3 days ago
5
You keep hearing that a Leica can change how you shoot, but it is hard to separate myth from real shifts in how you see and move. This videop puts that question in a messy, real setting, then pulls out a few specific changes that might sound small until you recognize them in your own contact sheets.
Coming to you from Ari Jaaksi, this reflective video starts with a family Christmas trip that is loud, crowded, and nonstop, then pivots into a quiet walk around a nearby lake with a Leica loaded with FOMAPAN 200 Creative, pushed to 400 and developed in Rodinal. That setup is not presented as a flex, it is presented as a constraint, and the constraint is the point. You are watching someone use a short window of solitude to test whether a camera’s handling nudges decisions before you even notice you are making them. If you tend to treat “camera feel” as a vague idea, the way Jaaksi ties it to a specific walk and a specific roll makes it harder to dismiss.
Jaaksi gets concrete about composition, and this is where the video earns attention. He comes from a square-first mindset, shaped by Rolleiflex shooting, where the frame feels neutral and you can build your picture without the rectangle pushing you toward a direction. With the Leica’s horizontal frame, he finds himself resisting the obvious, then defaulting to vertical frames and dealing with “extra” space that suddenly needs a job. That sounds like a minor preference until you think about how often you lean on habit to solve a scene fast, especially when you are tired or overstimulated. His point is not that one format is superior, it is that the format quietly argues with you while you work.
He also contrasts eye-level shooting with the lower camera position you get from waist-level finders on cameras like a Rolleiflex or a Hasselblad. He describes that small drop in height as changing viewpoints in a way that can feel immediate, and he admits the Leica tempts him into standing straight and firing from eye level. If you recognize that “default stance” problem, you already know the fix is not intellectual, it is physical. Then he moves into focusing, calling out how a well-calibrated rangefinder can be fast and precise enough that you start reaching for shallow depth of field more often, sometimes to the edge of becoming a habit you will need to rein back in later. You get a clear sense of how a camera can encourage a look, even when you think you are choosing it freely.
The film format point is the one that may catch you off guard, especially if you bounce between sizes. Jaaksi talks about the smaller negative pushing him toward bolder, more graphic choices, with less reliance on fine detail carrying the image. He also describes cropping discipline changing because there is simply less “real estate” to throw away without feeling it later, so the frame needs to be more accurate at exposure time. The most interesting shift, though, is how he says the Leica changes the whole sequence of seeing: instead of actively composing while looking through a finder for a long stretch, he is more likely to decide quickly, then press the shutter, with the real composing happening before the camera comes up. That’s a provocative claim if you love slow, finder-led framing, and it opens a practical question about whether speed makes your pictures simpler in a good way or just thinner. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Jaaksi.
English (US) ·