[Leica] Re: Venice & Florence

["Doug Richardson" <doug@meditor.demon.co.uk>]

Thanks for some interesting comments, guys. Some of the solutions you
suggested may not have worked for me and the circumstances I was
shooting in, but are all good advice in general terms.



Bob McEowen wrote: Ruralmopics@aol.com

>considering the subject seems to be somewhat static --
churches and museums... wouldn't a better approach be f 5.6 at 1
sec. with a tripod -- even a Leitz table top pod?  Isn't a little bit
of
depth of field desirable when shooting architectural interiors.

The table tripod is indeed my preferred solution - I used to refer to
it as my "poor man's Noctilux". (I guess my f1.5 Jupiter and 400ASA
film now claim the title.)

A bit of depth of field is indeed desirable when shooting
architectural interiors, or even lots of depth of field. However, as
Eric Welch pointed out, tripods are generally forbidden in such
locations here in Europe - hell, in some cases I was shooting
clandestinely in places where photography was forbidden. I used the
table tripod a lot in Paris last year, and probably over-relied on f1
during this trip. On the other hand, my wife didn't have to wait for
two forevers while I messed around with the tripod and ball&socket
head.


Eric's other comment was "But then I'd rather use f/1.4 at 1/15 or 1/8
of a static subject like that."

I've never had much success hand-holding slow speeds, though I've been
pleasantly surprised when using the Nocti at 1/15 - I suspect that the
heavy mass out in front of the camera adds stability - that's the
theory behind the stabilisers used in archery.


"Ken Iisaka" <kiisaka@attglobal.net> gave the advice that:

>My solution is a beanbag for those places which do not allow tripods.
One
that is no bigger than Noctilux can support the camera adequately.

A couple of times I used my Domke as an improvised beanbag. However
it's a trick which relies on having something to park the beanbag on
(or the table tripod).



>>When taking photos in churches and museums, I had a lot of trouble
>from flare in the rangefinder patch of the M6... Several times I
>had to abandon attempts to take a photo because the rangefinder patch
>was unusable.

Christer Almqvist <christer@almqvist.net> suggested:

>Abandon? Be a little enterprising. Risk a frame or two, it'll set ya
back a
dime, no more.

Depth of field at f1 is *very* narrow. Scale focussing isn't really an
option. In theory I could have bracketed an estimated distance, but
the problem is that even in October Venice and Florence are swarming
with tourists, so I found myself waiting for as much as 15 minutes to
get a brief moment when there was either no-one in the picture or
someone standing in a location where I wanted a figure to be and not
picking their nose or scratching their bottom!


Speaking of scale focussing, a bit of advice for Russar users. Given
the sheer DOF of a 20mm lens, it's tempting to set the beast to the
f5.6 hyperfocal distance and leave it there. If you do - check the
setting regularly. On one occasion I looked down and realised that the
focus mount had somehow become set to around 2m.

Regards,

Doug Richardson