[LRflex] Re: Hello
- From: Philippe Amard <phamard@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: leicareflex@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 19 Feb 2006 22:23:07 +0100
Hi Desmond
And Welcome!
It is nice to retrace your steps in photography - thanks for sharing
your passion
Is there some site where you've already posted snaps we could see?
Regards
Phileicangénieux
Desmond Waterstone wrote:
>I have lurked on this list for a little while now and thought that I might
>come out of the woodwork.
>
>Photography has been a passion of mine since my teens and a few years later
>when I bought my first SLR I realised that this was the camera type for me.
>For 25 years I used a Japenese marque with mostly good results, I am a
>perfectionist and looking back at my earlier photographs too often the
>sharpness is disappointing. I had always regarded Leica as the ultimate 35mm
>camera and finally in 2000 took the opportunity to handle an M4 & R4, both
>used, at a dealer. I was in for a surprise - despite having always regarded
>rangefinders as *the* camera I found it very disappointing, big heavy and
>awkward. The R4 by contrast seemed to me ideal in my hands (I Have very long
>fingers) and the choice was made - the R4 became mine.
>
>Later I returned with my Japanese outfit, two bodies with motor drive & five
>lenses, and was pleased when the value was deemed sufficient to exchange for
>a 28mm Elmarit from 1983! The lens was, and still is, in excellent
>condition. I bought one other lens (90mm Summicron) from a dealer but since
>then have bought all my equipment through eBay.de and have amassed eight
>lenses from 21mm to 180mm + accessories, mostly in new or near new condition
>for a fraction of dealer prices and without any problem.
>
>The R4 is still a superb camera but fails badly in a few areas - the
>viewfinder display is impossible to see in low light when it is really
>necessary, virtually useless secondary controls (faults cured from R5
>onwards), and low flash sync speed.
>
>Quite recently I have taken the plunge and bought an R8, eBay again and in
>almost new condition. It is superb and I am absolutely delighted with every
>aspect except one - the viewscreen is significantly smaller than the R4. Of
>course it's brighter, it's smaller, and I regard it as a backward step - for
>me the R4 screen is much more useful.
>
>I have also just received an SF20 flash, for me the great weakness of SLR
>cameras has been the limited possibility of fill in flash, and its
>integration with the camera is impressive, especially the automated fill in
>with reduced power in Program mode. But it has a terrible fault - if you
>manually set reduced power (which I always do) this setting is lost when the
>flash is turned off! I simply cannot believe this - other manually entered
>values are retained so this is evidently by design. From time to time I
>photograph nearby events for the local newspaper and it was primarily with
>this in mind that I wanted a compact flash, GN20 is perfectly adequate for
>daylight fill in and the recycling time is fast enough - usually less than a
>second.
>
>In the past I took almost all slide and the camera's meter was irrelevant as
>I used a hand held meter (and still do with my superb Gossen Variosix). Now
>that I am scanning all my work I take mostly negative, quality has improved
>dramatically in recent years and for scanning there is little difference but
>still I prefer reversal. Negative, of course, has the great advantage of
>exposure tolerance rendering hand held metering unnecessary.
>
>Eventually I will take the plunge and get a digital back and in the meantime
>have entered the digital world by giving my wife a Contax U4R, a lovely
>camera to use and with superb natural colour rendition - much better than my
>sons considerably more expensive Sony equivalent and sharper too in spite of
>4 vs 5 MPixel (he agrees). I have enjoyed going out at times with just a
>true pocket camera, I have a Rollei 35 but even it is not really a pocket
>job (I have had superb results from the Rollei but the Contax has taken its
>place).
>
>I worked as a technical consultant in the photographic business for years
>and still get a good laugh from self important professional photographers
>prognosticating when they don't know their ASA from their EV's. One
>particular beauty is from a well known English photographer and author of
>quite a few Leica books, in the caption to a very ordinary indoor snapshot
>of a young girl using fill in flash he pontificates "first curtain flash
>sync would have destroyed the background and eliminated the natural
>sidelighting effect. Choose second curtain sync when you want to retain
>ambient room lighting in a scene." Complete and utter rubbish, certifiable
>hokum - unless something is moving first or second curtain sync will make no
>difference whatsoever!
>
>That's enough for now, hope I haven't bored you.
>
>Desmond
>Jamestown
>(a tiny village in Leitrim, Ireland)
>
>
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