On Thursday, March 31, 2005, at 09:12 PM, Austin Franklin wrote: > Hi Ardeshir, > >> But note that with most lenses, the SLR user can also shoot with both >> eyes open. > > Only if you turn the camera sideways, or don't mind one eye staring > into the back of the camera. Well, I for one can do it with my EOS Elan 7 quite easily, holding the camera in the normal position. (I use my right eye to look through the viewfinder and my left eye to view the whole scene.) > The M has an offset viewfinder, that easily allows both eyes to be > open in either camera position. I'm not saying this is an advantage or > useful or not, just that I think what you said is not true. I have > many SLRs, and none of them allow me to shoot with both eyes open I don't know why you can't. As I said, I certainly can, and with no difficulty, at that. > ...and I'm not sure what the lense has to do with this > ability/inability. Not the lenses. But I was talking about the utility of the camera as a whole (including the lens). >> And as for photography in low light conditions, isn't that a function >> of the lens, rather than of the camera? Canon has an f/1.0 lens for >> its SLRs, which is as wide open as anything in the Leitz range. > > The issue is the rangefinder is easier to focus than an SLR in low > light. Yes, good point. > BTW, only on the SLR does it depend on the lense as to how much light > you see in the viewfinder, the rangefinder does not change viewfinder > illumination based on the lense, as it does not look through the > lense. Quite. You're right there. Here the rangefinder camera has a distinct advantage. >> BTW: What about the f/1.0 Noctilux? How does it compare? > > To what? To the other lenses Marc mentioned. Cheers.