Over the last couple of years I have been using a myriad of cameras (Olympus 8080, Canon P&S), and as my skills improved I kept searching for more control and a better shooting experience. Recently I have been taking more and more pictures with my Micro 4/3rds Panasonic G1 (awesome camera by the way and IMO an awesome value) and learning more and more about photography... Was this just a passing hobby or was I really getting into it... Into it enough to rationalize a Rangefinder and should it be film or digital? Well at this point I got lucky...
Over the Thanksgiving holiday visiting my parents I remembered the old film RF my Dad had from the 1960's... It would-be awesome to try it out and maybe borrow it for a while... Forever? Anyway he had it in it's original case ready to go. The camera was a Voigtlander Vitomatic II in mint condition (a used one can be purchased for approximately $100 or so om EBay) with a nice fixed 50mm color Skopar lens. I brought the camera home and started shooting right away. Wow, what a great camera. Even after all these decades the camera worked perfectly and the images were very sharp. More importantly, I was sold on the rangefinder style of photography. I loved the manual exposure and manual focus aligning the dual images so you know your shot is in focus. In the past I always struggle with manual focus on SLR style cameras... always squinting to see if the image was in focus. With a rangefinder you always know your image is in focus. For me three areas really won me over to the RF way of shooting:
1) Rangefinder Manual Focus - Also, shooting with a manual focus RF really slowed me down... composing the shot. I don't take sport photos so I don't have a need for very fast autofocus. I really like using the focus scale on the manual focus lenses. As I am walking I find it very easy to pre-focus using the distance scale on the lens and then when I am ready for the shot just bring it to my eye... compose and do a fast final focus tweak with the rangefinder. I like that much better than the half press... wait... beep... autofocus lock process of a DSLR.
2) Viewfinder - I really like the bright viewfinder and frame lines instead of the darker cluttered viewfinders of modern DSLR cameras. Its funny... in the past I used to pack as much into the viewfinder as I could... I even had a small histogram displayed on one before. Now I really wanted a clear viewfinder with only the bare essentials. Note, with the M8 I like the viewfinder a lot and really like the meter arrows. Simple and very easy to use. However, I would like to have the shutterspeed displayed when using full manual and maybe have the ISO displayed in the small LCD panel on the top. That would be perfect.
3) Overall Shooting Experience - More of a catch all category but selecting a camera, in my opinion, is a very personal choice and this category captures the emotional side of the experience. The feel. The look. The emotion I felt once I used an RF I just fell in love with this type of photographic experience. In the past I would spray and pray, use the zoom to get in closer.... autofocus... auto everything. In the past I was always trying to get myself to slow down... relax... take my time composing.... with a rangefinder that all came naturally and just seemed to flow. I loved setting the aperture and pre-focusing on the lens...composing the image in the bright viewfinder... finalizing the focus and shooting with the almost silent "snick" of the shutter. Awesome! Finally a nice fluid smooth experience where I didnt think about the camera menus, rolling wheels to scroll through aperture and shutter speed.... looking in the cluttered view finder to read all the settings.
Now I had decided on a rangefinder and in the previous posts you know I already decided I really couldn't do film (although I still might want to try it in the future). So a digital RF it is, and I have two choices a Leica M8 or an Epson RD1 (see Soooo a Leica M8 - Part 1).
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