Thursday 20 November 2008

Looking outside the frame

Two walking (Reichstag), Berlin, October 2008

Out reading in blogland this afternoon a thought came to mind about how the great RF practitioners might work today in the digital age. It came down to seeing. One of the great advantages touted for the rangefinder viewfinder is thee ability to see outside the frame, watching action approaching. Well yes, to some extent. With my Zeiss Ikon and a 28mm, the angle of view fills the viewfinder.

Much handier is the live view of the modern LCD. Not because it's live view but because of its size and hence arms-length use. With a decent size screen that one holds away from the body, or at unusual angles, one can actually hold the camera in place and watch the world around. I often do this, aligning the camera, setting some sort of visual marker for where I want the subjects coming into frame and firing when ready.

Maybe HCB would be using a small digicam for its discrete size and ability to see the whole scene during the act of shooting.

4 comments:

  1. When using the Canon 10D and a 50mm lens I could keep both eyes open and view a less confined world.
    Fixing any camera on a scene and waiting for the scene to come together is a good way to work, whether it is a landscape and you are waiting for the right light or doing a street scene.

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  2. Unfortunately as a 1-eyed man I can't do the both eyes open thing. Didn't the less than 1x view-finder create a problem or is it close enough with a 50mm?

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  3. very close with 50mm, I was surprised but it worked very well. The only Canon lens I have is a 50mm so I got used to it very quickly, if I had a zoom it would be a different story.

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  4. I have rather liked using LCD-based shooting with fast-moving objects like children. In some situations it works quite well, but not always, as there is a temptation to fit too much into the image.

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