Back to basics

[Sagitar]

I am having increasing difficulty carrying my DSLR kit on walks, so for my birthday at the end of May I asked for a much smaller and lighter rangefinder type camera and I have been trying it out over the last few days.

 

I used rangefinder cameras up to about 1956, when I got my first SLR so it is not a totally new experience, but getting used to dealing with parallax and never being absolutely sure what is going to be in the frame takes some getting used to.

 

However, I am beginning to enjoy using the new camera and here are a few pictures that I took with it on a walk this afternoon. The first two pictures are of the same subject, but I was trying to see the effect of variations of depth of field and focusing plane. I took a lot of sample images, but I think these two show the differences nicely

 

 

 

The final one is a simple, single rose in a hedgerow.

 

[Tony]

First picture shows great depth for such a small subject and the last one great colour depth. What make is the camera?

[Rich]

Nice photos, did you shoot RAW? What is the camera?

[parthiban]

Great pics as always. Interesting subject though, don't really know much about rangefinders other than the fact that the viewfinder is separate so there's no mirror like in an SLR - what are the benefits other than size and weight?

[phipck]

generally image quality is greater with a rangefinder because it doesnt have the mirror the lenses can be much closer to the capture media (film or sensor). This means generally cheaper but better quality lenses however i have read that for movement and telescopic photography that the slr design is prefured, im assuming this has something to do with seeing what is in the frame with an slr opposed to the off side view finder?

[Sagitar]

generally image quality is greater with a rangefinder because it doesnt have the mirror the lenses can be much closer to the capture media (film or sensor). This means generally cheaper but better quality lenses however i have read that for movement and telescopic photography that the slr design is prefured, im assuming this has something to do with seeing what is in the frame with an slr opposed to the off side view finder?

 

Thanks for all the interest. I will try to answer all the questions in one go.

 

The camera is a Fujifilm X Pro-1, not strictly a rangefinder by my definition, but described as such because it has many of the attributes of a rangefinder in a digital implementation.

I was using a Fujinon 35mm f/1.4 with it and together they weigh 660 gm (1lb 7oz)

For comparison, my Canon 5DII with a Canon 50mm f/1.4 lens weighs 1200 gm (2lb 10oz) - 50mm is the equivalent focal length to the 35mm Fujinon because of the different sensor size.

When you're 80 plus and feeble that is consideration enough on a long walk.

 

The advantages of the rangefinder layout are well described by phipck above and the image quality of the Pro1 is very good, to the point where it is being accepted as a substitute for the Leica M9 at about four times the price. Fuji have been very clever I think in making an adapter that allows the body to accept Leica M series lenses, but if the range of lenses that Fuji produce for it are all as good as the first three, then I'll be happy to stay with them. Fuji have pioneered a non-standard layout for the photo-sites in the sensor and this has enabled them to leave out the anti-aliasing filter that almost all digital cameras use to prevent the the creation of interference patterns in images that have features that recur at frequencies close to the photo-site distribution frequency in the sensor. It is claimed to give a significant improvement in image contrast and edge sharpness.

 

The downside of the rangefinder is that the viewfinder does not see what the lens sees and the manufacturers have to do clever things to put a frame inside the viewfinder that moves when the focusing distance is altered or when a different focal length lens is fitted. It never works as well as actually seeing what the lens sees, especially for action photography and is the primary reason why I swapped from Leica to SLR back in the 50s. Fuji have got around the problem by making the viewfinder a composite device that allows either a direct optical view or a projected electronic image, so you can see what the lens sees. However, the projected image has a finite scanning rate so it changes in a slightly steppy fashion and the projected image is always fractionally behind the lens image, so again not very good for action photography. The X Pro-1 has a mechanical focal plane shutter, but they have not managed to get the shutter lag times down to the levels achieved by Canon and that is another good reason for not using the camera for fast action. They have already issued two firmware updates for the camera and I'm hopeful that they might improve this situation, but I am not really worried about it, because I will certainly go on using my Canons at static sports events where I don't have to carry things very far.

 

The depth of field in the first two pics is exactly the same, but the first is focused at the centre of the seed head so the parts of the head that are in that plane are in focus but the nearer parts are not. The second image is focused on the "parachutes" on the near side of the head.

 

Fuji make colour film and one of the features of the camera is emulation of the results given by some of their films. When I took these pictures the camera was set to emulate "Velvia", which is a rich colour film very suited to photographing flowers. Apart from that, colour is often washed out by over-exposure and I make a habit of under-exposing slightly so that highlights are not burned out and then lifting the image slightly when converting from raw to tif or jpg until I get the right side of the image histogram correct. There is almost always a lot of hidden detail in the darker parts of the image that benefits from being lifted in this way. Incidentally, yes, I pretty nearly always use raw, but all my cameras allow the recording of a raw image and a large jpeg image simultaneously so I always have a jpeg that I can use immediately if needed.

 

I'm very impressed by the quality of the images that I am getting out of the camera, but it is not all sweetness and light. The tripod mount on the base is stupidly close to the door to the battery and memory card compartment. The battery and memory card cannot therefore be accessed without taking the camera off the tripod and unscrewing the quick release plate. The grip for the right hand is small and does not put the forefinger in a comfortable position over the release button; I haven't got particularly big hands so this must be a problem for those who have. Conversely, the small thumb grip on the back of the camera puts the ball of the thumb right over several control buttons and it is all too easy to change some of the settings inadvertently. It means that you really have to pay attention to the viewfinder information. I over-exposed five images this morning before I realised that I had moved the wheel that alters exposure compensation. I am getting used to it and I guess it is the price that you pay for having a smaller camera body.