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Jackson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 09:51 am: | 
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This is somewhat off-topic, but I'm hoping the other rangefinder enthusiasts here won't mind. I really don't know another place to ask/discuss the topic.
Lately, I've been considering how the early, fixed-lens rangefinders differ in a positive way from the SLRs I'm accustomed to shooting. It's apparent the rangefinders are less obtrusive due to their quiet shutters, but is there anything directly related to photo quality or technique that otherwise justifies owning and maintaining these older models? For me, this question points to the issue of daylight fill-flash, but in a context I have never seen approached in tutorials on the Web or elsewhere.
As I'm sure everyone knows, daylight fill-flash is typically used for filling in the foreground when the background is too bright. It's an alternative to simply opening up the exposure a couple stops, a technique that usually causes the background to wash out. I have also used fill-flash to minimize shadows on faces and other subjects outdoors when the sun is too harsh. However, my SLRs have a severe limitation regarding daylight fill due to their slow maximum flash sync of 1/125 sec. This limitation becomes especially apparent when I want to work with portraiture, because it is nearly impossible to open up the lens in daylight in order to blur the background.
This limitation can be overcome to a certain extent through the use of neutral density filters. However, the window of available shutter speeds remains rather small, and every shot must be carefully considered, planned and executed as a compromise between proper exposure and the possibility of motion blur or camera shake. The problem is particularly acute if, say, a 135mm lens is used. In that case, handholding the camera permits only the speed of 1/125 second if reliably sharp results are desired. A shorter lens relieves this somewhat, but then requires an even larger aperture to produce the same degree of background blur.
In contrast to my SLRs, a Yashica Lynx 5000 offers a top flash sync speed of 1/1000. Its aperture can be opened to f/1.8, sufficiently large to produce an appealing background blur. Of course, a Lynx 14 and a few others are usable at f/1.4, but the additional background diffusion gained at this aperture seems of miminal importance. In addition, all such cameras (to the best of my knowledge) incorporate shutters limited to a maximum speed of 1/500. Compared to an SLR, that's a good thing, but compared to 1/1000, it's a full stop lost in terms of fill-flash exposure versatility.
I would certainly appreciate any ideas on this topic from anyone. In particular, I'm wondering if anyone here has experience with this technique or knows of an online tutorial. Everything I've read on the subject of daylight fill-flash is geared toward SLRs and focal plane shutters, with lenses and flash set for f/8 or so. Nothing I can find discusses daylight fill in the context of leaf shutters or fast sync speeds.
Can anyone help? |
Jackson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 09:54 am: |
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In order to tie this in more appropriately to the focus of the forum, I also want to ask whether anyone here has measured the faster shutter speeds of the older Lynx cameras. How accurate can I expect the 1/1000 and 1/500 settings to be? Can the older shutters be improved in this respect?
Thanks again! |
Winfried
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 01:19 pm: |
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I did not measure the top speed of 1/1000 on the Lynx5000E I had, but I made one or two shots on slide film using that speed and exposure was dead on, so I think this speed should be accurate to at least 1/3 f-stop.
I once measured the top speed (1/500) on a Copal-designed (and maybe even Copal-made) shutter on a russian Sokol rangefinder and found it was very accurate. |
rick oleson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 01:28 pm: |
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an easy way to do fill flash with a leaf shutter camera (with a built-in meter): set your aperture to correspond to the auto setting of the flash; then set the film speed on your camera's meter to one stop faster than the actual film you're using. meter as usual, but adjusting your reading only by changing shutter speeds, leave the aperture where it is. your subject will come out correctly lit by the flash, and the background will be 1 stop darker. very easy with match needle or aperture priority, a bit of a chore with shutter priority cameras. |
Robert
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 02:50 pm: |
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The Kodak Professional Dataguide has a section on fill flash to achieve the desired lighting ratio.
The whole book is very interesting reading.
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Robert |
Jackson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 04:32 pm: |
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Winfried, thanks for the information on the shutters. That's very encouraging.
Rick, you have described exactly how I would approach a typical fill-flash situation with a manual camera. The question is, how should this procedure be altered when the goal is open-aperture portraiture at (for the sake of round numbers) f/2 in full sun?
For example, let's assume a camera is loaded with ASA 100. Shooting at 1/1000, a neutral density filter of approximately 4 stops will be required at f/2 to underexpose the sunlit scene by one stop.
Under these conditions, can it be assumed that the equivalent aperture for purposes of flash is f/2 plus the ND filter, or f/8? If so, how would one adjust for the fact that the shot might be taken only three feet from the subject? Will an auto flash respond correctly under these conditions? Will the flash need its own ND filter (over the strobe) to produce more subtle illumination?
Robert, is that the same book as the Kodak Professional Photoguide? |
rick
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Wednesday, October 27, 2004 - 10:13 pm: |
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If you are using a thyristor auto flash, it should take care of its own exposure down to pretty close distances.... probably as close as you'd want to shoot a portrait in any case. If your meter reads through the ND filter you do not need to accommodate the ASA setting for it (with 100 film, set it to 200 to drop the background exposure a stop). Do not filter the flash... set it to the AUTO setting that gives you f/8 at ASA 100. From this point on, I think you really need to experiment.
Does the Lynx shutter open up all the way to f/2 at the 1/1000 setting? I'm not familiar with it, but I recall a Minolta that went to 1/2000... but it achieved the higher speeds by not opening all the way up, so they were only usable at smaller apertures. |
Jackson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 11:15 am: |
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Rick, I'm glad you reminded me about metering. The Lynx 5000 uses a CDS cell on the body. With ASA 100 film, the camera can compensate 3 stops (by setting to ASA 12). With a 4 stop ND filter, the result will be one stop underexposed (the desired effect). The end result should be a system that can shoot 1/1000 @ f/2 in bright sun using fill-flash.
Yes, the 5000 can achieve its 1/1000 shutter speed at all apertures, including f/1.8. I know the model you're thinking about, it was the V2 and a few later variants. It used a single diaphragm to act as both aperture and shutter. No Yashica is designed that way, as far as I know.
I'll shoot a few frames first without filtering the flash. Thanks for the advice, I'm looking forward to trying this out! |
Jackson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 11:28 am: |
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Ooops, I miscalculated. Setting the camera to ASA 12 in the way described above will in fact create a 2 stop underexposure, not 1 stop. Either a 3 stop ND filter is needed (in place of the 4), or the shutter can be set to 1/500. The latter still leaves plenty of room to move in order to accomodate shade or other reduced light conditions. |
Jackson
Rating: N/A
Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Thursday, October 28, 2004 - 12:42 pm: |
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Well, I managed to confuse even myself with the last two posts. Just shows what can happen when the coffee runs out.
All Yashica Lynx models, including the later IC versions, are manual exposure only. Adjusting the film speed selector only changes the meter reading. The meter is in no way coupled to the shutter or aperture. In the preceding example, the metering doesn't include the 4 stop ND filter, so setting the camera to ASA 12 when ASA 100 is loaded (3 stops different) will cause metering to be 1 stop "hot."
This means that the meter should indicate proper exposure when the camera is set to 1/1000 @ f/2, even though that combination of settings (in conjunction with ASA 100 film and a 4 stop ND filter) should produce a 1 stop underexposure on a sunny day. This is good news - the camera metering will automatically show the correct setup for a fill flash shot.
I hope this is more clear (and more correct) than my earlier posts. |
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