[Leica] Re: grips and soft releases

[Jeff Moore <jbm@oven.com>]

2001-07-20-14:45:20 Mark Rabiner:
> Henry Posner/B&H Photo-Video wrote:
> > I hold the camera in my left hand, palm up so the left thumb is
> > pointing left, and when I go to vertical rotate counter-clockwise so
> > the right hand is at the top.
> > 
> 
> To me there is nothing obvious about standing there with my camera dangling from
> underneath my right hand.

Right.  The fundamental place the misunderstanding enters, I believe, is
in the unstated assumptions WRT whether photography is a one-handed or a
two-hended sport.

I believe that the right hand alone can't support a camera optimally,
although one might resort to one-handed shooting with an autofocus
camera if the left arm were occupied with carrying groceries or a
toddler or some such.

> My hand is underneath it. My camera rests IN my right hand. My left
> hand comes up and grabs the lens and focuses it. I drop my left hand
> and the camera itself is still being cradled in my right hand.

Ideally, though, [the following clearly my opinion, so I won't clutter
the prose with saying so over and over] the camera is supported on the
left palm, back toward the wrist joint.  The left thumb and forefinger
operate focus or aperture (zoom? what's that?) rings, with the other
fingers naturally tucked behind them by the hand's orientation so
that they won't wander accidentally in front of the lens.  The right
hand clasps the camera, the right hand's index finger operates the
shutter.  Both right and left hands are gripping the camera securely
enough that each alone could support the camera, but neither is gripping
with white-knuckled fatigue-and-shake-inducing tension.  Together they
provide a less quivery platform than either cold alone.  As opportunity
and necessity provide, the left elbow can be placed on the lower ribcage
or some external object to provide a more bone- than muscle-braced
support.  The right hand provides a trace less support than the left,
because it's concerned with a clean shutter release, and because its
support requires squeezing the body of the camera, with the attendant
inducement of fatigue and tremor.

For verticals, it's all fundamentally the same -- the same grips, the
same primary support for the camera provided by its resting on the left
palm -- except the right hand is above rather than to the right of the
camera.  No bending the right risk awkwardly backward.  (I only put
the right hand below when I have a flash mounted right on top of the
camera and want the light to come from kind-of-the-right instead of
kind-of-the-left.)

It just works seamlessly, and kind of locks into place naturally -- like
a good Weaver stance.