsy (including myself at times) enough to approach and talk to someone, sometimes we choose to rapidly past our time, whether that is positive or negative, I guess the photo or the audience/photog response to the photo is the deciding view! I think just because there are many who dabble at street photography to maybe lesser success, I certainly see both sides of the story being important skills to have depending on what you want to achieve.

 

About a month ago, I was at a group picnic and my wife was with me and I wanted to capture some of friends in deep conversation, when my wife suddenly said "Everyone, look at the camera..." I was thinking, do I look like the party photog? Yes, I was spotted, a happy moment! :)

LOL with regards to someone freakier than me in 15ft radius, are you serious, I set my focus to 3ft :p

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Zone focusing means setting up a zone of acceptable sharpness in advance, within which you can fire away without moving the focusing ring. You must stop the lens down a bit however, to get depth of field enough. Obviously, this works only with wide and superwide angles with their great depth of field. For instance (based on a more realistic assumption than that from around 1928, which still determines the d.o.f. scales), I can stop an 18mm lens down to f:8 and set focus to 2m, and have acceptable sharpness from c. 1.2m to 8m. But a 35mm lens set the same would be useable only from c. 1.7 to 2.5m!

 

This is sometimes incorrectly called 'hyperfocal focusing'. But this means setting the lens so that infinity is the 'far limit' of the zone. E.g. with the 18mm lens at f:8, setting the focus to c. 2.4m (8 ft.) would give you a sharp zone from c. 1.2m to infinity. In this case, 2.4m is 'the hyperfocal distance'. On the focusing scale, it is always at midpoint between infinity and the near zone limit.

 

Also remember two points to temper your enthusiasm: First, everything inside the 'zone' is not EQUALLY sharp. Maximum definition is at the set focus. Second, stopping a lens down radically does degrade definition in the image. I will stop down to f:8 if there is a good reason to do so, but never ever further except maybe with longer lenses. But there the depth of the useable zone will be so small as to make the technique inapplicable.

 

The old man again

Lars,

 

Why is it that the photograph will not be sharp all around when using smaller apertures? What about Ansel Adams and F64?

 

Geoffrey

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Diffraction - if the physical size of the aperture is small enough, the light will bend on the edge of the aperture blades. Ansel Adams used large format plate cameras, where even f 64 is quite a sizable hole.

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I work the same way for 28mm to 50mm focal length as Bo does and describes it . For 21mm I preset a distance of 2 meters and F8, that works for almost 100% of my 21mm pictures.

You definitely need a lot of practice to focus fast on a target, and there will be not just one occassion where You miss it, but You need not spend film (I still spend film in my rangefinders) to practice, You can do it at home, where nobody can see You. Just take Your camera and walk about Your flat and focus on anything You see. The thing is, focusing action must be calm and easy, not hectic, as You will need this calmness for pressing the shutter button at 1/8 or even 1/30, otherwise You will replace bad focusing by camera shake:)

 

Regards

 

Oliver

 

Oliver has the right idea. Evidently no one on this thread is familiar with the street shooter's motto: "f/8 and be there." I don't care how fast you are at focusing with a rangefinder, there are shots -- sometimes the best ones -- where you simply don't have time to focus. That's when zone focus saves you.

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Oliver has the right idea. Evidently no one on this thread is familiar with the street shooter's motto: "f/8 and be there." I don't care how fast you are at focusing with a rangefinder, there are shots -- sometimes the best ones -- where you simply don't have time to focus. That's when zone focus saves you.

 

Russ,

 

for f8 and a comfortable shutter speed (1/125 +) you need (day-)light. Then F8 and zone focusing on 2,5 or 3 meters can work with a 35mm for scenes.

 

For me the problem with zone focusing is that if I photograph in some kind of crowd (on a sidewalk, in a shop e.g.) I want my target to be the sharpest in the scene and nobody else.

With zone focusing I have, from close to far an increase in sharpness, a point of maximum sharpness and then a decrease of sharpness, my target to be the sharpest in that zone is then pure luck if I point and shoot.

I say "sharpest", because it does not necessarily have to be sharp, my target simply must be sharper than the rest of the pic. And this means I have to focus.

 

Of course I will not have a 35mm or even a 50mm set to infinity and focus from there if I do "street" in a range of several meters. Most of the time I set it between 6 to 10 meters.

 

And of course I sometimes shoot first and focus second if something attracts me unexpected.

 

Regards

 

Oliver

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Thanks Charles. That's exactly how I have been doing it myself, except there are times I cannot make out the image as being good enough (in focus) in the viewfinder, depending on how busy or far away and little light. What do you guys do then? Magnifier or just pray? (I rarely tell myself to just shoot something else ;p)

 

Make sure your rangefinder windows are clean. I'm not kidding! I often find when I'm strugglng a bit with the focus a quick wipe of all the windows makes a big difference.

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some nutty individuals shoot wide open and that demands actual spot focus for each frame.

 

Shooting a rangefinder, on a live street, requires the skill of focusing, learn it by doing, the more the better, it WILL become second nature and something one simply do not think about.

.

 

No one here but us chickens http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-forum/images/smilies/cool.gif

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