Re: [Leica] The Leica Look: Another thought on a debate we had ages ago

[Mark Rabiner <mrabiner@concentric.net>]

Gareth Jolly wrote:
> 
> Several months back, we had a discussion about what attributes of an M
> contribute to a unique Leica (or at least, Leica rangefinder) look.
> 
> Chandos suggested that the focussing system might contribute;  Eric Welch
> and myself (I think) agreed that the ability to compose using the frame
> lines (so you could simultaneously see what was in and outside the shot and
> recompose accordingly) was more critical.
> 
> I've had another thought which I thought I'd throw up, in the fine spirit of
> contributions well after the event.
> 
> With a telephoto lens (by which I mean, more than 50mm), there is a
> compression of depth.  With a wide angle lens (less than 35mm), there is a
> curvature of field.  Both, of course, are apparent looking through an SLR
> viewfinder.  Neither are apparent when looking through a rangefinder
> viewfinder - you are composing (I think, correct me if I'm wrong)
> essentially on a flat field.  So for example, with a wide angle lens, you
> disregard the greater prominence of any close central subject and decreased
> prominence of any subject matter at the edge of the frame.  With a
> telephoto, you disregard the compression of depth.
> 
> Any thoughts?
> 
> Cheers
> Gareth Jolly

Gareth the way I read your post you are specifically addressing the Leica(M)
look in telephoto or long lenses and that is a tricky issue which I am into as I
am more of a fan of the longer lenses than most and use the new 135 3.4 APO
often as well as the 90 Elmarit often. I don't have a 75 yet.
The Zen of the whole thing to me is that with those little framelines we might
actually be composing more for what we are not getting than what we ARE getting.
We are eliminating elements of the picture as we move the camera around. We are
composing for what we don't want instead of what we do want. The metephysical
significane of this is I'm sure great but as I ain't Susan Sontag I can say I do
know I am getting an image which is expressing itself with definatly higher
quality glass. My shots have a glow I never got with my Nikon zooms.
Obviously if a car or something is traveling along heading into our image we can
now anticipate it better with our Leica M's.
As you are saying what you seeing with your viewfinder of groundglass is
certainly going to influence the overall look of your shots. One thinks one
works around the technology, the interface, but it's impossible to ignore it is
the school of thought I adhere to.
One big influence of the looks one gets from the longer lenses on our M's is
there is not a lot of it. Not a lot of shooting being done with longer lenses on
the M's.
I find it ironic that the M system is thought of primarily as a wide angle
camera as the M3 was set up for the opposite needing "eyes" to get even a 35mm
lens to work.
Working with those little frame lines on a 90 or 135 is something so many people
especially one used to SLR technique will react strongly against and not give it
much of a shot.
The fact is what you see on a groundglass (wide upon depth of field) until you
hit the lens preview though the murk button is just as an inaccurate first
impression of the image as what you see with our framelines which give you the
unfortunate first impression that max depth of field. Do we want our first
impressions to be selective focus wide open groundglass? Or would we be able to
stop down and get closer to what we would end up with with our viewfinder
framelines? It is depending on if we are generally shooting in high or low light
or if we use a tripod.
Mark Rabiner