Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Testing the waters with an M7 on my last trip to CA. Felt far more free to move about than with the RZ, though moved a tad slower with the rangefinder focus learning curve. Give a little, take a little. I shot far more than I normally would have just because I could use it so much more spontaneously.
(pardon the work scans... they are from digi contact sheets)



Brynn in Early Morning, Ventura, CA. 2009



Willow and the TV, Oxnard, CA. 2009



Matthew after the River, Ojai, CA. 2009

5 comments:

Alexi said...

I know I'm hooked on it's portability. I also love how its lens reads the light,like I can feel the air and the space in the photo...The drawback, however, is the lack of precise composing.

Al Palmer said...

I use both an 7II and an RZ - you get an idea of the framing after a while. Obviously it's never as precise but it's not really an issue any more.

The biggest difference I found is mental, I kinda hide behind my RZ while when using the 7II I communicate a bit more.

Amy Elkins said...

Al... I completely agree with you! The RZ allows for hiding and obsessive focus and the M7 allows you to get out and interact. I'm loving both for both reasons... I don't really mind losing the precise framing. Most of my work is so formal that I like to break out of that now and then.

Al Palmer said...

Yeah, approaching the subject from different angles brings different results.

I once got a bunch of shot-from-the-hip portraits of people laughing and chatting from the 7II due to no mirror crash (the official term for the RZ's mirror!) - totally oblivious to a photograph being taken. The photographs they posed for turned out fairly mediocre. I try to keep this in mind when my shooting goes a bit stale.

John Cranford said...

I have a 7 and it's great! Takes a little while to really understand what your gonna get. Once you get it down the results kick ass. I've been working on a couple of projects with this camera. Check it out:

http://john-cranford.com/

Also, be careful with the alignment. You might want to get it calibrated once in a while.