Shooting in portrait orientation

[marchyman]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Trying to work out what the problem is.

 

 

 

There is no focus tab on the lens I'm using.   The focus ring is tight enough that I must grip with thumb and finger(s) to rotate.   When doing that the base of my thumb blocks the viewfinder.   The problem is that I was too stupid to move my thumb out of the way for focusing without also sometimes rotating the aperture ring.  The aperture ring on my lens is easily rotated, unlike the focus.

The issue has been mostly resolved with some comments by forum members (thanks).  I believe it will be fully resolved when the add-on focus tab arrives.

[Advertisement]

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

[PaulJohn]

This is my preferred portrait grip, with both elbows firmly to my body for minimum wavering-around potential. I can focus as easily while supporting the lens with my left hand in this orientation as in landscape, and I find this much steadier as well as more compact and less intrusive to others than the more traditional elbow-in-the-air grip.

 

L1007340.jpg

 

I now use this orientation with the M and find I can take the weight with my thumb of my left hand under the lens. I also find that I don't need to take my hat off this way too. It takes some practice to focus in portrait mode too as you need to find horizontals to line up in the RF patch instead of verticals.

[tobey bilek]

My left hand holds the focus ring from below in both portrait and landscape mode, with my thumb on the left. This doesn't seem to obscure the VF, and, holding the focus ring, it doesn't normally affect the aperture ring. But I've been doing this long enough not to think about it, and I don't have the Summarit: are the focus and aperture rings closer together than you expect?

 

This is the proper way.  Practice.

 

If do correctly,  thumb is always on left side of focus ring as seen from rear, portrait or landscape,  and shutter release is on top for portrait.  Rotate camera counter clockwise 1/4 turn  to go from landscape  to portrait.

 

The left pinky is never poking out in the air.

[Exodies]

A square sensor will sort this out.

[Guest]

"A square sensor will sort this out."

 

Almost inovative:

while with new round sensors leveling the horizon could be automated, like no-red-eye-flash today (a double flash or in pp).

With an image (or a movie scene) from a round sensor one click in pp on a line chosen to be the horizon - voila: done!

Or simpler still: any aproximatively horizontal straight line with blue above it ("aha: this is the sky!" the silicone deduces) would come out perfectly horizontal.

 

Is there a patent pending on this? Probably, I don't know.

Not that I care, seeing the efforts of the LED-inventor (something really useful). Better have lunch now instead

 

Besides it is nothing new: reading prevents inventing. I think the first box cameras (or some other photo-dinosaur from the pre-last century) made round negatives.

[Exodies]

Oh I agree, circular sensor would be perfect but I thought square might be more readily acceptable.

[erl]

Advertisement (gone after registration)

Square!

Yes.

Hasselblad (and others) have already done it.

My favorite format.

More natural than rectangular.

however i persist with my Leicas for other reasons.

Such choices.

First world problems.

[ECohen]

Oh I agree, circular sensor would be perfect but I thought square might be more readily acceptable.

 

 

 

The  Kodak 1a had a round sensor....A little hard to crop you loose too many pixels

 

 I think this photo is in the public domain.

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!

[Guest]

 

The  Kodak 1a had a round sensor....A little hard to crop you loose too many pixels

 

 I think this photo is in the public domain.

 

Actually you lose less pixels from a round sensor with a maximally-big rectangle image or square image,

than croping a different shape from a rectangular (or square) sensor.

The new picture corners can always reach out all the way to the circle.

Manufacutring those sensors and arranging them like cinema-seats / honey combs  might reduce the loss compared to waffers, that contain chips in presently made shapes. But since there is talk about future non-flat image sensors to deal with cheaper lenses, it could well be that this disadvantage may not be a high cost factor.

[Guest]

youtube shows that Davidson, Eggleston and Mayerowitz hold their Leicas like HCB and Eisenstaedt when in portrait mode, while Gibson could have been a founding member of the "I scratch my right eye-brow" group.

[Herr Barnack]

A square sensor will sort this out.

There is a very quick and easy at home solution to this. Remove your lens and set the camera for sensor cleaning mode.  With the sensor exposed, carefully apply a strip of duct tape to the sensor glass in such a way that the non covered portion of the sensor is 24x24mm square.  If you decide to return to shooting 24x36mm full frame imagery, the process is easily reversed. 

[Exodies]

Thanks, I'll give it a go

[Exodies]

 

The  Kodak 1a had a round sensor....A little hard to crop you loose too many pixels

 

 I think this photo is in the public domain.

 

 

Look how beautiful that is. You get everything your lens is capable of. You loose no pixels by changing the horizon. You can crop to any rectangle you like - long and thin, short and fat - the pixels you loose are already lost in our current camera.

[graphlex]

The classic get enabled HC-B to keep the camera finder right next to his shooting eye, minimizing the time between perception and execution.  It requires holding the camera with one hand, just above the shoulder.  Not so easy with a clunky M240. 

[graphlex]

Classic grip, not get

[Denys]

It's so easy I rarely think about it, but I usually pre focus in landscape format and spin the camera around with the base of the camera resting against my left palm, shutter button downwards and operated by my right thumb

 

 

That's what I do; holding the camera that way gives me the impression of a more stable hold, allowing longer exposures if that's helpful. Additionally, and this might just be me, I tend to find more things to focus easily on when the camera is held in landscape mode..that is, more 'vertical' things like buildings, poles, noses (I know it's the done thing to focus on the eyes, but I don't - can't! - shoot at f0,95).

[adan]

RE sensor shape - you guys need to think it through a bit more.

 

What size sensor are you proposing for a M camera?

 

36 x 36 mm? - the lenses won't cover it, and it will require a taller (non-standard, custom, expensive) shutter. It will add 12mm to the camera height.

 

30 x 30 mm? - the lenses will cover it, but you will lose overall size (can't take pictures 36 mm tall or wide). And it still adds 6mm to the camera height. If you like the Barnack shape, you'll be shooting 20 x 30 mm (crop factor 1.2), and throwing away a third of your pixels with every shot (hmmm, pay for 60 megapixels, only get to use 40 of them - that's smart economics, isn't it? (Not!)).

 

Round? - What's your plan for mapping the pixels? What's your plan for reading columns/rows of different lengths? What's your file format for a round image? Are you going to "square it up" with empty black or white pixels around the edge, so that LR or Photoshop can open it?

 

Anyone can have "an idea" - but if you're not the Wright Brothers, or Steve Jobs, or Elon Musk, and actually make it a reality, who cares? How do you plan to make it a reality?

[Guest]

Oh Andy, so you're working on it already?

Good start!

[Advertisement]

Hallo,

Look here: Leica M

[Guest]

So maybe you advocate square emoticons

[pop]

RE sensor shape - you guys need to think it through a bit more.

Remember one Oskar Barnack? The guy who thought a bit more about camera formats as one factor for making photography more mobile? And he worked in a corporation whose success was founded in part on standardizing products and components.

 

Yes, I know, before your time and mine.