Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2002/06/06
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]Kyle Cassidy wrote: > > re camera buying: > > >I think using a screw mount Leica can not only be ><Snip> > >helps you make better pictures. [snip] > > nooooooooooooooooo! if you want slow shooting shell out $200 and buy a 4x5 ><Snip> > a 20 pound tripod, oops, not level, (twist twist, twist twist) still not > level, dang (twist twist, twist twist). > > this is one thing i hear again and again on this list, but i still don't > understand and think is a lot of hooey, to be honest, that bugs are features ><Snip> > thinking. it's like saying "having a mechanical watch is better than having > a quartz watch because you have to remember to wind it and take it into the > jewelers once a month to have it set because it gains and loses and that > improves your memory and makes you really understand time." > > if you want a "real education in photography" take some classes with eddie ><Snip> > product and not the process by which the light makes it to the film. > > feel free to discount me, i'm just ranting. > > kc ON the other hand take a look at cameras when designwise they hit a homogeneous stride in the early 70's with all controls in the same places. 35mm slrs. Made by a half dozen or more companies. Just about anyone could pick up any of these half a dozen SLR's from half a dozen companies and shoot with them without thinking. You could have them all hanging off you necks at the same time and grab them in the dark. Whose complaining about that. Tools are tools to do a job. Their use should be obvious and hell why not homogeneous? Why is it some of us don't want that? Some of use want to struggle to take a picture and think that's great? Well that's an exaggeration. To get 4x5 results thousands of people (who just wanted to be writers anyway) were given the "Speed", told "F 8 and be there" a film holder with a sheet of film on each side and sent out to get a shot. Some of us who are impressed by the results obtainable with 4x5 might still pick that piece of equipment. Or Linhoff, or Wista. To me the problem is not the quirkiness of how a certain camera system works. It's too many cameras. Some of us are mechanical manual geniuses who can flit from Linhof to Minox to Hasselblad with out a hitch. Most of us will forget where the switch is that makes the back open or press it at an un opportune time. If we are collecting cameras. Lets not just think we are experts in the use of all these cameras on our shelf. And make decisions and opinions on their use and capabilities. I think we need to walk a mile in it's shoes. Make that several miles and on a regular basis. Make that camera (above all others) an extention of us. We do have to swear off are other cameras for a while. Really get to know a camera before we undertand what it can do for us. One of us just said that about the LTM. That was his only camera. He used it for a year. He had no problem with it got quite used to it. Yes i suspect he'd get quicker pictures with a Nikon F5. But that was not the issue. The viewfinder did not seem dark. He didn't have another viewfinder that was any brighter. Mark Rabiner Portland, Oregon USA http://www.markrabiner.com - -- To unsubscribe, see http://mejac.palo-alto.ca.us/leica-users/unsub.html