Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/04
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Has anyone seen/read the works of Raghubir Singh ? Yeah! he's phenomenal - achieves a compositional & thematic density in many of his best pictures that are (IMO) nearly unique. > What I'm curious is that his pics are very much like as > if they were executed thru "rangefinder technique" but > I was rather surprised to find out (from Pop Photography) > that they were taken using one of his several > old Nikon FA SLR almost exclusively. When asked why, he > said the major deciding factor was the250 flash sync speed . > Of course pics like these can be achieved with an SLR, but > I thot , wouldn't all these pics could have been easier > obtained thru a rangefinder camera ? I went though a similar series of reactions when first exposed to Sigh's work, but for him the way that flash is used is even more pivotal than the framing system; he's one of the few photographers using a lot of flash whose work I really like. It's pretty obvious that his usual kit is a 24 mm (or so) lens with a strobe & diffuser... > Is there such a thing as a type of picture that a rangefinder > camera can capture which an SLR can't ? Maybe the opposite, at least until the M6 TTL was introduced. > Or maybe Singh took tons of pics (which he said > he did) and cropped like crazy..... I don't think he crops a lot. I think he shoots a lot and edits magnificently. I strongly suspect that much of his work is zone-focused and that he's experienced enough to frame the image in his mind's eye as he brings up the camera. For those who haven't seen it, the conversation between Singh & V.S. Naipul in the beginning of the book Bombay is a mustered. - -Alexey