Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2014/03/07
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]I was a much better sports photographer back in the good old film days than I am now. I had trained my trigger finger to click the shutter of my Leica the instant before I saw something interesting happen and chances are I got the picture. I was a specialist in soccer. I had both played and coached the game and could anticipate the action. Local newspapers called me to cover regional and state championships. Looking back through my old files I had a lot of great shots. Here is one published in a newspaper almost 50 years ago. Note the long hair and the "traditional" soccer ball. The picture was taken on a cloudy, overcast day.? Pushed Tri-X film was necessary to get a high shutter speed .The grain is simply from a big blowup. The picture looks like crap on a computer but looked OK when printed in a newspaper using a halftone screen. http://gallery.leica-users.org/v/Larry+Z/Soccer_001.jpg.html But now with my digital cameras I press the shutter button and wait and wait and wait for the picture to be taken. Sure, they are in focus and exposed correctly and the ASA 6000 sensor means that I don't have to push film speeds but getting the critical moment is a matter of guesswork. By actual test my DSLR takes nearly half a second in auto mode from button press to shutter click. A big league baseball would travel from the pitcher's hand to the catcher's glove in that time. Even by using all the tricks, manual settings, prefocus, etc. I can't reduct the latency to much less than .25 seconds. My reaction time with a film Leica is half that. Motor drives and sequence photography anyone? It seem like cheating to me. Ted, what does your son do? Larry Z