Why, of course you can! While it might sound awkward at first – at least to us spoiled youngsters who grew up with all-automatic cameras -, it is indeed possible, and quite easy, too!

The editor of this blog | Leica M8 + Biogon 35/2 @ f/8, 1/60 sec, ISO 2500

What I did was set the lens to its closest focusing distance, the aperture to f/8 for large depth-of-field, hold the camera at arms length away, pointing to the right of my chin, let the auto-exposure do its job and shoot. The result needed only some minor tweaking (mainly conversion to b&w).

Of course taking your self-portrait is much more convenient with an automatic camera with face detection – but it’s much more fun with a rangefinder!