Mountain Light

Comparing Rangefinder and SLR Cameras

I don’t normally write up camera reviews, but I do like making comments on how a camera system works for me. This film weekend, it’s about the difference between 35mm rangefinder (Leica in this example) versus SLR (Canon EOS in this example).

I recently took up my Canon EOS SLRs from my bags again (the 35mm film camera, that is), and I bought a 40mm f/2.8 lens for it, and I got questions from people whether it’s giving a better image than a Leica. The answer is, no, they both are probably indistinguishable when shot at f/5.6 or smaller aperture, and because this is 35mm film, it’s probably the same. I haven’t processed the films yet, but I’m sure the 40mm f/2.8 lens is darn sharp that it can match my 1974 35mm Summicron. 

So discussing the image quality difference between the two is meaningless, and they’re probably the same, so set the image quality aside, there are more important issues we can compare. How does the camera feel to your hand? Canon feels more plastic and often heavier than a Leica, but has a nicer ergonomics (grip).

How I compare the two is like comparing a revolver (Leica) and a semi-automatic pistol (Canon EOS). Revolvers are mechanical, manual, there is no “burst rate”, and it weighs lighter than a semi-auto pistol. On the other hand, semi-auto pistol has a magazine to take up its ammunition, has a safety latch (off button), and weighs double of the revolver. Disclaimer: No, I haven’t hold a gun before, but that’s how Murakami described it in 1Q84, so I thought it will be a good analogy. 

During my six-months trip in Asia (July 2012 to January 2013) when I only carried my Leica, I often missed using an SLR. From the grip, the finder, the buttons, even the plastic built. According to a friend of mine, it’s only natural because I’ve grown up using an SLR. But truth to be told, I do miss autofocus and auto-exposure. 90% of the time I can get away with the everything-manual Leica, but I do appreciate the automation that saves me time. Case in point, the smart matrix-metering of any Canon EOS cameras are suitable for shooting colour slides, whereas with the centre-weighted-only metering of a Leica, you’ll need to constantly took care of each exposures and do some maths in your head (scenario in my head: “yellow subjects? Maybe open up +1 or +1.5 stops. Dark blue… Err, maybe -0.5 will do. Wait, maybe -1 stop is better…” Etc). 

Both types of cameras are different things and serve different purpose - just like digital and film, or boys and girls. There are times when I just want to take happy shots without thinking too much, I’d pick up a Canon SLR for that. I’d love to have something like Ricoh GR1v, but I don’t have the budget for a luxury compact camera at the moment. On the other hand, if I am walking all day in the streets of Hong Kong, then I’d surely pick my Leica. 

A weekend in a backpack? Sure you can!

These past few months, I have had numerous weekends around South-east Asia. As I currently resides in Singapore, I’m lucky enough to get cheap weekend getaways to some amazing cities: Ho Chi Minh City (Vietnam), Yogyakarta (Java, Indonesia) and Cameron Highlands (Malaysia). I have created a system so that I don’t carry more than a backpack for a short (3 days, 2 nights) weekend. I’m sharing you my travelling light secret in this post, and why it will make our travel much more enjoyable.

What I wear on the first day is a pair of hiking shirt and trousers and a trekking shoe, and I have my backpack on my back. The backpack contains another pair of shirt & trousers for day 2, a t-shirt & short as my pajamas, underwears, and toiletries. I’ll discuss them below in turn.

1) Some of you may have wondered why don’t I bring another pair of shirt & trousers for day 3. The secret lies in the first days’ clothes: I’m wearing hiking shirt and trousers. Those are designed to be very lightweight, and dries very quickly. At the end of my first day, I wash them in the shower (just using the foams from body wash), and hang them to dry. It has 2 nights to dry up; in most South-East Asian countries, it takes about an hour of full sunlight to make it dry and crisp. Even when it’s raining and humid, leaving it at home the entire day will dry it up. You can also wash your undies at the same time if you want to carry even less.

What I normally wear (I’m on the right, of course!). Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, September 2012.

2) Before you pack your toiletries, make sure to remind yourself that you’re going for a weekend; you’re not relocating. I try to carry as little as possible: I bring my toothbrush, dental floss, small toothpaste, my contact lenses, the 10ml-packed solutions, ear bud, shampoo and body wash. I’m not meant to use those shampoo and body wash, they’re only for emergency. I normally get shampoo and body wash in the accommodations. For only 3 days, I don’t mind using the hotel/motel-grade shampoo and body wash. If you are concerned about it, pack yourself some shampoo or body wash from home but don’t bring the whole 300ml bottle. I also leave my electric-shaver at home; who cares if I look a bit messy anyways, you’re in a foreign country where no one knows you ;) Put your toiletries all in one small case (or sandwich ziplock bag) so you won’t scatter it all over.

3) Camera and stuff: see that pink bundled thing on top image? That’s my Leica wrapped in a face towel. I stuff them in my backpack – that towel and plenty of things above ought to give enough cushioning. I don’t have a habit of throwing around my backpack so it’s all good. Sometimes I worry and want to get a semi-hard case just for it, but so far it has been okay. I don’t use “camera bags” because I have my camera on my neck all day, and my Ricoh GRD IV is in my pocket or waist. It’s easier to shoot this way. Moreover, I found carrying a messenger-style camera bag hurts one side of my shoulder anyway, which is bad for our body posture in the long run. It actually hurts quite a lot and makes me not wanting to walk too much, which defeats the purpose of travelling.

4) Small messenger bag: This bag is really light, and if you’re not a photographer, you probably can skip this. This bag contains my filters, flash, lens cloth, spare batteries (LR44 and CR123A), films, and a water bottle.

This whole backpack weighs less than 7kg (even with my camera inside), and so if you fly, you can bring it on the cabin and you have everything with you all the time. Also, if you want to go to your destination right after leaving the airport, you don’t need to check in to your hotel and leave your bag so you can go somewhere else. 

Also, I highly discourage carrying a laptop. I have a Kindle for entertainment at the airport and on flights, and an iPhone if I urgently need to check e-mail (rarely happens). At most, I would carry an iPad (take its weight as a rule of thumb). For the gadgets available in 2013, anything heavier than an iPad is not recommended; it will weigh you down. When I’m travelling this way, I’m so amazed at how few chargers I carry: one for my Ricoh GRD IV and one for my iPhone. My Kindle lasted for 2-3 weeks at one charge, so I don’t have to carry its charger.

P.S. I have been following this blog, PackLite, and if you’re addicted to travelling light as I do, I suggest you stop over their page for true minimalist packing.

Back on Flickr

FYI, I just re-activated my Flickr account. You can find me here. I’d really appreciate a hi from you if you’re active in the community.

Whilst there are a huge number of other photo site hosts, I believe that my photography is redundant if it’s not shared and enjoyed by others. Flickr is a good platform in this instance since many other photographers I knew in real life have Flickr account too. 

The social media platform such as Flickr acts pretty much like a LinkedIn (your CV). The reason I don’t put that much pictures is because you don’t want to show bad pictures and let others judge you on that. Also, most of the pictures I took a few years back, although they’re “nice”, they are just not reflecting my current style anymore. 

When you make the choice to edit critically and start to judge your own work objectively, that’s the sign of your turning professional. 

Keep in mind that the greatest photographers of all time (not the modern day Instagram celebrities) are known for maybe 10 of their most famous pictures. They created them in a span of their lifetime. This is why having 500 photos published per year is not a sign of producing great photos; you probably just weren’t critical to your own work. If you can entertain your viewer by showing 500 pictures in your photostream, by any means, do it. But even the best photographers I know showed some less-than-optimal work from time to time; I continually challenge myself to be more critical and showing only the works that will speak to me for a long time. 

P.S. Flickr is currently giving out a holiday gift that entitles you 3 months free Pro account. Too bad I have no need for one, other than it’s giving me a label Pro next to my username. Click here to redeem it.

Burn My Eye: Eye Burn #1: Zisis Kardianos on Charlie Kirk

The Value of Contact Sheets as Photographic Records

A few months back, I wrote a little post where I expressed that there should be no delete button on the next (ideal) digital camera. I recently finished reading On Being a Photographer by Bill Jay and David Hurn (published 1997) where the authors discussed a strikingly similar topic with my previous post: the photographer’s contact sheets.

Bruce Gilden’s (Magnum photographer) contact sheet.

I have what’s known as an index print, or in my term, the modern contact sheet. The pictures are thumbnail-sized, often too small to be useful, but I have no darkroom to create the real contact sheet (yet).

According to the discussions of Jay and Hurn, contact sheets are an extremely valuable piece of information for the photographer, the editor, as well as for us, the audience. Firstly, it helps the editing and selection process by both the photographer and the editor. The most common method of selecting through the contact sheets is using different marker colours to indicate the keeper in the roll, e.g. blue for “may be used for future projects”, green for “keep”, red for “maybe; ask feedback from others”, etc. Every photographers are different. (in digital photography, we use stars rating in Adobe Lightroom instead)

Secondly, David Hurn emphasised that looking through other photographer’s contact sheets is almost like reading what s/he was thinking while they were working in the field, how the photographer was approaching the subject, and maybe how did s/he wait for the decisive moment as the event unfolds before them. In a nutshell, one can tell a lot about other photographer’s personality by looking at their contact sheets. From my experience, looking through contact sheets could raise a lot more questions - Did he talk to the subjects? Did he ask them to pose for the camera? What happened after he clicked on the decisive moment? Etc.

Now that we all have some idea what contact sheets are, some of you readers must be wondering how is this related to omitting a delete button from a camera. Here is an explanation by David Hurn:

“…for documentary/news photographer such instant editing (the act of deleting pictures in-camera) raises a serious question about the historical record. Who erases the unwanted images, and on what basis?

Often the photographer is not the best picture editor, and the picture editor will have a bias about which images to keep/discard depending on the story. Neither the photographer nor the picture editor is mindful of the historical record at the time the images are in camera. Experience shows us that in fifty years time a different editing is often the most useful. So the edit-as-you-shoot solution to storage problems is not really editing but a systematic destruction of potentially valuable work.

The strip of negatives/contact sheet is still the most efficient method of storing all the images; it allows for some sort of authentication of the image because you can see what was taken prior to, and after, the selected picture and this reveals context, an important aspect of reality.”

The practical example of this is my previous posts (a mini series) 1Q12 and 2Q12. Yes, I have sequenced it and I have edited the photos and took other photographer’s feedbacks into account. However, it is not final per se. In the future, an editor (let’s pretend and hope that those pictures are going to be published by a reputable magazine) may see them, or even look at my negatives, and say different things, and create a completely different story. Had I deleted my “unwanted pictures” in the first place, this hypothetical editor won’t have a chance to edit my photos the way they should be. In other words (David Hurn’s words), I could have destroyed a potentially valuable work. 

Everyone is different. Some people are fascinated with the 10-fps burst of their camera and unnecessarily took 40 pictures of their shoe or food. But if you are carefully photographing moving subjects and scenes and gestures (what matters most), then don’t delete your images too quickly; it could potentially turn into a valuable images. This is one of the reasons I use film: you just can’t delete. Not because “film is better than digital”; it’s just a matter of taste. 

So how do you study contact sheets? Eric Kim wrote this a while ago, I highly recommend you to read it if you’ve read my post this far. In the end of Eric’s post, he recommends the Magnum Contact Sheets; I have seen one in Kinokuniya bookstore before. I am currently living for a short-term in Singapore but very tempted to get one (it weighs about 5kg, which is why it’s going to be a burden to carry back to Sydney).

Trivia

According to Martine Franck (Magnum photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s second wife), Cartier-Bresson’s opening line to her was, “Martine, I want to come and see your contact sheets.”

inframeimaging asked: Hey Nick, I enjoyed reading your blog and seeing your photos. Why are you not on Flickr? Would be great to see you there. Regards InFrame.

Hi, thanks, that’s very kind of you! :) actually I was in Flickr a long time ago (when I was a beginner in photography and I’m just following what other people does, including making Flickr account), but it wasn’t too long until I was bored with it.

I am now thinking about it again, it’s in fact a nice community - but maybe at the same time I’m thinking/considering other alternative photo-sharing communities that will keep me excited and something that I won’t abandon after a few months. I welcome your recommendations on this.

Cheers, Nick.

James Nachtwey: My photographs bear witness

2Q12