Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1997/11/26
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Phil Payne wrote: >have tried it a few times. What I really miss is the ability to see >what's going on just outside the frame - to anticipate things >entering it, and see what's just outside the composition. With an >SLR, I feel like I'm looking through a glass-bottomed bucket onto a >reef. The more I shoot with SLR and RF side by side I realize the different ways of perception. This thing of "tunnel vision" that Phil refers to is certainly one. The other is that with a RF/separate finder everything is in focus. In complex scenes there always tends to be distracting elements. Urban environment is so cluttered by strongly distracting things, light poles, wires, garbage of all sorts, random guys here and there. With a RF/finder you see it all in focus and can mask some behind the main subject, align them to be just pieces of composition etc. With a SLR all looks clean on the screen (say 50, 85 mm or longer) but in the final image unpleasant stuff pops up from nowhere. Of course if you have time to use dof you can control it but often things happen too fast or it's too dark. In a way with RF/finder you see the worst possible image and then the numinous "bokeh" comes to rescue by wiping out some of the distraction. Yet another reason I think she might have wanted the finder it to shoot longer times mirror up. Or, as she was influenced by HCB, maybe it was an inverting finder. Not always for sure - she definitely used that revolver-type thing with focal lengts 35-135. Kari