[Aristophanes]

How dare you contradict internet wisdom.

The Internet is never wrong.

MF SLR cams are so heavy that one naturally has to hold them in a braced manner. Later MF cams have decent damping as well (like my Mamiya). A lot of it is technique, not design.

[Makten]

How dare you contradict internet wisdom.

That's just a hobby of mine! Seriously, I know what I'm doing and I hate besserwissers that are wrong and make people making bad decisions based on false "truths". Though I'm obviously one myself.

And regarding film loading; it's not at all a problem. It takes ~20-30 seconds. A tip is to remove the seal of the new roll after you've fitted it into the camera. That way you can fumble and fiddle without risking any light leakage due to the film uncurling from the spool. The opposite can be said when unloading. Seal the film before you remove it.

But of course, if fast loading and/or changing of film is important, a camera with a separate back is much better.

A lot of it is technique, not design.

True indeed, but it's not hard at all. Just hold your breath and firmly and slowly squeeze the trigger. And don't crouch in unstable positions of course. Stand up, sit down or find some sort of support.

[tuco]

I've bumped my camera during a long exposure before and retook the shot. Looking at the negatives with a lope, however, I couldn't see that bump. It didn't get recorded over that long duration. What chance does "shake" of the shutter opening with mirror lockup have then in that scenario?

So, by pixel peeping long exposure shots with the notorious P6x7 and "regular" shots, you can get a good feel how much shake you're getting. Also, I have the 90mm LS lens that you can shoot in pure leaf shutter mode when you lock open the camera's shutter. And, again, you can compare. I also get to compare the P6x7 with my Hasselblad shot on a tripod with mirror lockup and that is pure leaf shutter then too.

I've done all those things over the course of the years and its hard sometimes to know if it was just focus or motion blur from handhold instead of mirror slap that may be the source of a shot that happens to not be totally crisp. But the P6x7 does start to have problems with a 300mm+ lens on a tripod with mirror lockup or not without special care and technique, I've found.

[vparseval]

This mirror slap nonsense has got to come to an end. I don't know if the 6x7 or 67 is worse than the 67II, but the latter is easy to handhold. I do it all the time, and I'm not afraid of "slow" shutter speeds. If you use the old rule of thumb for 135 cameras, which is holding the shutter speed faster than the reciprocal of the focal length, you're safe.

When I brought up mirror slap I was actually not referring to the vibrations it may or may not cause. In fact, I am not at all concerned about this and agree with you that the 6x7, 67, etc. are easily hand-holdable.

My problem is with the noise it makes. My canonical example is this image here:


A sun bath

I had my Rolleicord less than six feet away from her. She never knew I took that photo because she couldn't hear the Rollei. And it's not just about being sneaky and surreptitious. It's about being non-abrasive and not intruding on people when they are enjoying a moment of peace and quiet.

If I had been that person and you'd have snuck up on me with a 67 and woken me up, I would have punched you.

Cheers,
Tassilo

[Yamanobori]

So Tassilo, you are saying with all the people and traffic around her, the only thing that would have woken her up would be the sound of an SLR? Sorry, I am not quite buying your argument.

[Makten]

When I brought up mirror slap I was actually not referring to the vibrations it may or may not cause.

Perhaps not, but you wrote this:

In my opinion, you don't want anything with a moving mirror when shooting MF and I am not a huge fan of the Pentax MF lineup.

Why would you not want anything with a moving mirror? Your point is clear when shooting people whom you don't want to notice what you're doing, but for anything else?

[vparseval]

So Tassilo, you are saying with all the people and traffic around her, the only thing that would have woken her up would be the sound of an SLR? Sorry, I am not quite buying your argument.

You are missing the point. I could have just tapped her shoulders. Would that have gotten her attention? Most likely. But I could have also just stood a few yards away and talked audibly with a third person. She would have heard it but would have dismissed it as two strangers talking with each other.

The mirror-slap of a MF SLR held that close to someone however cannot be interpreted as anything other than being photographed and when a 6x7 is involved, I can see how this could bother somebody.

Cheers,
Tassilo

[vparseval]

Why would you not want anything with a moving mirror? Your point is clear when shooting people whom you don't want to notice what you're doing, but for anything else?

I guess it boils down to personal preference. I appear to be gravitating towards the more discreet models of cameras, which for me would be an MX, an Olympus OM-2 and of course a Leica in the 35mm world. TLRs when it comes to MF (but I also prefer them for their square 6x6 format although they don't hold a monopoly on that). I would go as far as saying that a TLR with a leaf-shutter is much better at that than even a Leica because you look down into it instead of having it pointed it at someone. It's a great advantage.

Now, a 6x7 was actually my first MF camera but I quickly realized that it's often not an ideal choice in an urban environment which is unfortunately where I live and it's not always easy to escape it. My Rollei works much better here. I can walk around all day with it and barely be aware that I have it. It weighs just under 2lbs and I never need to raise it to eye-level.

I still have my 6x7 along with lenses that are undeniably excellent. It would be an excellent tripod camera where you set things up and everyone knows right away you are there. But for that my Sinar F1 is now my first choice. It's twice as heavy at least and requires a wooden tripod that, while in its bag, probably resembles a sniper rifle. But the increase in quality that you get when going from 6x7 to 4x5 makes it very worthwhile. And you get to develop each sheet individually which is an enormous win when you're into that kind of thing.

Cheers,
Tassilo

[Yamanobori]

You are missing the point. I could have just tapped her shoulders. Would that have gotten her attention? Most likely. But I could have also just stood a few yards away and talked audibly with a third person. She would have heard it but would have dismissed it as two strangers talking with each other.

The mirror-slap of a MF SLR held that close to someone however cannot be interpreted as anything other than being photographed and when a 6x7 is involved, I can see how this could bother somebody.

Cheers,
Tassilo

I am not missing your point. However, you are missing mine. Your shooting style come down to personal preference. Trying to justify it by a "rational" argument is pointless. You are making great leaps. She is just as likely to not know what a mechanical shutter sounds like, especially in this digital world. She is obviously ignoring the world and why would she assume that the sound was you taking her picture and not some other random picture? She looks determined to ignore everything going around her, so why is one more noise a problem. Besides, it would never stop you from taking that image. You also assume she would be angry rather than pleased a talented photographer found her interesting--a smile can be very disarming and can lead to all kinds of things. You did not use a Pentax 67 and you simply have no idea what would have happened.

Sorry, you have no solid argument

I can certainly respect your camera choices. I have shot 6x6, 6x12, and 4x5 on the street. Those are my choices. All I can say is they can work. I cannot claim something else cannot--that is for others to work out.

Nice image by the way.

[vparseval]

Your shooting style come down to personal preference. Trying to justify it by a "rational" argument is pointless.

Ah, but choice of gear is always irrational from the standpoint of other people but often very rational from the point of view of the person making the decision. I am explaining why - for my purposes - the 6x7 falls short. This is how every discussion that starts out with someone seeking advice plays out. It's really not so much about arguments for and against a particular thing but rather about the specific constraints.

If anyone reading such a thread comes to the conclusion that his constraints are similar, then he has most likely found the answer that will work best for him.

I can certainly respect your camera choices. I have shot 6x6, 6x12, and 4x5 on the street. Those are my choices. All I can say is they can work. I cannot claim something else cannot--that is for others to work out.

It's not that they wouldn't work. A 6x7 with the 90mm plus a square crop could have given a very similar result. My concern is only with how you go about obtaining these results and how you interact with other people while doing so.

I find it interesting how the posture of a person can be interpreted in such different ways. Assuming that a stranger who is sitting there with crossed arms and closed eyes (her sun-glasses were tucked away elsewhere so she hadn't closed them because of the sun) might not want to be interrupted would be my first instinct. I might be totally wrong but if so, I am at least erring on the politer side.

Perhaps that's a New York thing afterall. We have eight million people here and we therefore value privacy more than most other things.

Nice image by the way.

Thank you. But it's basically just a candid that requires more luck than skill. You also may have noticed the slightly left-tilted poles of the railing which should make it obvious that skill was not the predominant factor in this shot. ;-)

Cheers,
Tassilo

[desertscape]

Since DougLee, who started this post, asked about shooting MF with an emphasis on nature shooting and living near a national park, the noise of the P 6x7 would not be a problem.