Pixiq

About two years ago, I bought a new Panasonic Lumix G-1. When I got it all charged and setup I took a few shots around my office and was surprised at the camera’s noise level. Since the G-1 is a mirror-less camera, I thought that without a mirror slapping up and down, it would be very quiet. Sitting in my office and firing the camera, I couldn’t understand why the shutter was so loud.

“Things change” is an old adage and I was out shooting the other day when realized that I no longer “heard” the G-1or to say it another way—I’d grown accustomed to her voice.”

It got me thinking about the relationship between photography and sound. A while ago, I had written a PIXIQ post about the tactile qualities of cameras called “Are We Losing Touch with Our Cameras?” I described how I thought the placement of camera controls (or lack of controls) affected shooting. Considering my experience with my G-1, it seemed natural to follow that piece up with a posting on camera sound. 

The place to begin this story is, of course, at the beginning with the Camera Obscura—a darkened room—which was the first camera in that it was the first device that projected images onto a surface. What was lacking was a way of capturing the projected image and that is was what the Frenchman, Louis Daguerre accomplished. Over in England William Fox Talbot was making similar discoveries.

So photography was born in 1839 when a chemical method was discovered to fix or hold onto the projected image of the camera obscura.

However, for the first fifty years or so of photography, cameras were silent. The source of noise in a camera is the opening and closing of the camera shutter and the flapping of the reflex mirror but early cameras had neither shutters nor moving reflex mirrors so photography was silent.

To control exposure time, early cameras, like Daguerre’s had a sliding panel behind the lens that the photographer moved by hand. Some cameras lacked even this simple device so the photographer used the lens cap to control the exposure--taking the cap off the lens, counting the required number of seconds and replacing it. Later a “drop” shutter or guillotine device was invented; it was one of the first camera accessories. Placed over the front of the lens, a sliding knife blade was dropped to produce a short exposure. The rotary shutter, a variation of the drop shutter appeared in the 1860s.

The camera shutter as we know it is a clockwork mechanism invented in 1887 by Edward Bausch, the son of one of the founders of Bausch and Lomb. It changed photography by placing both a spring-loaded shutter and a multi-leaf iris aperture between elements of the lens. Bausch worked with George Eastman and his lens/shutter device and Eastman’s paper roll film were the essential elements of the new “Kodak” camera. It was the first modern camera and it popularized photography by bringing thousands of ordinary people into the world of picture making. 

The philosopher Roland Barthes points out that these first cameras were products of clockmakers who had the precision machinery and carpentry skills needed to build them. Crafted out of fine woods with elegant clasps of bronze and copper, these cameras were in effect for Barthes, “clocks for seeing.” After all, he says, photography is about stopping time and clocks tick to tell us of time’s passing. The camera’s “tick,” i.e. the sound of the shutter, tells us that a moment in time has been captured.

I‘ve shot Leicas for a long time and I’ve always enjoyed the quietness of their shutters. However, I also use Nikon and Mamiya SLRs, which are far louder cameras. I began to wonder whether the difference in sound levels had an effect on my shooting? Was a quiet camera better than a noisy one? Would a noiseless camera be even better?

I have a Panasonic Lumix LX3 camera that can be set for “silent running.” That is, on one of the set-up menu pages you can click and turn off the camera’s shutter sound. Since these cameras have no actual moving shutter, they make no sound. Panasonic lets you add the sound of the shutter, as you would a ringtone to a phone. I discovered that the shutter sound used in the LX3 is the actual shutter sound of a Leica CL--the small 35mm film Leica camera of the 1970s-- a familiar sound to many of us who owned and loved them. Clearly, the sound of a shutter firing, real or not, was important to Panasonic. This was my first clue that sound was important in picture taking and not a fantasy on my part. Panasonic understood the importance of sound in photography and provided one. They added these sounds because they realized that photographers needed to hear when the exposure is made. Without sound, it’s easy to lose one’s way.

The LX3’s silent running option allowed me to perform a little test of this idea. I spent a morning photographing at a local farmer’s market with the shutter sound turned off. It was an odd sensation to shoot noiselessly. In addition, it was very disconcerting. Although the monitor screen would freeze for a second when I took a photo, I found myself reviewing the images after each shot to confirm that I had indeed gotten the picture. 

One of the reasons I enjoy Leica’s quiet shutters is that as a “street shooter,” which many Leicaphiles are, you have a sense that with a quiet camera people won’t notice you taking pictures.

I’m not sure where this notion comes from but after pondering this a bit and talking with some other photographers; I have to say I don’t think it's accurate. Unless you are using a motor drive, it’s hard to hear a camera shutter on a busy urban street or in a crowd. The ambient noise level more than obscures the shutter sound. But if people don't people notice you taking pictures because of the shutter noise, which they really can't hear, that what does catch their attention?

When you think about it the person who hears the shutter sound the most is the photographer who is holding the camera just a few inches from their ear. Whether the subject hears the shutter or not is irrelevant, the photographer hears it. The subject, if they hear the shutter at all, also hears it as the picture has been taken, too late for it to be a distraction. So what causes the concern about the sound of the shutter?

Henri Cartier-Bresson the prima ballerina of street shooters literally danced on tippy toes when taking pictures. In the few films available showing him working, you can see him moving through a crowd, his head popping up for a few seconds then dropping out of sight, only to turn up somewhere else.

However, look closely and you'll see that he rarely has the camera—or his hands—in front of his face. When he is ready to shoot, he raises his camera to his eye quickly, for the briefest moment ,and takes the shot.

I think he intuitively knew that lifting the camera up to focus and frame is what would draw attention to him and ruin the candidness of the “decisive moment.” He developed a style of shooting that involved pre-focusing his camera and pre-visualizing the image in his mind. The actual act of taking the picture was almost an afterthought.

We are primates and eye contact is important to how we communicate with others. We look each other in the eye as a test of truthfulness and we look into our lover’s eyes to communicate our passion. We are born looking to see eyes and we quickly notice when we cannot see them. That’s what happens with photographers. Look at a crowd and your eye is immediately spot the person whose eyes you cannot see—and most often that’s the photographer.  

The desire for quiet cameras has more to do with the photographer’s own discomfort I think than anything else. The photographer always hears the camera shutter, is aware the picture is being taken and is the one who feels uncomfortable photographing people "secretly."

Soon the sound of the shutter and reflex mirror noise becomes associated in the photographer's mind with their discomfort. That’s the real issue.

As for my G-1, I’ve come to enjoy its shutter sound. It is robust and positive. I find its clip-clop sound rather reassuring and comforting, especially photographing at a loud and noisy event.

J’adore.