On Collecting
What is it about human beings that makes us want to collect things? Australian Bower birds collect things, anything they can carry! The Lyre bird collects and archives sounds just like a tape recorder. Any sound they can mimic they record and save for later use when mating, another birds song, a camera motor dive or even the sound of a chainsaw! All part of the mating ritual. There can be an element of that with humans but for the most part it seems like we collect just for the joy of ownership, the functional interest in the item or just plain desire… and so it is.
There is a lady who I am somewhat in awe of and who I think has written some of the best reviews and user information on classic and not so classic cameras. Karen Nakamura of http://www.photoethnography.com/ Her collection is extensive and her rhetoric solid. I have never met or contacted this lady but she writes and critiques equipment as a practical photographer and not as sales person.
On Cameras and Lenses
Aside from the current digitals cameras which I can’t praise enough I have owned and used quite a few film cameras. I learned the craft on fixed lense 35mm rangefinders, twin lens reflex’s and view cameras while a student. Initially twin lens reflex were the most used then the a monster Pentax 6×7, and later 35mm cameras from Topcon, Pentax and Canon all good in their own way. The only one that died inconveniently was the technically advanced Topcon IC 1 while on its home turf in Japan on a study tour. The last film camera purchased was the Canon EOS 300V which twenty years on from the first Canon EOS 1 has nearly all the same features at a fraction of the cost and a tenth of the bulk, that is progress!
In the mid seventies really high quality and relatively inexpensive zoom lens became available, the freedom afforded by zoom lenses a was profound revelation. Zoom lenses are often criticised as being inferior to primes but after using a mixture of both I have to state that in the case of Canon L series zooms they are just as good as primes. They are very convenient for the obvious reason of not having to switch lenses as often in the field. The only disadvantage is their sheer weight and bulk. Like cars and middle age humans, the last ten years have seen Canon pro bodies and lenses put on a great deal of weight. This makes any amount of air travel a tedious logistical exercise, a traveler can’t check them in for fear of damage or loss and any more than one Canon 5D body, three or four lenses plus a few accessories pushes one over the the carry on weight allowance. As a result, for travel assignments I now use a rangefinder and an Olympus micro four thirds camera. In addition to the wide and standard zooms my EOS kit also includes a Voigtlander 40mm, a Canon EF100 f2.8 macro and for some architectural and garden work a wide of shift lense. In occasional service is a Canon FD set of bellows and copy attachment connected to the EOS system with an adaptor with a choice of 50 and 100mm macro lenses. The following is more or less of all the cameras I have used, owned and have been bequeathed. I run a film through some of the old ones every so often and are sometimes surprized by the results.
Imperial XII Box camera
Kodak
Voigtlander Vito CL
Minolta Autocord
Pentax 6X7
Practica
Leicaflex
Olympus
Yashica Mat
Topcon
Canon FD
Pentax MX and MV
Konica Lexio
Rollei
Canon EOS
Plastic fantastics
Films
I have sampled just about all of each manufacturers films at some point starting in the late 1950′s with Ilfords B/W films but the monochrome film that has given me most pleasure to use were Agfa. APX and its predecessors developed with Rodinol and printed on some of Agfa’s papers always gave consistent quality results. As with many things one of the reasons as a student that I liked Agfa was the price. Made in Germany at a time when the DM was at a discount in relation to the GBP Agfa’s films were a bargain compared to the Kodak offerings
Favourite colour films, Agfa Ultra for landscapes, Fuji NPH 400 and 160NPS. Kodak’s most recent negative offering HD2 like the NPS scans very well and gives colour saturation similar to many reversal films. Fuji Reala was just so reliable and very forgiving
Velvia was used for quite a while but I found it just too contrasty to be used in the bright clear Australian light. The light in the southern hemisphere is quite different to latitudes in the north and Fuji Astia seems to give more realistic and balanced colour reproduction. Agfa Precisa CT 200 has a character all of its own, a warm cast and a very fine grain, it can be a very useful film when used late in the day. The bit of extra speed is always welcome and it has the ability to render some scenes like no other film that I know of.
Another Agfa film was the Vista series It came in 100, 200, 400 and 800 ISO and another solid product that was one of the last new films that Agfa produced. It was interesting in as much that it had an additional layer that allowed exposure in fluorescent light without causing a green cast once developed. I don’t know if it was designed to have that property or if it was a happy side benefit of an effort to produce a more saturated negative film but had digital not arrived about the same time it would have become my staple film for botanical and garden work when not obliged to use transparency stock. I probably used about six rolls of the 200 and liked it very much but about the same time I acquired my first digital EOS…
With the exception of Velvia just about all the films I once used are no longer in production. There is still a small stock in my freezer but I have a distinct feeling I probably won’t buy too much more colour film in the future B&W perhaps but likely not colour,
Agfa Vista 400 Canon Ftb
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