The magic of film photography and how it changed my way of using digital cameras
I've been using analogue cameras again for two years and it has changed the way I photograph. What is special about it? There are two things that do something to me: the feel and the look.
Haptics
The feel of an old analogue camera in your hand is completely different to that of any modern digital camera. The mechanical controls give me a completely new connection to the technology and the tools in my hand. A mechanical aperture ring with the clicks, I could turn it forever just because of the feeling when every half or third f-stop clicks into place. A real focussing system with direct mechanical coupling also gives me much more of a feeling of having the result under control than a smooth-running electronically coupled focus ring. The same applies to the dial for setting the correction time. The Hasselblad is the best example of this, as it is also purely mechanical with gears and a spring.
Feeling the mechanics
The beauty of an all-mechanical lens with manual focus and aperture dial is a joy to use. The Voigtländer Nokton Classic 40 mm F 1.4 on the Minolta CLE is wonderful.
How can I replicate this on a digital camera? I use Sony cameras. It is only partially possible to imitate the effect. It works least well with the time preset. I have to live with the rear dial. Okay. I find the focussing quite well solved with the high-quality lenses, which have linear control of the focus motors. The 90 mm macro has the best solution with the switch between manual and automatic focus. And then, when choosing lenses, I now make sure that they have an aperture ring. That makes a big difference for me. I feel more connected to reality when I'm taking photos if I have an aperture ring, e.g. on the 40mm F2.5 or the 24-50 F2.8. It's a joy.
Optics
The beauty of the clear optical viewfinder of a rangefinder camera cannot be compared to the best electronic viewfinder of any modern mirrorless camera.
The quality of the viewfinder is so crucial for the inspiration to take a picture. I find the optical viewfinder on the Minolta CLE (here I totally understand the Leica M analog and digital community) with the frame guides the most beautiful. A real pleasure to look through and to compose the picture. Reduced to the minimum: the image section. Nothing else. The Hasselblad 500C/M with the Acute-Matte focussing screen is also so wonderfully bright and clear. I can recreate this with the Sony by making a few adjustments. The viewfinder or monitor is almost completely free of disturbing numbers, text or lines. This looks nice and helps me to concentrate on the composition of the image. No grid, no numbers, no distractions.
Camera settings
To achieve the quiet feeling of a clutter-free viewfinder and the feeling of a camera that is setup to mimic a analog film camera I changed the following settings:
EVF and LCD reduced to show the focus point, aperture, shutter speed and ISO, only.
Shutter speed on the top rear dial
Aperture on the lens
For landscape and street I often use manual focus. Therefore I have setup the camera to focus peeking which I configured to be toggled with the custom button on the lens.
Fixed daylight white balance
Aperture priority
You will find a video on the camera setup on YouTube soon.
