My toughest desicion

[diogenis]

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I just use the viewfinder to focus. I look for pictures with both eyes with no camera and when I see the picture I have to be quick. The frame is already in my brain. So If my right eye is good enough to focus and get used to do it quickly, I will get a much more stable position and I will be able to shoot under lower light conditions improving my photography. I've already done it but I'm not quick enough. Everyday I'm doing some focus exercises to be as quick as I was with the left eye. Every day I'm doing it better and quicker. I was not happy at all with my performance when low light. We look for better cameras with incredible iso but I think that to improve our tecnique and our limits is one of the most beautiful parts of photography.

 

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I tried to go this way as well, but failed. In the end, I realized I needed more time to compose because my right eye needed time to get used to it, and also my left eye needed to be shut as well. So, what was the point? Just use the left eye and from time to time I might wipe the screen. That is all.

I don't believe there is an issue of more stable holding while on the right eye

[jsjxyz]

or how about seeing it from your lips?

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[Jeff S]

In the manual of the M9 you can see how is the right camera position and I think they use different eyes in vertical or horizontal shooting.

 

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In this photo, looks like the same eye to me.

 

But, as I said, whatever works for you is fine.

 

Jeff

[Fotomiguel]

In this photo, looks like the same eye to me.

 

But, as I said, whatever works for you is fine.

 

Jeff

Yes, indeed. Sorry but I could get the same position with the left eye.

[Guest]

I just use the viewfinder to focus. I look for pictures with both eyes with no camera and when I see the picture I have to be quick. The frame is already in my brain....

Everyday I'm doing some focus exercises to be quick... Every day I'm doing it better and quicker.

I was not happy at all with my performance...I think that to improve our tecnique and our limits is one of the most beautiful parts of photography.

 

 

THX!

Thank you very much to remind me of the obvious: it's like guys putting next to their desks during their lunchbreaks. There is always time, if there is dedication and discipline, like in sports.

I don't shoot verticals, because I'm too slow as it is , though I'm right-eyed. Some don't shoot in "portrait" mode either and also only in "landscape" mode, because they show their pics on screens only, anyway.

 

If this is of interest to you: HCB and many others don't hold the M like in the... instruction manual, but turn it DOWN, looking with their right (or left) eye, holding the cam and their hands in front of their face, not up in the air. Example: lanchapatera's youtube Street Photography II towards the end and (shortly) at the beginning of I.

Cheers!

[Guest WPalank]

William:

 

My wife and I are headed to India this year. We loved your photos, particularly the M8 one--although the Canon were nothing to sneeze at. We are curious, any tips that you would like to offer on shooting or photography in India would be appreciated. Looked very dusty, was that a problem? Any photo etiquette issues unique to India? One of your photos seemed to be in a Mosque? We have stayed away from such photos in the past.

 

If you would like to start a different thread, we would love to see the forum do country specific threads of this nature. Would be a great resource.

 

Thanks

 

Jack Siegel

 

Thanks Jack. Please check your Private Message box.

[jaapv]

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Why I'm doing this? To improve. Sometimes when low light I had to use the leica table tripod with its ballhead over my chest. My small spirit level trick was as well a great help. My renew right eye is making low light shots really easy and I'm getting used and improving everyday. The new position is very confortable. I think that the whole process can last for a couple of months or may be more but my brain and my right eye are now working together.

In the manual of the M9 you can see how is the right camera position and I think they use different eyes in vertical or horizontal shooting. So is posible use both eyes. I have just to get used. It's very curious how the vision of my right eye is getting better and clear. I think my brain had forgotten to see through this eye.

 

 

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The stupid thing is that she is holding the camera far too loosely. Especially the landscape position: The camera should be resting on her left hand, the elbows should be tucked in and the index finger should not be crooked. And in the portrait position she cannot focus. Och well...

[ho_co]

There's yet another suggestion in one of the videos posted at Smash his camera, but not immediately - Roger Ebert's Journal.

 

Several minutes into the first video ("I'm Ron Galella, paparazzo superstar"), Galella illustrates his technique of maintaining eye contact with his subject by not looking thru the finder while shooting.

 

He makes it look like a surprisingly promising practice.

[Fotomiguel]

Here you can see the tecnique of Henri Cartier Bresson for extremly low light. He use the strap hanging from the left shoulder/arm and then around the right wrist and making some tension with three of the fingers of the left hand. It works extremly good for a "instant" after that you get tired and start to shake. But he just needed a "instant". He was really incredible!

 

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[diogenis]

The stupid thing is that she is holding the camera far too loosely. Especially the landscape position: The camera should be resting on her left hand, the elbows should be tucked in and the index finger should not be crooked. And in the portrait position she cannot focus. Och well...

 

Why tuck your elbows? It sounds too uncomfortable.

Portrait position you cannot focus anyway.

 

As for Cartier, that sounds interesting never tried it, although I remember me sometimes using the strap (before I lost it) with some tension on it for more stability. But this posture too will produce some strain in the end as well. So it's only for emergencies.

However I don't believe that right or left eye, Miguel will eventually make any difference in stability.

[larryk34]

I tried way back to switch from my dominant left eye use to right eye for obvious reasons. Couldn't do it. Then a year ago I had laser surgery on both eye to correct problems. No effect on the right eye, but the greater work on the left eye left a film (debris?) on the left eye that rendered everything fuzzy. My two-eye vision didn't change because by some kind of magic, the right eye took over and became dominant. I see fine with both eyes due to the right eye, the left eye is now useless for the Leica. So, I was forced to use the eye that works with the M8. When I automatically put the left eye up, it's failure led me to immediately shift to the one I could focus with, the right eye. The transition to the right eye was almost automatic, in other words; took only a few days to do it. This suggests that the eyes themselves can switch the "dominance" to the best eye. I'm buying (trying) a M9, so I hope the right eye holds out for while. I cannot stand autofocusing.

[Jeff S]

Miguel, remember that many of HCB's best images were far from technically perfect...often blurred, etc. His greatness was in his eye (and brain), and in his ability to capture what he saw...not with THE 'perfect' technique, but HIS technique.

 

You have a good eye (right or left), judging from your site, and developing that, IMHO, is a much better use of your time than obsessing about which eye to use, or the perfect means to stability. Yes, all of that helps to a degree, but whatever you were doing already seemed to be getting you on your path.

 

And, if you choose to change your technique...because it works for you...not because it is supposedly the right way or the HCB way, then great. Unless you, too, get famous one day, nobody will likely care how you held your camera when you took your photos. That should hardly be your "toughest decision" related to your journey and your accomplishments.

 

Jeff

[Peyton Hoge]

It makes no difference how you hold or how you look through it, over it, under it, as long as you get the picture!

[Fotomiguel]

Miguel, remember that many of HCB's best images were far from technically perfect...often blurred, etc. His greatness was in his eye (and brain), and in his ability to capture what he saw...not with THE 'perfect' technique, but HIS technique.

 

You have a good eye (right or left), judging from your site, and developing that, IMHO, is a much better use of your time than obsessing about which eye to use, or the perfect means to stability. Yes, all of that helps to a degree, but whatever you were doing already seemed to be getting you on your path.

 

And, if you choose to change your technique...because it works for you...not because it is supposedly the right way or the HCB way, then great. Unless you, too, get famous one day, nobody will likely care how you held your camera when you took your photos. That should hardly be your "toughest decision" related to your journey and your accomplishments.

 

Jeff

I'm always trying to improve my technique. Sometimes I've read something interessting in this forum and I've practice it and now is part of my technique. Many times I've learnt something from my father ( who had his first leica with 17 years old until now and many of his pictures are as good as HCB did) and is true that one of my favourite photographers is HCB. I wish I could learnt all his technique but for me the most important is that I've learnt the concept of what is photography. I like to know and learnt how the photographer, who I admire, did their photographs and somethimes when I found something that It works, I apply it if I'm able to do it.

Anyway Jeff, my happyness in photography last less than one day after getting a good picture.

Regards.

Miguel

[ArtZ]

Here you can see the tecnique of Henri Cartier Bresson for extremly low light. He use the strap hanging from the left shoulder/arm and then around the right wrist and making some tension with three of the fingers of the left hand. It works extremly good for a "instant" after that you get tired and start to shake. But he just needed a "instant". He was really incredible!

 

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Miguel,

 

The strap is important but look at his eye. He literaly puts his eye into the viewfinder so the upper side of the occular bone rests over the viewfinder. The camera is very steady in that way.

 

I have always done that but I didn't know HCB did the same. I place the camera top just under my eyebrow and hold it tied, so the bone behind the eyebrow rests on the top plate. This also improves my shooting under low shutter speeds. This is the reason I cannot use glasses with a M.

 

Thanks for sharing

[andybarton]

Miguel,

 

The strap is important but look at his eye. He literaly puts his eye into the viewfinder so the upper side of the occular bone rests over the viewfinder.

 

Very hard to do if you wear glasses...

[ArtZ]

Very hard to do if you wear glasses...

 

Andy,

 

I was having a private discussion by email with another LUF member about glasses. I was telling him my technique (described above) but he needs to wear glasses because he suffers of astigmatism (I have just presbytie: +1.5).

 

I wonder how people with astigmatism manage to focus correctly. Leica has no astigmatism corrections. Do you have any clue?

[Fotomiguel]

Miguel,

 

The strap is important but look at his eye. He literaly puts his eye into the viewfinder so the upper side of the occular bone rests over the viewfinder. The camera is very steady in that way.

 

I have always done that but I didn't know HCB did the same. I place the camera top just under my eyebrow and hold it tied, so the bone behind the eyebrow rests on the top plate. This also improves my shooting under low shutter speeds. This is the reason I cannot use glasses with a M.

 

:(Yes, I know without glasses works much better but I don't see a damn without glasses. Instead I use very small glasses and I have a quite big nose and the botton part of the camera rest a bit in the bone below the nose (maxilla) that makes this position very similar. The worst thing of wearing glasses is that you can not see through the viewfinder as close as without but that happen in any position or eye.

To have a big nose was very annoying using the left eye, but now is very helpful.

[brill64]

..no need to think so much

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Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[digitalfx]

Andy,

 

I was having a private discussion by email with another LUF member about glasses. I was telling him my technique (described above) but he needs to wear glasses because he suffers of astigmatism (I have just presbytie: +1.5).

 

I wonder how people with astigmatism manage to focus correctly. Leica has no astigmatism corrections. Do you have any clue?

 

Its very difficult w/ astigmatism, and is the reason many of my images are ever so soft.