Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2005/11/15

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Subject: [Leica] A Noctilux and Velvia ...
From: leica at rcmckee.com (R. Clayton McKee)
Date: Tue Nov 15 11:56:57 2005

On 15 Nov 2005 at 10:24, Ted Grant wrote:

> Show no fear, don't think about how slow the shutter speed is, then 
> physiologically you beat it. Just think about being right on the mark in 
> focus and tripping the shutter at precisely the right moment.

In my young and stupid days, I spent a fair number of hours on a 
rifle range terrorizing innocent bits of paper.  One of the important 
things I learned from that was NOT to ever actually think about 
pulling the trigger. If you pull the trigger, you disturb the aiming 
point and the balance.  If you let the rifle shoot itself, you don't. 
 
Practice and practice and practice until you know,  within a fraction 
of a millimeter and a fraction of an ounce and without thinking, just 
PRECISELY when the trigger will break. When you set up for your shot, 
you take up just as much of the slack as you possibly can without 
actually firing, so that there's just no motion required to set it 
off, and you visualize what you want to see, and then you relax into 
it...and when the moment happens, the rifle, or the camera, will 
fire.    

It's zen, really. Takes Practice.  A LOT of practice. But, if you get 
it just exactly right, you won't even be aware that you're shooting 
until the rifle hits your shoulder or the camera clicks.  

(When the situation is such that you can be still and wait for the 
shot to come to you, it works.  Obviously if everything's moving 90 
to nothing, you don't have the luxury, but in any case the less 
motion you have to impart to the camera at the moment of firing, the 
better.)

--


R. Clayton McKee                           http://www.rcmckee.com
Photojournalist                               rcmckee@rcmckee.com
P O Box 571900                           voice/fax   713/783-3502
Houston, TX 77257-1900                   cell phone #  on request


In reply to: Message from tedgrant at shaw.ca (Ted Grant) ([Leica] A Noctilux and Velvia ...)