The Zen of Manual Camera Photography
Last weekend I managed to get out with the new camera and take some pictures. It was quite a different experience from taking pictures with the SLR, I must say. The first and most obvious difference came when I was just learning how to use the new camera. The two-step operation of the shutter (first cock it with a lever on the left, then fire it with a lever on the right) took some getting used to. I searched all around the camera for a dial with which to set the ISO speed of my film, until I realized that since the camera didn't have a meter, there was no need for the camera to care what the film speed was! More intuitive was the way focus is dialed in on the camera, very smooth and nice, with much more precision and repeatability than on my SLR.
The second difference was trying to compose the shot using the waist-level finder. I had heard some people complaining online about how difficult it was to do this, but until I tried I didn't realize how disorienting it can be! It's not simply that everything's backwards, it's that if you want to center something that's on the left of the viewfinder, you have to move right! Even tougher is attempting to level the picture, because again if the right side of the image is too high in the viewfinder, you have to lower the right side of the camera. Surprisingly though, after about my third roll of film I started to get the hang of it. I'm thinking that a few more sessions with the camera and it should start to become second nature to me.
The biggest different, though, was how different the entire experience of the picture-taking session was for me. People have said that they like to use rangefinders because they feel like their part of the action, they're right inside what they are photographing, when they use a rangefinder, whereas with an SLR, they feel like they are an outsider looking in. I think I know what they are talking about, because I felt the same way when I started taking pictures. Because I didn't have the camera up to my face all the time, I felt free to look around and soak in the landscape before me, instead of hiding behind the camera the whole time. I really felt more connected and more relaxed about taking pictures. Less like a scientist documenting what I was seeing, and more like a part of the scenery. It really felt good.
The other thing that contributed to this feeling was the all-natural meter that I had, mainly my own eyes. Before I took any pictures I learned the Sunny-16 rule, and memorized parts of the EV scale. Using that, I sized up each shot based on what its EV value was, and used the Sunny-16 rule to translate that into an f-stop and shutter speed. It was amazing how much simpler taking photographs became when I didn't have to rely on a machine to tell me what the settings should be and I just used my own judgment. I felt it really helped me relax and look at the scene before me, instead of trying to point a device somewhere to get a meter reading and wondering if the meter had gotten fooled.
So overall I'm pretty happy with this new approach to taking photographs. It's almost a zen-like experience now, I feel so much more connected to everything. It's very cool. Can't wait to drive up and down the coast on the weekends and take some more pictures!
The second difference was trying to compose the shot using the waist-level finder. I had heard some people complaining online about how difficult it was to do this, but until I tried I didn't realize how disorienting it can be! It's not simply that everything's backwards, it's that if you want to center something that's on the left of the viewfinder, you have to move right! Even tougher is attempting to level the picture, because again if the right side of the image is too high in the viewfinder, you have to lower the right side of the camera. Surprisingly though, after about my third roll of film I started to get the hang of it. I'm thinking that a few more sessions with the camera and it should start to become second nature to me.
The biggest different, though, was how different the entire experience of the picture-taking session was for me. People have said that they like to use rangefinders because they feel like their part of the action, they're right inside what they are photographing, when they use a rangefinder, whereas with an SLR, they feel like they are an outsider looking in. I think I know what they are talking about, because I felt the same way when I started taking pictures. Because I didn't have the camera up to my face all the time, I felt free to look around and soak in the landscape before me, instead of hiding behind the camera the whole time. I really felt more connected and more relaxed about taking pictures. Less like a scientist documenting what I was seeing, and more like a part of the scenery. It really felt good.
The other thing that contributed to this feeling was the all-natural meter that I had, mainly my own eyes. Before I took any pictures I learned the Sunny-16 rule, and memorized parts of the EV scale. Using that, I sized up each shot based on what its EV value was, and used the Sunny-16 rule to translate that into an f-stop and shutter speed. It was amazing how much simpler taking photographs became when I didn't have to rely on a machine to tell me what the settings should be and I just used my own judgment. I felt it really helped me relax and look at the scene before me, instead of trying to point a device somewhere to get a meter reading and wondering if the meter had gotten fooled.
So overall I'm pretty happy with this new approach to taking photographs. It's almost a zen-like experience now, I feel so much more connected to everything. It's very cool. Can't wait to drive up and down the coast on the weekends and take some more pictures!
posted by Chris at 11:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home