The State of Street

Winter has set in, in a big way. The New York metro area has received record snowfall over the past couple of weeks. We’re just getting over last our weekly storm, which this time delivered ice and freezing rain. So it’s sleep, go to work, shovel snow. Not many photo ops for the family man/photog.

So I’m trying to put my cabin fever to good use by continuing my ongoing research, and staying organized. I hope to get this all out of my system soon, because come spring my life will be consumed with home improvement projects and (hopefully) some serious shooting.

My current project is to find the perfect digital street shooter. The deeper I get into my research, the more I realize that for street, the digital camera is just not there yet. SLR lovers are in good shape because there are many options. Pros have good medium format options. But the street shooters who’s stock in trade are rangefinders have a tough time. I want to explore the rangefinder lifestyle in a digital way, but I keep coming up short.

The Four Thirds and Micro Four Thirds systems don’t seem to be taking off. If I wanted to go with a 35mm focal length, I should be able to couple an MFT body with a 17mm prime lens, and add an external viewfinder.

Lumix offers the GF2, and their 17mm f/1.7 lens has received good reviews. No optical viewfinder though, and I can’t see taking a chance on the pricey DMW-VF1, which is designed for the LX3. Not a rangefinder, but perhaps a suitable street shooter.

Olympus has the PEN E-PL2, but their 17mm is f/2.8, did not receive stellar reviews, and doesn’t come in black. Neither does the VF-1 Optical Viewfinder, even though the camera only comes in black.

But I could pair the E-PL2 with the Lumix 17mm f/1.7 and the silver VF-1.

I could fit the E-PL2 with a Leica M to MFT adapter and use the Voigtländer Color-Skopar 21mm f/4.0 and 40mm viewfinder. But even if I could forgive the slight difference in focal length and the enormous disadvantage in speed, the brightlines would be for a 3:2 aspect ratio. And it would render the camera manual exposure only.

The obvious choice, the Leica M9, is out of the question. If it were the perfect camera, maybe; but at $7,000, it’s flawed. And, it will obsolete soon enough. Plus, a Leica 35mm f/1.4 will set me back another five grand. I could live with the f/2.5 though, at a mere $1,700.00.

If I could find a used, Cosina-made Epson RD-1, I could fit it with the Voigtländer 25mm f/4.0 for a 35mm equivalent focal length. I’d be dropping down to 6MP though, and losing considerable speed.

The Fujifilm X100 would be perfect, once it becomes available, except for the fact that it has no interchangeable lenses. Although not a true rangefinder, I think it would qualify as an excellent digital street shooter.

This is simply not a straightforward thing. For me, I think it would boil down to a choice between the Fujifilm X100, or the Olympus PEN E-PL2 with the Lumix 17mm f/1.7 and silver VF-1.

The point of all this is, the choices, especially the lenses are extremely limited. But in the land of silver halide, the choices are enormous. I could purchase a Voigtländer R4M with a Nokton 35mm f/1.4 for about $1,250.00 and be in street heaven with an enormous choice of additional lenses. Or, I could save about $50.00 and get the Fujifilm with only once choice of lens. The compromise is just too great.

So the bottom line is, if you’re planning on shooting street, film’s still the way to go.