His documentary-style portraiture lends itself well to the specific abilities of SLRs, and the harsh environs of globetrotting photojournalism almost certainly called for the rugged reliability of a Nikon. Steve McCurry happens to belong to such a camp, and just as Henri Cartier-Bresson took advantage of the Leica M3’s rangefinder format, Steve McCurry took advantage of the FM2’s SLR format.
As a result, many photojournalists who didn’t need the excessive modularity or wanted to avoid the hefty bulk of the F-series picked the FM2 as a simple, no-nonsense, bare-bones photographic tool. And in spite of its amateur origins, the FM2 shares the self-same ruggedness and reliability of Nikon’s legendary F-series of cameras.
Though the FM2 was marketed to capitalize on the lucrative advanced enthusiast market of the 1980s, it also served double duty as a light mechanical backup body for many pro photographers. But wait, isn’t the FM2 an amateur body? Why would a professional, let alone one of National Geographic‘s most accomplished shooters use an amateur body? The answer is this- the FM2 punches far above its weight. The photo that would firmly ensconce McCurry at the forefront of photography was taken with a Nikon FM2. Get one here.Įverybody knows that one National Geographic photo. But if you absolutely love rangefinder-style shooting, there’s scarcely a camera that can beat the M3. Will having a Leica M3 make you into a regular Henri Cartier-Bresson? Of course not. While these compositions are certainly possible on an SLR, they present themselves more obviously in a rangefinder camera, and can be more easily executed using one. You can see the meticulous craft of his compositions as subjects big, small, near, and far are positioned perfectly across the entire frame, all the way up to the very edge of the image in some cases. Though we can use the handy depth-of-field preview lever found on many SLRs to achieve a similar effect, it unfortunately results in a greatly dimmed viewfinder which could create a problem composing in low light situations- not ideal.Ĭartier-Bresson took advantage of this characteristic of the M3 to great effect.
SLRs by comparison only focus on a particular subject and blur out whatever isn’t in focus. Rangefinder cameras show the shooter the entire scene as the eye would normally see it, bright and in-focus.
As pretentious and full of you-know-what as that may sound today, Henri actually has a point. When one thinks of Leica, one inevitably conjures visions of the immaculately composed photographs of Henri Cartier-Bresson, and when we pick up an M3 we can immediately see the way the master saw.Ĭartier-Bresson famously referred to the Leica M3 paired with a 50mm lens as an extension of his eye. The camera and the man have become nearly synonymous in the sixty-odd years since they’d have first met. We’ll start this list off with the most famous camera of them all, Leica’s M3, the chosen tool of the French master and pioneer of street photography, Henri Cartier-Bresson. Here are five amazing cameras and the photographers that used them to make some of the most famous photographs in history. To pay homage to these cameras and their photographers, we’ve decided to compile a list. It’s no different in photography, a field in which the tool is so closely married to the work produced, and there’s no shortage of fruitful pairings between legendary photographers and their machines.
History is full of these serendipitous unions between man and machine Jimi Hendrix revolutionized guitar playing with the Fender Stratocaster, Ayrton Senna conquered Formula One with the McLaren MP4/4, and Marty McFly defied time and space with the DeLorean. It’s the mind of the photographer that really creates the photograph cameras are only a tool in the process.īut every now and then the stars align to pair certain human beings with their perfect tool. A quick glance through the archives is enough to illustrate our undying love for classic cameras, but while our addiction to the tools of the trade is incurable we’re ever aware that cameras are only incidental to the creation of a great photograph. It’s no secret that we love our gear here at Casual Photophile.