Rangefinder patch question

[jdlaing]

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2 hours ago, sergiomarried said:

Thanks all for adding to the topic your thoughts and suggestions. To be honest, I feel that understanding and mastering the RF Mechanism is paramount as it is such a key part in the process of making a photograph. One of the other things I’ve been struggling lately and giving a lot of thought has to do with the 35mm frame lines... Do you get to see the whole frame easily? I don’t use glasses, have pretty good sights and I really find difficult seeing the whole 35mm frame  at once easily... I know how you position the camera to your eye makes a lot of difference, up, down... am I missing something key in the technique or is this a common topic? I’d love to being able to accurately frame my shots, especially in the borders... any tips? 

I have no problem with 35 lines. 28 is a little stretch. I don’t wear glasses either.

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[adan]

3 hours ago, Hey You said:

The brain is programmed to focus horizontally, because our eyes are aligned horizontally.  However, we cannot easily focus by aligning vertically as our eyes and brains are not set up for this.  If I try to focus vertically, it is hard to see the focus patch and hard to do.  I suspect that my eyes do not even register the focus patch as it is not something they are pre-programmed to be aware of.

An interesting idea.

However, I never had a "perceptual" problem aligning the split images with a split-prism "rangefinder" screen in manual-focus SLRs when shooting verticals.

My eye and brain were equally happy aligning things "up and down" or "side-to-side."

But the viewing optics are different with an RF - two images on top of each other rather than side-by-side. "Coincident" rather than "split". And with the SLR screen, one looks "at" it rather than "through" it. And of course the SLR viewing area is a "dark room" with fewer opportunities for flare and such.

Edited September 16, 2020 by adan

[mujk]

5 hours ago, sergiomarried said:

Thanks all for adding to the topic your thoughts and suggestions. To be honest, I feel that understanding and mastering the RF Mechanism is paramount as it is such a key part in the process of making a photograph. One of the other things I’ve been struggling lately and giving a lot of thought has to do with the 35mm frame lines... Do you get to see the whole frame easily? I don’t use glasses, have pretty good sights and I really find difficult seeing the whole 35mm frame  at once easily... I know how you position the camera to your eye makes a lot of difference, up, down... am I missing something key in the technique or is this a common topic? I’d love to being able to accurately frame my shots, especially in the borders... any tips? 

Don't worry about the framelines. They are not that accurate anyway. I wear glasses and used to worry about not seeing the 35 and 28 ones on my first Leica M 15 years ago, probably because I was used to more exact framing with SLRs. Nowadays I don't even think of them. If I need to make sure something near the edge is is inside the frame, I just move my eye a little so that I can see it.

Interesting theory about the difference between horizontal and vertical rangefinder focussing. Personally, I find it a bit easier to focus when the camera is horizontal, but that may be because I seem to almost unconciously look for vertical lines to focus with. It also seems that horizontal rangefinders are more common in cameras than vertical ones.

[adan]

33 minutes ago, mujk said:

It also seems that horizontal rangefinders are more common in cameras than vertical ones.

That's mostly a physical space problem.

To install a RF with a physical base length of 68mm (as in the Leica) and be vertical - the camera has to be at least 75-80mm tall. Which is a waste of space if the film travels horizontally anyway, and the camera is already 75-80mm wide.

Only camera made in any volume that I know of, with a vertical RF, is some versions of the Graphic 4x5 press cameras.

.....or some of Leica's own accessory-shoe add-on RFs for early Barnack screw-mounts.

Crown Graphic  - note round windows of add-on RF in the base of the flash gun: https://hum3d.com/3d-models/graflex-crown-graphic-press-camera/

Leica add-on RF:  http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/FOFER

The FOFER shows the problem of trying to fit a vertical RF into most camera bodies. Way too tall.

Edited September 16, 2020 by adan

[Gobert]

I never focus in portrait mode, always in landscape mode And The  turn the cam a quarter. That is so much easier.

[robert_parker]

36 minutes ago, adan said:

Leica add-on RF:  http://www.l-camera-forum.com/leica-wiki.en/index.php/FOFER

The FOFER shows the problem of trying to fit a vertical RF into most camera bodies. Way too tall.

That perhaps brings forward a question - if you use one of Leica's add on vertical rangefinders, does this problem occur, or does the problem occur if the same rangefinder is used in the horizontal mode, i.e. 90 degrees away from where it's intended use lies; obviously there are going to be significant differences in the inbuilt rangefinder and the external one but if this is a generic problem it should show.

Edited September 16, 2020 by robert_parker

[adan]

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I don't know - have not used a free-standing RF in decades (and that was trying the one on an elderly Crown Graphic, and a bit hazy).

The main difference between the Barnack Leicas and the Ms is that the Ms have a combined viewfinder/rangefinder. That was the big breakthrough of 1954* - the Meßung and the sucher through one window. Measuring and viewing.

Thus the patch is rather small (and shrunk a further amount by the viewfinder mini-fication itself: 0.9x, 0.85x, 0.72x, etc.), And subject to scenery-clutter surrounding the patch.

The old stand-alone RFs - and the ones built into the top-end Barnacks - were independent of framing the scene, and thus up to 1.5x life-size, and show nothing but the dual images, with nothing else to distract from focusing or cause flare (at the cost of a second's delay in shifting the eye from the focusing eyepiece to the framing eyepiece).

______________

*excepting me, of course!

[sergiomarried]

17 hours ago, a.noctilux said:

👍 Hey You,

this must be the answer to the "problem".

Now that you say it, I remember that this is my prefered process for M " focus horizontally, move to vertical for the pic".

 

Sergio, try to NOT looking at frame lines,but look straight to have the lines in the field "blur" as guide (a bit of practicing).

I don't try to frame tight with Leica M, but "loose in the safe side" mostly.

Yeah! That's certainly a good tip because with all this I've been looking at frame lines too much, instead of through... Framing loose feels like a good approach as well, thanks a lot

[MarkieC]

On 9/15/2020 at 12:02 AM, adan said:

And how the camera is held (and which eye is used) can mess with Leica's carefully-thought-out handling expectations.

Greetings,

You mentioned that which eye is used can mess ...

I am uncomfortable looking into my M10 with my right eye.  I use my left eye.  Will that change anything for me?

Thank you very much.

[farnz]

14 minutes ago, MarkieC said:

Greetings,

You mentioned that which eye is used can mess ...

I am uncomfortable looking into my M10 with my right eye.  I use my left eye.  Will that change anything for me?

Thank you very much.

Yes, it will mean having to clean nose-grease off your LCD from time to time.  

More seriously though, as you place your eye to the rangefinder window, the bridge of your nose will force your eye to be off the optical axis of the rangefinder window and you'll need to squint a bit to line things up.  This is not ideal and can lead to the problems mentioned earlier with the eye being off-centre.

My left eye is dominant and I used to shoot left-eyed but since starting to wear spectacles about ten years ago shooting seemed to become a much more complicated matter as my eye was further from the rangefinder window.  I decided to try to change to right-eye shooting and it was much easier to change than I'd expected.  I can now shoot with either eye, which is useful for shooting in portrait orientation because I can lower the right hand end of the camera and shoot with my left eye, which allows me to tuck my right arm into my body for added stability.

Pete.

[adan]

3 hours ago, MarkieC said:

I am uncomfortable looking into my M10 with my right eye.  I use my left eye.  Will that change anything for me?

Farnz summed it up well.

Yes, for better or for worse, it is the case that the asymmetrical layout of the Leica rangefinder cameras (jncluding the M10, and most other rangefinder cameras, which adopted the Leica layout) favors the 70% of people who are right-eye-dominant.

That was kind of burned into history 95 years ago by the desire to put most of the controls and shutter clockwork under the right hand for manipulation, leaving only the left side of the camera (as seen from behind) for the viewfinder/rangefinder.

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Especially for horizontal pictures - holding the camera to the left eye for verticals is a bit easier, however (it will fit beside the nose).

https://www.google.com/search?q=leica+photographers&client=firefox-b-1&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwit96Dy4vbrAhUVHM0KHcGgCfsQ_AUoAnoECBIQBA&biw=1810&bih=1250

Here are some comments on how other left-eyed Leica photographers have dealt with this - you won't be alone:

 

[Herr Barnack]

On 9/16/2020 at 3:53 PM, Gobert said:

I never focus in portrait mode, always in landscape mode And The  turn the cam a quarter. That is so much easier.

That is my technique, too.  It is a big help.

An M camera is a bit awkward to hold in the vertical orientation to begin with.  Trying to keep fingers out of the way of the rangefinder window and avoiding inadvertently changing the focus or aperture setting complicates matters further.  Wearing eyeglasses while trying to shoot in the vertical orientation is trying, but it can be done.

My M-P 240's live view button is exasperatingly easy to activate due to being bumped by the top corner of my eyeglass frame.  I have not been plagued with this when using my M10 Mono or Q2, though. 

I shoot with the camera held in the horizontal orientation most of the time - not because it is easier, but because I see the world more effectively with my frame lines in the horizontal orientation.  Sometimes only a vertical composition will do; when that is the case I do not hesitate to shoot in the vertical layout.

[farnz]

10 hours ago, MarkieC said:

Greetings,

You mentioned that which eye is used can mess ...

I am uncomfortable looking into my M10 with my right eye.  I use my left eye.  Will that change anything for me?

Thank you very much.

Another very much left-field suggestion if shooting with your right eye out of the question is to flip the camera upside down to shoot and rotate the pictures the right way up in post-processing.  This will put the rangefinder on the appropriate end of the camera for your left eye but you'd need to release the shutter with your left thumb and it would be important to cradle the lens correctly (palm away from you) to prevent your right hand from blocking the rangefinder window.

It might feel unusual at first but I suspect you'd get used to it with time.  It probably wouldn't help with discreet street-shooting because the upside down camera would likely draw attention to you.

This is radical suggestion for when right-eyed shooting is out of the question and nose grease proves too much of a problem.

Pete.

[MarkieC]

On 9/19/2020 at 7:56 PM, farnz said:

Yes, it will mean having to clean nose-grease off your LCD from time to time.  

More seriously though, as you place your eye to the rangefinder window, the bridge of your nose will force your eye to be off the optical axis of the rangefinder window and you'll need to squint a bit to line things up.  This is not ideal and can lead to the problems mentioned earlier with the eye being off-centre.

My left eye is dominant and I used to shoot left-eyed but since starting to wear spectacles about ten years ago shooting seemed to become a much more complicated matter as my eye was further from the rangefinder window.  I decided to try to change to right-eye shooting and it was much easier to change than I'd expected.  I can now shoot with either eye, which is useful for shooting in portrait orientation because I can lower the right hand end of the camera and shoot with my left eye, which allows me to tuck my right arm into my body for added stability.

Pete.

Pete.  Thank you for your thoughtful response to my question.  I wear eye glasses as well and I think it is time for me to make the change to right-eye shooting.

What you said makes a lot of sense to me and could have caused focusing problems for me in the past, for which I was unable to figure out why.  My nose was in the way!

Thanks again and take care - Mark

[mujk]

I'm very much left-eyed and find it difficult to use my right eye when taking pictures. However, I have never thought of using my left eye as any problem in these 50+ years I have been using cameras, even though I have been told that my nose is quite "prominent" (meaning large and rather ugly). Grease on the lcd (or on the iso dial with film Ms) is actually not a big issue for me.

But of course I don't try to hold the camera parallel to my face, but rather tilted to the left. And I wear glasses so the ocular is anyway at some small distance from my eye. I just checked, and for me there is no difference in this distance between holding it to the left or right eye. So even if I tried to use it with my right eye this would not improve 28mm frameline visibility. But this might be different for someone else.