[LRFlex] R8/9 - scary-looking or not?

>>At 08:07 21/10/2004, you wrote:
>>You are kidding right? ;-) And if you wished to make it less "scary looking"
>>what would you do and still maintain it's in hand feel of comfort?

To make the R8/9 less scary-looking? Well as one of our group pointed out it's the function that's important not the look, so I may be completely out of line, I have never done more than hold and look through an R8/9.

The main plus point in the "in-hand feeling" seems to me to come from the integrated right-hand grip, so a classic sixties/seventies (SL/SL2/R3/Nikon F2/Canon F1) shape, integrated right-hand grip and a built-in motor to make a body the size of a Canon T90 would suit me. In fact if I could put my Leica R lenses on my T90 and retain auto-diaphragm that would suit me down to the ground.

While I am up on my soapbox I may as well carry on. Once the film is loaded and a lens focal length selected (by lens change or zooming) a camera only has three controls: lens aperture, shutter speed and focus distance. All the functions that come with electronic cameras are just wrappers around those three controls. The greatest photographs ever made - by the likes of HC-B, Kertesz, Capa, Eisenstadt, Haas et al - were made with what we might consider as sub-standard materials: aberration-soaked lenses, slow and grainy films (although the view seems to be that silver gelatin printing papers were of better quality in days gone by). The photographers who made those great photographs probably never used - or didn't even possess - light meters. In fact most of us in this group could probably do without light meters. There would be the odd error but experience would teach. For me it comes down to this, at what point did the marketing department take over from the photographer-engineers (like Barnack) when deciding what features and functions cameras should have?

In the UK recently we had a TV programme called "Grumpy Old Men" where the eponymous blokes would talk about things that really irritated them, most of those things being integral aspects of modern life. I suppose I am one of them. "Light meters in cameras? Auto-exposure? Autofocus? What's the point of all that?"; classic grumpy old man stuff.

Photography, eh? Endless fun to be had, on every level. 

Take care,

Noel

www.noelyates.co.uk




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