On Dec 23, 2010, at 10:39 PM, Andrew Allen wrote: > First, let me say thank you to those who e-mailed me with suggestions > on how to enjoy this mailing list and send some specific messages > straight to the circular file. That being said, I suppose one must > have a thick skin when dealing with any 'open' internet forum.
If you think being on this list requires a thick skin, you must hang out in some mighty unusual net.fora. If the PDML were any less contentious they'd have to change the M to stand for "Mutual-admiration". > > Back to photography, I was wondering if anyone has the same affliction > I do; that is, using certain focal lengths almost exclusively. I find > that 90% of my needs are covered by the rough range of 24mm - 85mm > (this being a 35mm equivalent range). Are you shooting 35mm? Or are you shooting APS digital? Unless you're doing a lot of low light work, it sounds like the 16-50 would be a nearly perfect lens for you. > That is wide through portrait - > clearly, I don't do any birding or serious sports work. Interesting, in the past week the shortest focal length I've shot was 16, and the longest 1200. That's true mm, not converted to some arbitrary "standard". These days I mostly shoot 20, 31, 77 & 135, though traditionally I've used either the 40 or 50 a lot more than the 20. > Recently, I > had a friend told me I should try out a RF WTF is RF? > for my needs - of course > I'd love an M9 - but I've yet to win the lottery. Any thoughts on > this focal length constriction, and the use of a RF for street > shooting versus a DSLR? Oh, rangefinder! Last September, I ended up running about 7 rolls of film through a rangefinder, my Argus C3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157624809385751/ you may find the gallery easier to view as: http://www.flickriver.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157624809385751/ That week, I shot about 10 times as many frames with my DSLRs (mostly at night), and when the time came to print out my best photos, about half of the prints were from the Argus and about half from the Pentaxes. My thoughts on the subject are that a competent photographer can get as good of a shot with any camera, but that not all cameras can get all of the shots. I also noticed that the rhythm of shooting with a fully manual rangefinder was very different than shooting with a DSLR. I spent a lot more time setting up the shots, and I didn't take nearly so many frames dialing them in until they were perfect. With digital it's click, chimp and correct, with film it's point, press and pray. Rangefinders have the same physics advantage as to EVIL cameras, in that you don't need to leave room for a mirror between the lens and the sensor. SLRs in a mount designed for an APS sensor, would have the advantage of a registration distance designed for a smaller mirror. In theory, a rangefinder could be a bit smaller, in practice my C3 is nearly as big as my K-x with the DA 40. For street photography you could be a bit more discreet if you had a TLR, so you wouldn't have to hold it up to your face. In practice, you're probably better off getting a pretty good point and shoot with a swiveling LCD for when you want to shoot from the hip. Or, you can do what I do, and just put a wide lens, which is forgiving of both aim and focus, on and shoot from the hip anyways. Which is what I did most of the night for Santacon: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ellarsee/sets/72157625448696367/ I put the sigma 20/1.8 on the K-x and half the time used it like a rangefinder shooting from the hip. I went back, turned off the sound on my computer, and looked at a bit more of your website. Your work doesn't seem to be limited by your equipment, unless there are a lot of shots that you're missing. On the other hand, I think I've seen you start a new thread what seems every day about another piece of kit. Looking at your website, I would have guessed from your style, that you shoot canon. A lot of the portraits seem to have large sections of the face that look almost like blown out highlights, which I see a lot in the photos of friends who shoot canon. I also, based on your style, guessed you to be pretty young. A lot of your work looks very heavily processed. I've noticed that people that grew up shooting film seem to work to make their photos look like they came out of the camera nearly perfect, while people who started with digital seem to treat the raw file as raw material for photoshop. That's an observation of style, not a quality judgement. What shots are you missing that you think you would get, or improve, by using a rangefinder and would it really give you any better photos than a decent point and shoot? I'm a huge gear head. I usually carries a bag with 2 bodies, 2 zooms, and six primes, and is almost always within reach of at least one camera. Mastercard will vouch for my love of toys. Even so, the answer to "What gear should I buy?" rarely has much to with the answer to "How can I improve my photos?" -- Larry Colen [email protected] sent from i4est -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List [email protected] http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
