Do you "see" a photo differently with an M8?

[GarethC]

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I was driving earlier this week when I saw what could be a couple of photo opportunities when the light is better and the kids aren't in the back of the car.

 

Then I was just reading a rangefinder comment about seeing what's not in the frame as well as what is in the frame.

 

It struck me that I see many more almost abstract images out of the M8 than out of a DSLR. Why do you think this is?

 

Also, I enjoy fairly traditional landscape photos in many respects, I can look at my better shots and see the foreground interest, rule of thirds blah blah. I just don't "see" those more abstract images.

 

Granted, I've only owned the M8 a couple of months at most and I love the fact that I can put everything I need in a grocery bag (which I did until I rediscovered a bag that would work) and that I am forced into manual focus (the AF switch on my M8 broke) but I wonder if I am just too much of a child of slr's, having shot with them since I was a teenager.

 

I've always seen a potential photo by seeing the larger picture and then looking for some foreground interest to give it depth and then composing on a tripod. I'm aware of what I do, I'm just not aware of how I should be framing a shot with the M8, I've never been a point and keep clicking, throw mud at the wall with 150,000 actuations, type of photographer.

 

I'd be intrigued to read about your thought processes of how you generally find and frame a shot.

 

I recognize that much of this is practise and instinct, I'm not looking for rules never to be broken just some comments on how you approach your art.

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[Shootist]

Well for me when using a SLR I see a shot with my eyes wide open. When I put the SLR up to my eye I lose what I saw and have to recompose by either zooming in/out, if I'm using a zoom lens, or moving forward or backwards or changing lenses.

With the M8 I see what I saw with my eye when the camera comes up to my eye. Yes I still might have to move forward or backwards or switch lenses to get what I saw but it just seems more natural with the M8 or any Leica M I have.

 

Before getting the M8 I found myself wanting to carry my M3 more and more over the Nikon D200 because the M3 just fit me better. But usually took the D200 for it ease of use after the shot, IE no developing and scanning.

Since getting the M8 in late January the Nikon has been sitting most of the time. Even when I had to send my original M8 in to NJ I found myself taking the M3 more then the D200.

[Alberti]

It's an interesting question. I have made many documentaries in the past using good depth of field, fine grained pushed films. Many architectures. At a certain moment I thought them rather bland . Then I got a SLR with macro and all at once this completely changed my ideas. A picture is about a plane of focus. Great pictures have this up in front. Now I use this again to great advantage in the M8, and being able to see the real result helps a lot.

There is a school of 'seeing' the frame: the WA view leads you to even regard a 50mm shot as a tele foto. That is why I am not the least concerned, even applaud, the small extension factor. It now crops directly.

Focus even for the range of 2-5 meters is realised though swaying a bit forward and backward. That is an art in itself. That is mine (and as I understand Shootist's) way of 'fast-focus'.

[As you might understand, Gareth2, I'm puzzled with your remark: "(the AF switch on my M8 broke).]

[luigi bertolotti]

Alberti : A picture is about a plane of focus

this is definitely the point, You've definied it in a very effective way: I am an avid mountaineer, have a number of 35 x35 albums with my film enlargments, and about 70% of them are related to mountains, that sometimes offer nice shots simple to infinity...but a nice shot and a really good picture you have obtained thinking of it are quite different things. All (or almost) the best pictures are around some relation between planes of focus... what is the specific of the M8 in this respect ? First of all (being me a longtime M4 user) is the difference between, in general, RFs vs. other ... and I have little to say about... never used extensively SLR... on the contrary, I used many times TLR... to be quick, I post three simple ideas of mine:

 

- SLR : you are driven to THE SUBJECT ,and moreover with zooms (think, no exp as I said)

 

- TLR : you are driven towards RIGHT COMPOSITION of the frame

 

- RF : you are driven to find the CORRECT POSITION of yourself in relation of the plane(s) of focus you wish to catch.

 

Simple and condensed ideas... but this is really an intriguing and important field of analisys on how people shot: I hope to read other people in this thread

[MrEd]

Alberti : A picture is about a plane of focus .........

 

........it's all in your, my, our heads.....which is precisely why I always say the possibilities are endless......millions, billions.......

 

Cool thoughts.

 

Ed.

 

 

.ps. I rarely look in the M8 forum. Do I need a passport to get in?

 

.

[sean_reid]

I absolutely see things differently when working with an RF and that's a large reason why I use that type of camera. It is important to my work to be able to see the full frame as if through a window.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[GarethC]

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What do you mean "as if through a window" Sean? Surely an SLR offers that up?

 

That was a joke about the AF switch.

 

Interesting thoughts so far, had to re-read a few in order to try and grasp the concept.

[johnastovall]

I like shooting a RF because it lets me see the facts out side the frame and consider what may happen when the come into it. An SLR doesn't let me do that.

 

As Garry Winogrand said, "Photography is about finding out what can happen in the frame. When you put four edges around some facts, you change those facts.”

[sean_reid]

What do you mean "as if through a window" Sean? Surely an SLR offers that up?

 

That was a joke about the AF switch.

 

Interesting thoughts so far, had to re-read a few in order to try and grasp the concept.

 

Very different things, those two. SLR is looking at a ground glass at a given aperture (usually max.aperture) whereas RF is looking through a window with unlimited DOF. The difference, for some of us, is profound. See my R-D1 review on LL for further discussion.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[Bob Ross]

Very different things, those two. SLR is looking at a ground glass at a given aperture (usually max.aperture) whereas RF is looking through a window with unlimited DOF. The difference, for some of us, is profound. See my R-D1 review on LL for further discussion.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

Hi Sean

I think you are right. My take on it is that a ground glass image is a two dimensional projection that has the lens' DOF built in. This would require us to "learn" to see in that manner. The window viewfinder is a three dimensional representaion and we learned that one when we first opened our eyes. The SLR or view camera introduce additional steps in our visual workflows and we might even suspend seeing while we momentarily deal with them. When I look back over my archives, my favorites seem to be from waist level finders (Bronica) or RFs, while the largest volume is fron SLRs....obviously I have a lot of trash:(

Bob

[Guest guy_mancuso]

I see a image than grab a camera to record it is usally the case , although a surprise may hit when you actually have the camera in place , but the brain works first. As it should

 

 

But i think what the OP is asking is there a difference in seeing with a DSLR and RF. Honestly i don't think there is but viewing is certainly a different perspective since the magnification of the lens shows on the DSLR bigger , so you will see differently. i know one thing i don't look for 180mm shots anymore since the biggest i have is 135mm. Bottom line is you just adjust to what you have

[Artichoke]

and advantage of RF photography

looking through the narrow window of an SLR confines and makes anticipation much more difficult, if not impossible ...ironically this helps greatly in getting moving subjects in frame ...while sports/action is not considered a strength of RF photography, providing one can get in close enough to the subject, having a view beyond that captured is a very big advantage

the RF window is brighter and aids composition much more ...I find I am much less frequently off vertical when shooting an RF than when using an SLR and being able to see what is happening around my subject helps me with composing a more compelling image ...this is the greatest advantage I have found with RF photography over using an SLR

[Speenth]

Hi' Gareth,

 

You haven't broken the autofocus on your M8. To restore autofocus just set the camera to f16 and shoot objects at infinity. Avoid that pesky aperture ring, it just makes the pictures go all blurry either side of the point of focus - occasionally that produces startlingly effective images, but the M8 is so primitive it requires the user to control this creativity feature.

 

Also commonly broken on the M8 is a feature that works so much better on its Japanese competitors - I call it the "What the hell does this button do" feature. I find myself bored between shots because I know exactly what everything does on the M8 and I don't have to spend half an hour playing with all the combinations of buttons and switches that are essential to image production with my Nikon. Most of the time I'm actually just trying to get all the settings back into the right order - that never seems to happen with the M8 - I have no idea what the Solms engineers were thinking about ....

 

By the way, I see a photo so differently with the M8 that right now, while its at Solms under repair (another standard M8 feature) I just don't take any satisfaction as I take images. I know they'll lack an indefinable magic (an automatic feature on all M8s).

[sean_reid]

Hi Sean

I think you are right. My take on it is that a ground glass image is a two dimensional projection that has the lens' DOF built in. This would require us to "learn" to see in that manner. The window viewfinder is a three dimensional representaion and we learned that one when we first opened our eyes. The SLR or view camera introduce additional steps in our visual workflows and we might even suspend seeing while we momentarily deal with them. When I look back over my archives, my favorites seem to be from waist level finders (Bronica) or RFs, while the largest volume is fron SLRs....obviously I have a lot of trash:(

Bob

 

Here's what I wrote about this for LL a few years ago. The difference can indeed be very important:

 

"The core advantage of a rangefinder, for me, however, lies in the way in which it allows one to see and frame the picture before it’s captured. A rangefinder shows one the world through a window with lines indicating the picture’s borders. That allows one to look at what will and will not fall within those borders. In other words, one sees the world of the picture about to be made as well as the world just outside it. This can give one a greater sense of the ways in which the picture might change by either 1) changing the framing or 2) allowing elements outside the frame to move into the frame. Epson’s 1:1 finder takes this strength one step further. Since the finder shows the world at life size, one can work with both eyes open. One eye sees the world as it appears in the frame; the other watches the world outside the frame that may soon enter it. Or perhaps we could say that the right eye sees the trees and the left eye sees the forest.

 

Then there’s the issue of viewing depth of field. An SLR normally uses an automatic aperture that remains open during composition and only closes to its set aperture at the moment of exposure. So, let’s say the camera has a 50mm F/1.8 lens mounted and set to an aperture of F/8. The exposure will be made at F/8 of course but the viewing used to compose and choose the moment of the picture will be seen through the lens wide open. That means that one will only see a certain range of distance in the frame (usually the foreground subject) clearly, everything behind and ahead of that focus zone will be blurred. So while the film or sensor will “see” at F/8 when the exposure is made, the photographer sees at F/1.8. It’s hard for one to make a picture he or she can’t fully see. One can get around this using a depth of field preview button but that method tends to work better when the camera is on a tripod. When working handheld, using a DOF preview button can be cumbersome and makes for a dark finder where things are harder to see. The rangefinder has the opposite problem of showing all distances from the lens in focus. One process is additive and one is subtractive. With the SLR, one must see certain distances out of focus and imagine what they will look like in focus. With a rangefinder, one sees all distances in focus and must imagine what some of them will look like out of focus. I prefer the latter way of working."

 

There are definite reasons why many major photographers stayed with rangefinder cameras long after the SLR had come to dominate small format photography. I think that if one considers *everything* within the frame as subject (and pays attention closely to things at further distances as well as those that are closer, in the same frame) this difference becomes obvious. In a sense, then, one's way of building pictures has a lot to do with how important the differences are in RF vs. SLR viewing.

 

Cheers,

 

Sean

[GarethC]

Sean

 

That was a great article, thoughtful perspective. It's interesting what you say about the forest and trees though as my left eye is the dominant eye so it's hard work to see the forest, I generally just get the trees and the surrounding shrubbery that is in the viewfinder but outside the framelines.

 

Guy

 

You're right, that was more the question that I was asking but many posters ahve sort of answered my question in a different way. The central question is one of how you get to the place where you put the camera to your eye, rather than what you do once it is up there. Or, to put it another way, whereas an SLR user might look at something and say "that could be a good shot" will a RF user pass that by but see something else that offers potential?

[Guest guy_mancuso]

I think you see a shot no matter what , maybe by compostion or texture and shape . Of course subject matter also, so not really sure the format or camera really dictates that so much . Maybe a pano camera might sway your thinking. But overall i think in your head is you see the image there, than for me pick a lens to get it . So one thing to learn very well is given a focal length knowing what that angle of view is in your head so putting a lens on you already know your crop and composition. Just for example a portrait you pretty much know what your going to use, that is a simple one to figure out. The one thing someone did touch on and i believe since using a RF that i use my feet move more to get in and get out further and that maybe due to not exact cropping like a DSLR but like someone else mentioned i do like seeing outside the frame lines too. So i think on the seeing part is just learning how the systems work in your head and you really adjust to seeing. I did mention the 180mm and now i just don't look for 180mm shots, it sounds strange but my head is thinking without it because i know it is not there in the bag.

 

I think the crux of your question or at least a thought to it is with a different system personailty you think within that system more and folks that shoot on the fly a lot know exactly what a focal length will be without picking up the camera to there eye. I really think the key word to your question is intuition more than anything else. BTW excellent question . Now other folks touched on the plus and minus of each and that maybe more of a preference than intuition.

[Alberti]

Just a little bit extra of my pondering. As a kid I used my brother's Zeiss Ikon Contaflex SLR with a clear image (no ground glass) and this was nice because it was 1:1. It helped me understand framing. No distractions. Many SLR's could be fitted with a clear glass but almost no-one did that (except for special puposes like microscopy). Still, if Sean is right about the clear pane (and I support him ) I would expect that to have seen a better and lasting market take-up in the professional market.

Guy is also correct in that the RF allows you to sense the scene and you walk around a bit (work the feet), because the RF shows the composition in 3D, shows a sense of atmosphere. Instead of using a zoom, step in or out. I once used to be a filmer and learned that I had to 'jump' on the cast to get emotion. Get into contact. If one fickles around with a zoom lens to close 'the gap' you kill the art of pictures.

[Guest guy_mancuso]

Just a little bit extra of my pondering. As a kid I used my brother's Zeiss Ikon Contaflex SLR with a clear image (no ground glass) and this was nice because it was 1:1. It helped me understand framing. No distractions. Many SLR's could be fitted with a clear glass but almost no-one did that (except for special puposes like microscopy). Still, if Sean is right about the clear pane (and I support him ) I would expect that to have seen a better and lasting market take-up in the professional market.

Guy is also correct in that the RF allows you to sense the scene and you walk around a bit (work the feet), because the RF shows the composition in 3D, shows a sense of atmosphere. Instead of using a zoom, step in or out. I once used to be a filmer and learned that I had to 'jump' on the cast to get emotion. Get into contact. If one fickles around with a zoom lens to close 'the gap' you kill the art of pictures.

 

 

I agree and that is what i meant by more preference which i did not really get into but your right. RF does give you the sense of walking into or out of a shot /scene. i am really starting to like RF a lot more than i orginally thought i would when i switched over. It's always the same when you look so it is not confusing when you pick it up to the eye. Frankly i never liked zooms and much prefer my feet and there is not a zoom out there better than primes EXCEPT for 2 . LOL . Just so happens there leica zooms 35-70 2.8 and the 28-90 R lenses are simply outstanding in quality but i still not a fan of zooms . Like you said Alberti diving into it is what it is all about.

 

Nice conversation folks and good thread

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[GarethC]

Interesting thoughts. When I shoot a landscape I use a tripod partly for steadiness and partly to force me to slow down and really look at what is in front of me and what is in front of the camera. And then, very often, I use my feet to move into and out of the scene as well as around it, looking for the best point of view for me.

 

What you seem to be saying Guy and Alberti (and this isn't a quality judgement in the least) is that you do all that for what can very often be the "grab" shot for want of a better word, ie the typical photojournalist approach if you like.

 

It's almost a compromise between what I do for a landscape and what a photojournalist might do?

 

If nothing else, this will be an inteesting exercise for me. What I absolutely love about the M8 is that it's users can make the ordinary look extraordinary, capture things in an almost abstract manner but also capture images in a more representational manner as well, and I guess that is what I was driving towards with my original question.

[andybarton]

I see an image before I have even got my camera out of my bag, and I do not see them any differently whether I use my M or my DMR. I don't shoot street or people.

 

IMHO (maybe for the kind of stuff I shoot), the "advantage" that a rangefinder offers with regards to seeing beyond the frame of the photograph is over-stated, especially when the framelines cannot be relied upon.

 

It's all a matter of taste or personal preference and one thing is for sure, there is no right or wrong answer.