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From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos)
Newsgroups: net.rec.photo
Subject: Re: be careful about denigrating the Leica
Message-ID: <2055@peora.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 28-Mar-86 08:48:50 EST
Article-I.D.: peora.2055
Posted: Fri Mar 28 08:48:50 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 29-Mar-86 15:58:20 EST
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Jordan Hayes writes:

> Using this technique, I am able to hand hold a 135mm f/2.8 on my F-2 at up
> to 1/2 second.
>
To which Doug Hagerman replies:

>         B. S.

While I often disagree with Mr. Hayes :-), I must admit that I tend to agree
with his claim, inasmuch as you *can* hand-hold a 35mm camera with a long
lens and relatively long shutter speed with no problems.  The strange thing
about this is that if you believe you can do it, often you can; if you
think you can't, you will move the camera.  I think that if you think about
"am I going to be able to stand still?  How still? How much movement would
still give a reasonable photograph?" etc., you will be conscious of body
movement and will tend to move.  If you just concentrate on standing still,
it often works!  Not as well as tripod-mounted photographs, but very well.
Recently I photographed some eels in an aquarium at Sea World that way,
using an exposure of about 1/2 second; the eels were sitting still in a
hole in a rock, so the only problem was camera motion; I remember hearing
these two tourists talking (tourists are always talking when you're trying
to make photographs at Sea World :-)); the woman said "He's not using a
flash!  You can't take pictures without a flash, can you?" to which her
husband replied, "yes, but it won't come out sharp because you can't hold
the camera still enough."  But they did turn out very well.  I also have
a very sharp picture of the space shuttle launch pad with an eagle flying
nearby which was made in daylight with a hand-held 300mm lens.

The moral of this story being, you shouldn't believe you "can't" do
something, because often you can.  (Of course, often the pictures do turn
out blurred, too; though not all that often, maybe 30% of the time.  It's
better to try and not have it come out than not try at all; film doesn't
cost much.)

On the other hand, I agree with Mr. Hagerman about the difficulties of
focussing a 35mm SLR with the various "focusing aids"... it's been my
experience that the loss of sharpness due to not getting an exact focus
tends to be much more of a problem than camera shake, because it also
occurs when you have the camera mounted on a tripod (indeed, as someone
pointed out, is much worse if you use a "microprism" focusing aid when
the camera is on the tripod, since you have to push the tripod handle
to get any motion to see if the camera is in focus).

If you really want sharp photographs, use a large-format camera.  Sharp
photographs are a whole different style of photography, though; sometimes
the loss of detail is advantageous, such as when you photograph an outdoor
scene with small amounts of litter lying around.  Sometimes a green speck
on the ground is better than a green speck that says "Doublemint".
-- 
E. Roskos

"I bought some sushi once.  Took it home and cooked it.  Pretty good...
 tasted a lot like fish."  --Taxi driver in _Desperately_Seeking_Susan_