rangefinder cameras - a brief history

I need to forewarn those of you who are not photography afficienados you need not read any further. I hope to spare you the tedium of investing your time in something that only dedicated photographer geeks would relish. And so I begin.

I just ordered myself a new Panasonic GF1 camera. My recently departed aunt left me some inheritance money. As I've mentioned in an earlier post, we were estranged. As a gesture of reconciliation, I let her buy me a nice gift post mortem (which probably reveals much more of my character flaws than any past "wrongs" inflicted upon me by my aunt. But, as always, I digress . . .)

Technology is the blessing and curse of today's consumer. No matter what and when you buy you can be sure that something better and (most likely) less expensive is just around the corner. I recently visited Pictureline, the camera store, to assess potential further purchases and asked Marcus, one of the salesmen there, which storage device he'd recommend to back up my Mac hard drive. He recommended a LaCie 500 Gig unit which he lamented he had purchased for $200 not long ago but that now goes for $139. This is typical of all things electronic. In essence such a purchase decision should be based upon what level of technology you are willing to settle for at any particular point in time and the immediate (and long-term) prospect of living with it for a while before the next "best thing" and subsequent dissatisfaction sets in. That said, I determined I was ready to leap into the Panasonic purchase.

Here's where I get into the geeky part. If you've persisted in reading beyond my initial warning, this would be another good point for you to depart dear reader. There are many reasons why I chose my latest purchase, but the overriding one is that the GF1 hearkens back to the classic rangefinder cameras. Rangefinder cameras gained widespread popularity during the 1940s and 50s when Leica began manufacturing their M series. The main reason for their success at this point was their capability of accepting interchangeable lenses The popularity of these cameras were somewhat diminished by the advent of the single-lens-reflex camera.

The new SLRs offered a primary advantage over the rangefinder cameras by allowing the photographer the ability to compose through the actual lens that was taking the picture.

A rangefinder only offered a "window" viewfinder built into the body. Although you focused through a rangefinder's viewfinder (through clever engineering) and could determine the angle of view of the different lenses (often through etched lines in the viewfinder glass), you were still not seeing exactly what would be recorded on film.

While both types of cameras offered their own advantages, the primary advantages of the rangefinder cameras were their compact size and their quiet operation. They were embraced largely for their discrete ability to go unnoticed when shooting candids or shooting in a quiet environment. This is because they did not incorporate a mirror that needed to move up and down (and thus the characteristic "slapping" sound, which is amusingly replicated in digital cameras that do not incorporate such mirrors) during an exposure like the SLRs. Surprisingly, rangefinder fans LIKED the fact that you did not see the exact scene that was recorded on film. The viewfinder was likened to a window, where you could see outside the periphery of the film frame. Thus you could see your subject approaching the center of the frame or monitor action that was not necessarily "targeted" for your final shot. Additionally, at the crucial moment of exposure, you did not experience the blackout of an SLR as the mirror flipped up to allow the film to be exposed.

After I owned a number of different SLRs, Contax developed a wonderful rangefinder camera, the G1. It differed from past rangefinder cameras by offering autofocus capabilities. Also, the Contax was elegantly designed, made of titanium with superbly placed controls and a wonderful integrated handgrip. If you know me, a product not only has to perform well, it must be aesthetically pleasing as well. This camera fit the bill. It is one of my all time favorites, and believe me, I have owned (and still do) a large number of cameras.

Interestingly, with the advent of digital cameras, in a sense, all digital cameras have become SLRs in that they offer a through-the-lens look via their digital screens. Technically, true SLRs offer a real-time, non-electronic view through the lens, but this distinction becomes blurred when the truly important factor is being able to record EXACTLY what you see. Digital SLRs up until recently, allowed photographers to see through the lens in the traditional way utilizing a mirror pentaprism like their film predecessors. Now, for those photographers who have become accustomed to viewing through a display screen on the back, a new technology called Live View has been incorporated to give them this capability. The reason point-and-shoots began with this capability and it was only recently developed in DSLRs is due primarily to the engineering architecture and sensors utilized in these cameras. I'll spare you further details about this point, but thought it important to at least mention there is a distinction. Didn't I promise you more than you wanted to know?

The latest development in digital photography is a new micro four-thirds standard developed by a small consortium of camera manufacturers, primarily Olympus and Panasonic. This standard is placed squarely between the DSLR cameras and the digital point-and-shoots. The most important factor about micro 4/3rds is that the image sensor utilized, falls in between the two aforementioned formats. The final quality of a digital image is totally dependent upon the image sensor utilized. Briefly, the larger the sensor, the better the quality of the image. A direct comparison of a 12-megapixel image shot by a DSLR versus a 12-megapixel image shot by a digital point-and-shoot is very revealing. The primary difference is the "noise" generated in a point-and-shoot.

Noise appears as multi-colored dots in large blocks of solid colors on a digital image. It becomes readily apparent in low-light situations when you crank up your ISO (translated: light sensitivity) to shoot photos without flash. It is roughly equivalent to "grain" with traditional film. The higher the light sensitivity of film, the more "grain" you will see in your final print. Since the image sensor in a digital point-and-shoot is so much smaller than that of a DSLR, the individual photo-diodes on a sensor have to be packed more tightly. Packing these photo-diodes together in this manner hinders the light reflected off of a subject from being seen or "absorbed." Larger sensors (and thus larger photo diodes) can see the light more readily, reducing the "noise" of a low-light digital image. If you've been following the specifications of digital cameras (and if you have, congratulations, you ARE a geek), you've probably noticed that at one-time the number of megapixels seemed to increase with each new model year. This trend has recently reversed as camera manufacturers have re-thought their strategy on delivering higher quality images in their cameras. Now, many are scaling back their megapixel count and developing larger sensors. Thus the advent of the micro 4/3rds standard. (Now I'm starting to bore even myself.)

So, to return to my purchase choice, the Panasonic Lumix DMC-GF1.
It is actually, a very high end digital point-and-shoot with a full array of features found on DSLRs. The technology is a synthesis of DSLRs and digital point-and-shoots. It does not incorporate the mirror mechanism of DSLRs (and thus it's resemblance to a rangefinder camera) but attempts to provide the quality of the DSLRs with its larger sensor. Unlike the point-and-shoots, it is designed to accept interchangeable lenses. And like the rangefinder cameras of old, the GF1 is more compact than its DSLR counterparts. It even accepts Leica lenses with the use of an adapter! So why this long explanation? I suppose as in any purchase, it helps to process through the factors involved in a buying decision. More importantly though, the prospect of utilizing a camera that is a new incarnation of the rangefinder design (in reality in its appearance and compact size more than in its function), has me excited to capture photographic images once more. In reading all of the reviews, a large number of reviewers actually ended up purchasing the GF1, something that is atypical of a group of people who assess many, many cameras each year. This in itself, is quite a testimonial about the camera. It was evidently so impressive and so much fun to shoot with, the critics shelled out their own hard-earned money to possess one.

I remember some years ago, Dennis Hopper (yes, the Easy Rider star), a passionate photographer himself, re-invigorated his photography when he purchased a Nikon 35Ti (a small, but very high quality fixed-lens rangefinder camera).

Like Dennis Hopper, I'm counting on the GF1 to re-invigorate my abandoned pursuit of creativity in this venue. Hopefully, I'll have some worthwhile images to share shortly.