JT
06-10-2005, 19:18
Are You Ready for Photography's Dirty Little Secret?
Let's talk about you.
You consider yourself a serious photographer. You've worked your way up from casual snapshots to an ongoing commitment; you've made your choice of digital, film, or both; you've invested time and money to improve your skills and equipment.
Now, perhaps, you're about to take the plunge and spring for a top-of-the-line single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. After all, it just makes sense to have the best tools available -- even though you've been told often enough that "it's the photographer, not the camera, that makes the picture."
But wait! What if I told you that photography has a dirty little secret -- that sometimes the camera DOES make a difference?
In fact, what if I told you that there's a secret camera, one that can improve your photography by changing the way you see and think?
This isn't fantasy. There IS a secret camera, and it's been around for a long time. Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt used it for many of their best-known works. Robert Capa carried two of them when he waded ashore at Normandy. Ansel Adams chose it for environmental portraits. In fact, if you researched the iconic photographs of the past 80 years, you'd find that a disproportionate number of them were made with the secret camera. Wouldn't that make you want to know more about it?
Okay, enough suspense. The secret camera isn't a brand of camera. It's a kind of camera -- a rangefinder camera.
A what? Well, a rangefinder camera is simply a camera that's focused by a built-in optical rangefinder -- a simple piece of technology perfected long before the dawn of modern photography, and used for everything from surveying to astronomy to aiming the guns of battleships. The rangefinder uses mirrors and prisms to let your eye see a distant object simultaneously through two slightly separated viewing windows. Adjusting a control varies the viewing angle of one of the windows, so its image seems to move from side to side relative to the other. When the two images coincide exactly, simple triangulation tells you the exact distance to the object. In a camera, the lens' focusing control is coupled to the rangefinder mechanism, so lining up the images automatically sets the lens to the correct focusing distance.
Clever, yes. But can it really change the way you see and think photographically? Yes, it can -- and the easiest way to understand how is to compare a typical rangefinder camera with its more popular cousin, the single-lens reflex (SLR.)
Both types of cameras, rangefinder (RF) and SLR, are available in 35mm, rollfilm, and digital formats (although to make comparisons easier we'll concentrate here on 35mm models.) High-end models of both types offer a wide choice of shutter speeds, provide automatically metered or manual exposure options, and accept ranges of interchangeable lenses.
The biggest difference between them is in how you aim and focus the camera. And that difference is far more crucial than it might seem at first glance. After all, the most important decisions you make in photography are: Where do you aim the camera? On what do you focus the viewer's attention? And when do you choose to make the picture? Your success as a photographer, your personal style, even your philosophy of photography all hinge on your answers to those questions. And using an RF camera guides you to different answers than using an SLR camera, because of this difference in how these two types of cameras "see."
What IS that difference? To put it simply: When you use an SLR, you look into it and see an image. When you use an RF camera, you look through it and see the world in front of you.
That difference has profound artistic as well as technical implications. Let's look at the technical side first.
As you probably know, the biggest advantage of an SLR camera is that it lets you view through the lens. But for many types of photography, that's also its biggest disadvantage. For example, have you ever noticed how much more difficult it is to focus a super-wide-angle lens on your SLR than a normal or tele lens? All the details in the picture are small, and they all look more or less in focus all the time; it's hard to know when you've crept up on exactly the sharpest point. (And don't kid yourself -- your SLR's autofocus system has exactly the same problem!)
Viewing through the lens also has its drawbacks when you fit a lens with a small maximum aperture: the view through the finder gets dimmer, and composing and focusing your picture become more difficult. Fit a dark-colored filter, and you may barely be able to see the subject at all!
Through-lens viewing also requires your lens and SLR camera to be synchronized very precisely by mechanical and electronic couplings. These complex linkages mean a lens has to be tailor-made for a specific brand of camera; choosing between Nikon or Canon is a big decision because, if you change your mind later, you'll have to replace not only your camera body but your entire set of lenses.
What's more, these lens-to-camera couplings makes the lens larger -- and the time it takes for them to operate makes for a noticeable "shutter lag" between the time you press the release and the time the camera actually makes the picture. And that brings up another SLR disadvantage for the action photographer: the camera's swinging reflex mirror "blacks out" the viewfinder at the moment of the actual exposure -- the moment you need it most! Every SLR action shooter learns this depressing truth: "If you saw it through the viewfinder, you didn't get it on the film!"
Now let's see how it's different to use an RF camera. Look through its viewfinder, and you're NOT looking through the lens. Instead, you're seeing through a separate optical system designed especially for aiming and focusing the camera. The design of this optical system is simple, with very few components to absorb or divert the light, so the view is always bright and clear. Everything you see is always in focus -- you don't have to wonder whether that blob in the background is a tree branch or an oncoming car!
Crisp white framelines in the finder delineate the field of view for the lens you're using. You can see outside these framelines, too, letting you keep an eye on your subject's surroundings; you'll never be surprised by an unexpected passer-by wandering into the frame. In the center of the viewfinder is the rangefinder patch; you place it on the center of interest and turn the lens' focus ring until the two images merge. It's quick, positive and accurate, no matter what lens or filter you have on the camera.
Take a picture and you'll notice two more things. One: There's no reflex mirror to flip, auto-diaphragm mechanism to stop down, or electronic signals to communicate from lens to camera body -- so when you press the button, the shutter fires right now. And two: You know what picture you got, because the viewfinder never blacks out. You can see whether the subject blinked, whether the flashes fired, whether you caught the peak moment of the action. It's no wonder that many photographers find that once they've mastered an RF camera, they feel more confident and more decisive. In fact, the famous phrase "the decisive moment" was coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson, an inveterate RF camera user.
Look at the RF camera itself and you'll see some other practical advantages. One is the lens: Notice how small and compact it is? That's because it doesn't need any auto-diaphragm or exposure couplings -- the only connection between the lens and the camera is a simple cam that transfers the focus setting to the rangefinder's optics.
And that simplicity has another benefit: Believe it or not, EVERY brand of 35mm rangefinder camera made today uses the exact same lens mount, called the "M-mount." Prefer the camera body of Manufacturer A, but admire the lenses of Manufacturer B? No problem -- buy whichever lenses you want, put them on whatever body you want, and they'll work just fine. Change camera brands, and you can still use your current collection of lenses. You can even add a simple adapter to convert your camera to the M-mount's predecessor, the "L-mount" -- giving you access to thousands of different kinds of lenses dating back to the 1930s, many of them with uniquely beautiful imaging qualities.
It's true that RF cameras and lenses tend to cost more than comparable SLR equipment -- they're built to last, not to sell in high volume at discount prices. But their wide-ranging compatibility means they also don't become obsolete as easily. In fact, many RF photographers have found that one camera body and three or four well-chosen lenses are all they need for an entire productive lifetime in photography!
If you're an experienced photographer, you may already know about these advantages. And you also may have heard about the RF camera's big disadvantage: limited range. And that's true -- an SLR gives you access to a far wider range of accessories, such as super-tele, macro, and ultra-zoom lenses and special-effect filters. It has more built-in automated features. There's no question that of the two, an SLR camera is much more versatile.
But here's the strange paradox that makes the RF camera such an effective artistic tool: Its lack of versatility is actually an advantage.
Chuck Jones, the Oscar-winning animation director who helped turn such creations as Bugs Bunny and Wyle E. Coyote into cultural icons, once wrote an essay on this idea of limitations as an aid to creativity. By the 1930s, he said, the technology of animation had made it possible for a director to set his story in any kind of world he wanted to imagine, populated by any kinds of outlandish characters his mind could create.
In that kind of unlimited artistic environment, he said, a great deal of the artistry lies in what the artist chooses NOT to do. It's the limitations that provide a framework within which he can be creative.
Working with a rangefinder camera imposes the same sort of creative discipline. If you see a man doing something interesting across the street, you can't simply lurk at a distance and snap away with a super-tele lens -- instead you have to walk over to him, possibly even strike up a conversation. In a social situation where the lights are low, you can't just pop up the built-in flash and blast away -- you need to watch the play of light across faces, and search for the significant detail emerging from the shadows. Roaming a picturesque area but feeling short of ideas? You can't synthesize "creativity" by sticking a special-effect filter over the lens, or shooting through a keyhole, or zooming during exposure -- instead you have to look again, walk a few steps farther, think a bit harder. The "limitations" of the RF camera rule out just about every cliché and crutch you've ever seen done to death in photo contests and magazines.
In other words: Using an RF camera makes it difficult to photograph in any way EXCEPT directly, sincerely, and honestly.
It's not the camera for everyone -- but it may be the camera for you. If it is, it will change the way you see, the way you work, and the way you think. That's photography's dirty little secret -- but once you've tried it, it won't stay a secret for long.
Let's talk about you.
You consider yourself a serious photographer. You've worked your way up from casual snapshots to an ongoing commitment; you've made your choice of digital, film, or both; you've invested time and money to improve your skills and equipment.
Now, perhaps, you're about to take the plunge and spring for a top-of-the-line single-lens reflex (SLR) camera. After all, it just makes sense to have the best tools available -- even though you've been told often enough that "it's the photographer, not the camera, that makes the picture."
But wait! What if I told you that photography has a dirty little secret -- that sometimes the camera DOES make a difference?
In fact, what if I told you that there's a secret camera, one that can improve your photography by changing the way you see and think?
This isn't fantasy. There IS a secret camera, and it's been around for a long time. Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt used it for many of their best-known works. Robert Capa carried two of them when he waded ashore at Normandy. Ansel Adams chose it for environmental portraits. In fact, if you researched the iconic photographs of the past 80 years, you'd find that a disproportionate number of them were made with the secret camera. Wouldn't that make you want to know more about it?
Okay, enough suspense. The secret camera isn't a brand of camera. It's a kind of camera -- a rangefinder camera.
A what? Well, a rangefinder camera is simply a camera that's focused by a built-in optical rangefinder -- a simple piece of technology perfected long before the dawn of modern photography, and used for everything from surveying to astronomy to aiming the guns of battleships. The rangefinder uses mirrors and prisms to let your eye see a distant object simultaneously through two slightly separated viewing windows. Adjusting a control varies the viewing angle of one of the windows, so its image seems to move from side to side relative to the other. When the two images coincide exactly, simple triangulation tells you the exact distance to the object. In a camera, the lens' focusing control is coupled to the rangefinder mechanism, so lining up the images automatically sets the lens to the correct focusing distance.
Clever, yes. But can it really change the way you see and think photographically? Yes, it can -- and the easiest way to understand how is to compare a typical rangefinder camera with its more popular cousin, the single-lens reflex (SLR.)
Both types of cameras, rangefinder (RF) and SLR, are available in 35mm, rollfilm, and digital formats (although to make comparisons easier we'll concentrate here on 35mm models.) High-end models of both types offer a wide choice of shutter speeds, provide automatically metered or manual exposure options, and accept ranges of interchangeable lenses.
The biggest difference between them is in how you aim and focus the camera. And that difference is far more crucial than it might seem at first glance. After all, the most important decisions you make in photography are: Where do you aim the camera? On what do you focus the viewer's attention? And when do you choose to make the picture? Your success as a photographer, your personal style, even your philosophy of photography all hinge on your answers to those questions. And using an RF camera guides you to different answers than using an SLR camera, because of this difference in how these two types of cameras "see."
What IS that difference? To put it simply: When you use an SLR, you look into it and see an image. When you use an RF camera, you look through it and see the world in front of you.
That difference has profound artistic as well as technical implications. Let's look at the technical side first.
As you probably know, the biggest advantage of an SLR camera is that it lets you view through the lens. But for many types of photography, that's also its biggest disadvantage. For example, have you ever noticed how much more difficult it is to focus a super-wide-angle lens on your SLR than a normal or tele lens? All the details in the picture are small, and they all look more or less in focus all the time; it's hard to know when you've crept up on exactly the sharpest point. (And don't kid yourself -- your SLR's autofocus system has exactly the same problem!)
Viewing through the lens also has its drawbacks when you fit a lens with a small maximum aperture: the view through the finder gets dimmer, and composing and focusing your picture become more difficult. Fit a dark-colored filter, and you may barely be able to see the subject at all!
Through-lens viewing also requires your lens and SLR camera to be synchronized very precisely by mechanical and electronic couplings. These complex linkages mean a lens has to be tailor-made for a specific brand of camera; choosing between Nikon or Canon is a big decision because, if you change your mind later, you'll have to replace not only your camera body but your entire set of lenses.
What's more, these lens-to-camera couplings makes the lens larger -- and the time it takes for them to operate makes for a noticeable "shutter lag" between the time you press the release and the time the camera actually makes the picture. And that brings up another SLR disadvantage for the action photographer: the camera's swinging reflex mirror "blacks out" the viewfinder at the moment of the actual exposure -- the moment you need it most! Every SLR action shooter learns this depressing truth: "If you saw it through the viewfinder, you didn't get it on the film!"
Now let's see how it's different to use an RF camera. Look through its viewfinder, and you're NOT looking through the lens. Instead, you're seeing through a separate optical system designed especially for aiming and focusing the camera. The design of this optical system is simple, with very few components to absorb or divert the light, so the view is always bright and clear. Everything you see is always in focus -- you don't have to wonder whether that blob in the background is a tree branch or an oncoming car!
Crisp white framelines in the finder delineate the field of view for the lens you're using. You can see outside these framelines, too, letting you keep an eye on your subject's surroundings; you'll never be surprised by an unexpected passer-by wandering into the frame. In the center of the viewfinder is the rangefinder patch; you place it on the center of interest and turn the lens' focus ring until the two images merge. It's quick, positive and accurate, no matter what lens or filter you have on the camera.
Take a picture and you'll notice two more things. One: There's no reflex mirror to flip, auto-diaphragm mechanism to stop down, or electronic signals to communicate from lens to camera body -- so when you press the button, the shutter fires right now. And two: You know what picture you got, because the viewfinder never blacks out. You can see whether the subject blinked, whether the flashes fired, whether you caught the peak moment of the action. It's no wonder that many photographers find that once they've mastered an RF camera, they feel more confident and more decisive. In fact, the famous phrase "the decisive moment" was coined by Henri Cartier-Bresson, an inveterate RF camera user.
Look at the RF camera itself and you'll see some other practical advantages. One is the lens: Notice how small and compact it is? That's because it doesn't need any auto-diaphragm or exposure couplings -- the only connection between the lens and the camera is a simple cam that transfers the focus setting to the rangefinder's optics.
And that simplicity has another benefit: Believe it or not, EVERY brand of 35mm rangefinder camera made today uses the exact same lens mount, called the "M-mount." Prefer the camera body of Manufacturer A, but admire the lenses of Manufacturer B? No problem -- buy whichever lenses you want, put them on whatever body you want, and they'll work just fine. Change camera brands, and you can still use your current collection of lenses. You can even add a simple adapter to convert your camera to the M-mount's predecessor, the "L-mount" -- giving you access to thousands of different kinds of lenses dating back to the 1930s, many of them with uniquely beautiful imaging qualities.
It's true that RF cameras and lenses tend to cost more than comparable SLR equipment -- they're built to last, not to sell in high volume at discount prices. But their wide-ranging compatibility means they also don't become obsolete as easily. In fact, many RF photographers have found that one camera body and three or four well-chosen lenses are all they need for an entire productive lifetime in photography!
If you're an experienced photographer, you may already know about these advantages. And you also may have heard about the RF camera's big disadvantage: limited range. And that's true -- an SLR gives you access to a far wider range of accessories, such as super-tele, macro, and ultra-zoom lenses and special-effect filters. It has more built-in automated features. There's no question that of the two, an SLR camera is much more versatile.
But here's the strange paradox that makes the RF camera such an effective artistic tool: Its lack of versatility is actually an advantage.
Chuck Jones, the Oscar-winning animation director who helped turn such creations as Bugs Bunny and Wyle E. Coyote into cultural icons, once wrote an essay on this idea of limitations as an aid to creativity. By the 1930s, he said, the technology of animation had made it possible for a director to set his story in any kind of world he wanted to imagine, populated by any kinds of outlandish characters his mind could create.
In that kind of unlimited artistic environment, he said, a great deal of the artistry lies in what the artist chooses NOT to do. It's the limitations that provide a framework within which he can be creative.
Working with a rangefinder camera imposes the same sort of creative discipline. If you see a man doing something interesting across the street, you can't simply lurk at a distance and snap away with a super-tele lens -- instead you have to walk over to him, possibly even strike up a conversation. In a social situation where the lights are low, you can't just pop up the built-in flash and blast away -- you need to watch the play of light across faces, and search for the significant detail emerging from the shadows. Roaming a picturesque area but feeling short of ideas? You can't synthesize "creativity" by sticking a special-effect filter over the lens, or shooting through a keyhole, or zooming during exposure -- instead you have to look again, walk a few steps farther, think a bit harder. The "limitations" of the RF camera rule out just about every cliché and crutch you've ever seen done to death in photo contests and magazines.
In other words: Using an RF camera makes it difficult to photograph in any way EXCEPT directly, sincerely, and honestly.
It's not the camera for everyone -- but it may be the camera for you. If it is, it will change the way you see, the way you work, and the way you think. That's photography's dirty little secret -- but once you've tried it, it won't stay a secret for long.