Ricoh Updated *** Street with GRD's ***

I'm with you Nic, except I don't even use it to focus except in low light. In good light, I'm set to manual focus and then the WHOLE touch screen is just a shutter button and you can touch it pretty much anywhere (except the extreme edges) and it will fire the shot.

Ah, interesting strategy. I haven't yet used the touchscreen without autofocus, although I've being using the 25mm almost exclusively which has less DOF to play with and usually needs to be focused right. I imagine it would work well with the 9-18mm, as well as the 12 and 14.
 
Don, I wished someone would film you as you do street shooting. This would be of great educational value to see how it's done by a master of the art.
 
Great images Don, your street photography is brilliant and with everyone else's work keeps me constantly trying and learning to be as technically proficient as I am happy to being out with my camera :)
 
Don, at which distance you shoot?

Herman, that is a very important question. It seems today that the trend is to get close, close, close. Well, sometimes I do get close but it's not a part of my images DNA. Foor me, intent and content rule supreme. So I may be 18" on this image and maybe 6' on the next. I don't use distance as a device and I allow the entire experience of the image to set things up. I am a part of that experience the same as everything in the frame. We are doing this image in synergism.

This is a part of a philosophy I live and teach but never force to others.

"Stop taking things from the world and start making things out of it." This is the basic premise of personal photography. To make images from the fragments of the world in front of you and to share that experience with others.

Is that close enough?
 
Hi Don,

Can you explain the significance to you of having "grit" in your images? Do you ever prefer the cleaner look from the GXR or GX1?

Nic, Well in my Flickr account you can see the answer to this question visually. The great thing about the GXR and GRD is that they both have the same UI, well almost. The menues are similar and the FOV, both being 28mm are the same but....The GRIT produced is entirely different.

I thought I could get away with the S10 unit as that also is 10MP. Well, zoomies have no place on my cameras. So I use the GRD to give me the FREEDOM the GXR trys to make. The GXR is larger but not too large just to big to fit in my pocket. It's an amazing camera and I am completely at one with it.
Both cameras make remarkable image quality. Clean as the day is long.
When I use the GRD, I am thinking in a different way. I am thinking about making images that break the preconceptions I have set for myself. This camera challenges me and makes me rethink my work. Of course the work is all the same as I am the maker but there is a difference in approach.

I usually pre-visualize my images, not to say that I am not open for discovery but I have a general idea of what I am making for the final print. The GRD has a sense of humor and shows me maybe a different way to think.
I don't know why that happens but I like it and damn sure ain't trying to fix it either.
 
Herman, that is a very important question. It seems today that the trend is to get close, close, close. Well, sometimes I do get close but it's not a part of my images DNA. Foor me, intent and content rule supreme. So I may be 18" on this image and maybe 6' on the next. I don't use distance as a device and I allow the entire experience of the image to set things up. I am a part of that experience the same as everything in the frame. We are doing this image in synergism.
Six feet is still pretty close and about as close as you'd ever want to be if you've got more than one head and shoulder in your shot. I think when we were discussing getting close in a previous thread, it was in reaction to some shots that were clearly taken from across the street or some greater distance. Which can also work but not if you're trying for any sort of intimacy with your subject. There's close and then there's close, but your longest shots are pretty close, except for those where its more of an area shot than a person shot. And for sure there are no rules, except that the most common beginner mistake is to not even be CLOSE to close enough and so it comes up in discussion...

-Ray
 
Ah, interesting strategy. I haven't yet used the touchscreen without autofocus, although I've being using the 25mm almost exclusively which has less DOF to play with and usually needs to be focused right. I imagine it would work well with the 9-18mm, as well as the 12 and 14.

I only do it with the 12 because that's the only lens I find it really easy to do zone focus with - its possible with the others but its a real PIA to know your focus distance since there's no sort of scale either on the lens or in the camera. The Fujis are easy to do this with, the Ricoh's are INSANELY easy to do this with, the LX5 is pretty easy to do this with, and I'm sure there are other modern cameras with by-wire lenses that make it work, but m43 is terrible except for the 12mm lens. If they'd make a 14mm with the same manual focus ring that snaps into place and has a distance scale, I'd pawn the stereo and the rolex and the grandchildren for it. Not that I have a stereo worth pawning or a rolex or grandchildren at all, but you get the idea...

-Ray
 
I gather that, with so far the sole exception of the 12mm, Micro 4/3 has attempted to replace more traditional methods with technology. I never really felt comfortable pre-focusing as I would sometimes do with the E-PL1 and 20mm, so the speed and accuracy of the touchscreen focus point selection and shutter on the E-M5 and 25mm has been a revelation.
 
So it seems that the camera does play a large part in youse guys processes.

It does and it doesn't. When I have the OMD with the touchscreen and the 12mm, I take advantage of the capabilities. When I have the GRD3 with its snap focus and near infinite DOF, I take advantage of that. And when I'm using the X-Pro, I figure out how to use it most effectively too. But I don't think my photos end up looking terribly different regardless of what I'm shooting with and I'm pretty much happy enough shooting with any of them. So on the one hand I have to know what I'm shooting with and how to best use it, but OTOH it doesn't much matter what I'm shooting with unless it's something I just can't get to work all that well.

-Ray
 
It does and it doesn't. When I have the OMD with the touchscreen and the 12mm, I take advantage of the capabilities. When I have the GRD3 with its snap focus and near infinite DOF, I take advantage of that. And when I'm using the X-Pro, I figure out how to use it most effectively too. But I don't think my photos end up looking terribly different regardless of what I'm shooting with and I'm pretty much happy enough shooting with any of them. So on the one hand I have to know what I'm shooting with and how to best use it, but OTOH it doesn't much matter what I'm shooting with unless it's something I just can't get to work all that well.

-Ray

I get that Ray, absolutely. In fact when I want to learn about a camera that's coming out...I wait for you to get it and then run with it and then publish your findings. I mean this in a good way only, not sarcasm.
So I will speak about the GRD only for a spell. I remember last 2 years or so that I was using the GRD3 but didn't take it too serious because I was Admin at the 2 forums. I was more interested in new things like the X100, Nex 5, GXR etc.

Then I was asked by my curator to provide around 250 images that I really cared for. I did an edit with my friend and when I looked at the meta data...eureka.... certain images just sang a different note then the others. Those were from the GRD's. I had a lot of very good stuff but there was a difference in the images with these cameras.

What I noticed and still do is that the GRD adds to the intimacy of the moment.
I'm not saying other cameras don't do that but I can't afford to find out.
Probably one of the best features is...I'm laying on the couch typing this and the camera is in my pocket. I can't even tell its there.
 
So, Streetshooter, if you come up with 250 images, and let us say they were shot at an average shutter speed of 1/125th of a second. Then it follows that they represent about 2 seconds of life, or two seconds of life frozen in time. Now, obviously, from your point of view (and mine) they represent much more than that in time, attention, energy etc. It is, when considered this way, a strange thing we do capturing these ever so brief moments within the unceasing relentless flow of time. When I capture the ever-so-brief expression on the face of one of my daughters, the result is priceless to me, but it remains but a mere gossamer fragment of her life and mine. What joy! What wonder! But it is not all joy and wonder. I just read the other day an essay about the Magnum photographers, and found that some of them, after covering wars and other aspects of the human underbelly, gave up photography for the rest of their lives.
 
Dan, you and I are of the same matter.
I never subscribed to that 1/125 second belief.
For me that's missing the point of photography. Maybe that is relevant to the life of a camera but certainly not to people.

Images are not about time in that sense, they are about the here and now.
You know how you feel when you capture your daughter and it just fills your soul with life?
Well that's a mark of the here and now. It's the culmination of all things being in focus at the same time and at the same place. That just may be at 1/125 but it doesn't matter.

Dan, I cannot express how important your family photos are. They certainly have more value then anything I do on the street. I know you know that but many shooters overlook this simple concept of memory. Every one learns the lesson but generally it's too late.
Don
 
Dan, I cannot express how important your family photos are. They certainly have more value then anything I do on the street. I know you know that but many shooters overlook this simple concept of memory. Every one learns the lesson but generally it's too late.
Don
I think street photographers are mostly people who's loved ones don't like having their photos taken. If my wife and daughters weren't so camera shy, I probably never would have started photographing complete strangers! I live for the holidays, when big groups of family are hanging out and I can get their photos somewhat like I do on the street. If you have family members that are willing to be in photos, you've got all you need.

-Ray
 
Ray, strange as it may seem......I had an exhibition of street shots in a local library recently. A lady was so taken she contacted me and asked me to photograph her family in similar fashion with the same camera (grd3) and same post process.
 
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