Why do you like rangefinders (or not)?

[tobey bilek]

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Focus on new M is poor (harder) compared to older M cameras, ie pre digital.

 

They are smaller and easier to carry compared to pro Nikons.

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The Leica Q3 is available for pre-order at B&H Photo Video and Adorama

[jaapv]

With M3 and M6 in the cupboard and an M8, 9, M in the hand I can only say hat the M3 is unsurpassed but limited and that there is very little to choose between the M6 and the M.

[lct]

Focus on new M is poor (harder) compared to older M cameras, ie pre digital...

Not for me. Never been easier so far and the competitors are no slouch (M3, M4-2, M6J, M8.2).

[NZDavid]

Yes, the M3 rangefinder patch is big and bright, but M6 and M7 finders are also bright. My M9 already may need realigning slightly, but is very good. With digital, I do find you have to be really accurate. Part of the reason, I gather, is that the digital sensor has no tolerance for focus error, while film is a fraction of a hairsbreadth thick and that makes a difference. I would welcome a technical explanation.

 

I also like a clear, uncluttered viewfinder. Zeiss and Voigtländer are also said to be good in this regard.

[Michael Geschlecht]

Hello David,

 

I would guess that the thickness of the emulsion coating allows there to effectively be a series of equally acceptable planes of focus stacked front to back within the emulsion layer that are available to focus on.

 

More latitude for focus error.

 

Even with the emulsions in color films that need to have more than 1 sensitized layer: Each of the layers has its own individual thickness & a standardized separation from the other.

 

A digital sensor, on the other hand, has 1 surface that is collecting information (light). This surface is probably sensitive to a lesser depth (this is where my guess is) than a film emulsion's depth of acceptable planes of sensitive material.

 

Less latitude for focus error.

 

Best Regards,

 

Michael

[sblitz]

rangefinders, especially when the framelines are smaller than the viewfinder, allow you to crop/design see what's being excluded, what is about to be included, and adjusting. SLRs seem somewhat claustrophobic in their view, a sniper approach rather than a canvas. And this coming from someone who shot SLRs only for about 40yrs and hated, in the late 60s, RFs. Film or digital only changes how light is captured not how one uses RF vs SLR.

[Tacktful]

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Having come to a Leica from a variety of autofocus cameras, I love using a rangefinder. Bright. Seeing around the image. Focus goes exactly where I choose it to. Being in control of what happens, I could not go back to auto focus of any kind except for casual photography.

 

I get such a higher proportion of photographs the way I pre-visualise them compared to autofocus cameras there is no comparison.

 

For me, without manual rangefinder focusing, an M would no longer be an M.

[Reminic]

I love rangefinders because...

 

- The focus is where I've put it (and therefore I don't need to check on the lcd, cool!).

 

- I'm there: the camera's way of keeping out of the limelight allows me to be part of the scene; to feel, view and shoot from inside, in a way that I can't imagine with any other kind of camera.

 

I don't think rangefinders will disappear until something else comes which allow to shoot like this; because there always will be people valuing this way of shooting enough to make it worth for them (even at the current prices)...

[Rick in CO]

A split image rangefinder camera has always been much easier for me to focus than an slr - even when slr's had split image focus screens. Maybe because of the brighter rf image, maybe because the slr image always seemed less distinct, even if as bright. With digital slrs it has become worse, having no split image focus screen due to autofocus points and auto-exposure constraints, leaving no way to ascertain accurate focus. I tried a split image screen on my 5D MkII with manual focus Leica lenses and gave it up. IMHO a good rf system (my experience is 20 years with a Linhof Technika 70 and another 15 with Leica M, plus OM, Nikon & Canon slrs) cannot be beat for determining an accurate focus point.

[NZDavid]

Yes indeed, that parallels my memories of the OM series. Split rangefinder focusing on the SLR was not always so accurate, but that could have been due to half the patch often blacking out. Rangefinder base length also makes a big difference.

[Alberti]

Ian, I'm just not sure that the current M mount could enable the designer to incorporate the necessary electrical connections for an AF lens. As you say, it's a simple mechanical connection and was never designed to be anything other than that.

 

My guess would be a new mount, slightly larger, to allow for presumably larger lenses (incorporating the AF gubbins) and wider flange for the necessary contacts.

 

One would expect Leica to ensure compatibility (via an adaptor) for older lenses, as is their tradition.

 

Well, as on one side on the top of the bayonet there room for the distance cam/wheel; then on the other side there is room enough for a electronic interface; the contacts could reside just within the lens shaft that is read for the distance (sone lenses have a ring al around).

Then there would be backwards compatibility.

The new lens-line would be more cumbersome though (not a lens to pocket quickly) and thus - would it appeal?

A focus aid that helps with 'reading' the coincident meter would be a lot easier and should be a feat that costs less investment and would cost users less. Such a support function could simply consist of a small display that tells where the focus is (á la S2) and suggest movement. Though not as fast as a real AF mechanism, "easy" to adopt and incorporate.

 

A newer mount, with a smaller "film plane/bayonet" distance is always possible of course. But is it necessary?

[Paul J]

I thought to add...

 

Also one of the reasons I love the rangefinder is for the fact there is no black out while exposing. This was yet another revelation moving from SLR for me.

[adan]

I switched to rangefinders when film was still predominant (1999), and when the choice was more obvious. SLRs were big, heavy, loud, shaky, and had mirror blackout and some shutter lag. And when they weren't big and heavy (Nikon FM2, e.g.) the thumb-wind got tangled up in my glasses due to the proximity to the central viewfinder, so I'd use a motor, and they'd end up big and heavy anyway. And when they used mirror brakes to reduce the shake and noise (Olympus OM) - the shutter lag got worse.

 

But I'd used them for 30 years, since Leicas were out of my price range. Then along came the Voigtlander with its focus-free 15mm and big window viewfinder, and I had a revelation after a couple of rolls through one of those. The compositions were somewhat sloppy, but my content - the captured moments and gestures and expressions - got a whole lot better, once I abandoned "precious" precise pretty-picture making with an SLR screen.

 

15mm was a bit limiting, so I tried a Contax G once they introduced a 21 and 35. It was perfect - except that the AF kicked and bucked and lost me some moments. That happened once too often - while I was shooting alongside an M4-2 to compare some lenses (the M4-2 got the shot) - so I switched.

 

RF focusing - I used split-image focus screens religiously for my 30 years with SLRs, so it was "coming home" to work with the Leica split-image.

 

Now - digital "mirrorless" photography and image stabilization have allowed non-RF cameras to close some of the gap with RFs. Small, light, low-impact, interchangeable lenses (and thank god the return of the small, fast "prime.") They aren't for me, so long as mechanical RFs survive - they're still too AF-dependent (Contax G redux). But they are closer.

 

Bottom line for me: 15 years ago I was taking so-so pictures with SLRs - a designer in my "day job" and a photojournalist wannabee. The past two years I've won national awards in the photojournalism contests. The difference? Switching to a rangefinder window from an SLR/EVIL screen.

 

It ain't the Leica lenses (I use 1980's non-ASPH glass). It's having a window into my subjects' lives rather than a screen between us. It's holding a paper-back-sized camera instead of "War and Peace." It's having a camera that does not wait for a mirror to move or a lens to stop down or autofocus to happen, but fires NOW. Even more so, it is having viewfinders that insist,"Catch the moment! Composition is for decorating motel walls!"

 

Some are generous and say I could have done it with any camera. I've seen my pictures B.R. (before rangefinders) and A.L. (after Leica). I know better.

[BrianUK]

Using 35mm rangefinders - principally Leica film Ms - over a 40 year period, there are host of reasons...

 

but basically it boils down to the fact that I prefer a viewfinder that doesn't black out when I press the shutter.

 

Everything else - size, lens quality, quietness etc - is a bonus.

[semi-ambivalent]

I would guess that the thickness of the emulsion coating allows there to effectively be a series of equally acceptable planes of focus stacked front to back within the emulsion layer that are available to focus on.

 

I believe that is exactly correct and have seen that used as an attribute to the 'look' of a silver gelatin negative and print workflow in the on-going analog/digital arguments. Something like the focused image being inside the emulsion, with zones of increasing out-of-focus-ness on either side. But, if you have ever seen the Kodak cross section of a color film negative (for "old" technology it's amazingly complex) next to a human hair, the emulsion layer is so thin I think it renders the argument moot.

 

It's all very complex. I stay out of the digital/analog catfight as much as I can. There's enough light for everyone.

 

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