Re: [Leica] Street photography using LF

[Johnny Deadman <john@pinkheadedbug.com>]

Weegee of course did exactly this as did a whole generation of photographers
who use the Speed, Crown and Super Graphic 4x5 cameras which were the
standard press kit for a quarter century.

Now I am the proud owner of a Super Graphic with a grafmatic back, it's
amazing how well designed the camera is for street photography (I don't have
a matched rangefinder cam at the moment, which is the only problem).
Basically you can walk around with the shutter cocked and exposure set, then
focus using the rangefinder, compose in the sports finder, fire off an
exposure... it's about three seconds to flip through to the next sheet of
film in the grafmatic, recock the shutter and you're ready to fire again.
You could get of six exposures in around thirty seconds with practice.
Course then you have to reload with another grafmatic back... if you have
one... but even that only takes 15-20 seconds.

The single biggest problem with LF for street photography is focus. You are
likely to be using a 90mm-135mm lens, (the equivalent of 25mm to around 40mm
on a Leica), and at relatively close distances. Even at f22 focus is
surprisingly critical at a distance of, say 3m.

The second problem is shutter speed. Say you're using 400 film, most vintage
lenses need to be stopped down to at least f8 or more likely f11-16 before
they start performing properly (the wider apertures are really just for
focussing using the ground glass). This means that on a grimy day where you
might use f/2.8 @ 1/250 on a leica, you're looking at f8 @ 1/30 on the 4x5
camera. I think this is why press photographers almost always used flash
with these cameras... which of course is a perfectly reasonable thing to do
these days too. Alternatively I've been thinking about shooting Neopan
1600... grain really isn't going to be an issue, I think.

It'll be fun, I think...
- -- 
Johnny Deadman

http://www.pinkheadedbug.com