[Leica] HCB versus the M8 part one IMG

[wmrav at triad.rr.com (William Ravenel)]

Alastair,

Thanks for the detailed explanation of your techniques. Street  
photography is not my strong suite. I'll have to give your (HCB's?)  
technique a try. It's always nice to understand others' thought  
process in the making of a photograph.

Enjoyed the picture also. I agree that the B&W version will endure.

Will


On Feb 10, 2007, at 12:13 AM, Alastair Firkin wrote:

> So time for some images. You can avoid the rant and just go to:
>
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/album103/ 
> facePaintColor.jpg.html>
> http://tinyurl.com/2gafsy
>
> or you can continue to read the thought processes of a new M8 user  
> whose
> camera is back in action. The M camera became my street camera after I
> joined this group. Till then, I?d either avoided street shots, or  
> used a
> Rollei TLR (quite successfully as well). As I?ve said before, I had no
> idea of how to why to use a rangefinder when I bought my M3 (bought it
> because I had a CLE and it was so beautiful and ?born? the same year I
> was!!). The techniques I?ve learnt (not mastered) are now being  
> adapted to
> the digital M, and there are some ?clashes?.
>
> 1. After realizing some of the M?s strengths, I began to practice  
> being
> HCB. I used the 50mm summicron with a tab, learning to pre-focus and
> learning to guestimate light exposure, checking from time to time  
> with a
> meter. Basically, the camera is held as inconspicuously as  
> possible, with
> a preset exposure, you move quietly along the street/market etc  
> ?stalking?
> images. When a subject appears, you frame the scene in your mind  
> without
> raising the camera, setting the tab to the guessed distance. At the
> perceived decisive moment, the camera is brought up in one smooth  
> motion
> to the eye horizontal or vertical fired and returned. To do this, I  
> have
> to practice tab focusing for days before the ?event?: I usually walk
> around the house for a week prior to a trip doing it over and over,  
> and to
> be honest, it works ---- there is NO faster way to capture an image.
>
> An additional refinement to this is to keep the camera at a hyperfocus
> between shots, ready to aim and fire without even using the tab to  
> focus.
> With ?auto? exposure, I can even be lazy with the guestimation. The  
> first
> image above is the result of this process. I have set up 3 profiles  
> on the
> M8, so I can change between likely scenarios quickly. Profile 1 is
> daylight shooting in bright light (I do not use the auto WB here,  
> as set
> on daylight the camera is no worse off than being loaded with colour
> film). Profile 2 is my HCB TriX mimic. ISO is set higher at 320,  
> and the
> preview image is b/w jpeg. Profile 3 is my interior/low light set  
> up. I
> chose 1250 ISO for this, so that as soon as I went outside again a  
> shutter
> speed of 1/8000 would remind me to revert to another profile ;-)  
> with a
> colour preview and the monitor on the camera dimmed.
>
> Since I was using the 35 ?lux on the M8 in very dull late evening  
> light, I
> set Profile 3, then tested the light at f8, deciding that ISO 640 was
> enough. I now set a hyperfocal distance of 5 meters and went on the  
> prowl.
> On my first walk down the outdoor market evening, I had seen
> ?face-painters? and the topic appealed. This is the result of my M
> training. I saw these two with the face painting sign. I wanted to see
> their faces, people were wandering by and when the painter looked  
> over the
> camera was swung up and fired: someone passed in front of me (I was  
> aware
> of them) and I don?t think either girl had any idea that I?d made the
> image. So where is the ?clash?. I saw this image in b/w as below:
>
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/album103/ 
> facePaintBW.jpg.html>
> http://tinyurl.com/ywh34f
>
> compared with:
> http://tinyurl.com/2gafsy
>
> and to me it captures the beautiful expressions almost perfectly  
> BUT, its
> very hard to ignore the wonderful colours of the scene, and despite
> anti-Leica WB comments the M8 has done a none too shabby job in  
> recording
> the colours as well. I suspect many of us will be seduced by  
> colours we
> could never have recorded in film days (I know Nathan agrees with  
> this)
> and yet I sort of know that in years to come, I would prefer the b/w
> image.
>
> 2. The second issue is that in M3-6 days, I would have walked on. I  
> might
> have missed the moment or got it. That would only be known back in the
> darkroom (though usually with a rangefinder you do know when you have
> ?nailed-it?). Now I can chimp, though I must add at this moment  
> that the
> dimmed screen is pretty dim, AND I can take more images. Yes, I always
> could, but digital screams out for it. Electrons don?t cost, the M8  
> winds
> on and is ready for another image quickly etc. One problem with my  
> use of
> digital is that I still use it like film. Helen takes images from  
> dozens
> of angles etc and chooses later, but for me old habits die hard. So  
> I did
> re-focus (they were only 3 meters or so away) and take another image:
>
> <http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Alastair/album184/album103/ 
> facepaint2.jpg.html>
> http://tinyurl.com/22tb3p
>
> This one is sharper, and I was delighted with the shape of the  
> painters
> hands, but looking through the viewfinder, I had not really noted the
> person behind, who I had blocked out when I had positioned myself  
> without
> the camera to my eye, and I find her presence has made the image a bit
> more messy. You should also know that both images have had a little  
> crop:
> No issue there for me.
>
> 3. Finally clash 3. If I take multiple images I tend to like more  
> than one
> of them and find it very hard to dispose of any but the real flops. So
> far, I find editing the images is taking far more time with digital  
> then
> it ever did with film. So I seem to waste more time than I had  
> expected
> when I started using a digital camera. I decided last time to take the
> raw/jpeg options so that I did not have to edit every raw image  
> back to a
> storage jpeg, BUT lightroom does not show me the jpegs, and I don?t  
> think
> editing in LR and Bridge is a smart option. I have no answers, only
> questions but there is a lot to learn, and I suspect a lot that I  
> need to
> IGNORE!!!.
> That is more than enough for one e-mail. Comments would be delightful:
> especially the negative ones!!!!
>
> Cheers and here?s luck
> Alastair
>
>
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