In the early 70's I used a Nikon F body which served me very well. I moved to Canon F1's in the mid 70's along with a Hassy 500. I had a large darkroom with bessler and omega enlargers. It was great fun and I miss it in some ways.
-
Welcome to the new forums! Please read this first. For known issues we are working to resolve, click here.
The film era
- Thread starter the_adb
- Start date
MusicDoctorDJ
Forum Pro
- Messages
- 11,789
- Reaction score
- 11
I know . . .
I often wish that digital photography had never come around . . .
Had it not, these might still be set up instead of collecting dust out in my garage:
It was the darkrooming that got me hooked on photography as a career for most of my adult life!
I still have several boxes of B&W paper in our freezer that have been frozen for 15 years now . . .
--
J. D.
Colorado
Rifleman1776
Well-known member
I haven't read the other responses so will just give my own recollections.
Not unlike today, some of the best are still with us.
Limiting to hand-held cameras (excluding large view cameras, etc.), the Nikon and Leica were unheralded best in 35mm. I used a Pentax for many years and was a fan even though many eschewed it in favor of Nikons. In medium format, the Rollieflex TLR was very excellent and the Bronica and Hasselblad were, without a doubt the professionals choice.
Not unlike today, some of the best are still with us.
Limiting to hand-held cameras (excluding large view cameras, etc.), the Nikon and Leica were unheralded best in 35mm. I used a Pentax for many years and was a fan even though many eschewed it in favor of Nikons. In medium format, the Rollieflex TLR was very excellent and the Bronica and Hasselblad were, without a doubt the professionals choice.
The amount of electricity to keep that paper fresh must have cost more than the paper itself by now.
tough question and requires knowing more about your standards. I have used a number of film slrs and I would be hard pressed to tell you which is the gold standard. Any way they change over the years. Of all I have used I think my favorite all time slr for me personally is the om series Om1,Om3, Om4t. Next on my list was my Canon F1 the original series, but dang was that a heavy camera, Nikon f1 with the non metering prism and the Leica r4 was also a favorite. Not to mention my Minolta srt 101 sigh you have any idea how hard this is.
Ok if your looking for the difinitive early slr there are two which started the whole ball rolling. Now I know there were dating back before the war but it was the introduction of the quick return mirror and the use of the pentaprism that really made the slr a usable tool. So early on the top honors go to the Nikon F and Pentax spotmatic.
a bit later on Canon introduced the F1 Certainly there were others back then but the NIkon and pentax were the trend setters.
In the autofocus era the Canon EOS led the pack. but Minolta was the firm that introduced the first commercially successful auto focus slr.
Many thought Leitz was lagging in technology but it seem they had patented the autofocus so common in slrs and dslrs but for what strange very Leitz reason didnt make use of it. They sold the rights to their patents to Minolta sometime in the seventies which led to the introduction of the Minolta auto focus slr.
JOhn
bosjohn aka John Shick [email protected]
Ok if your looking for the difinitive early slr there are two which started the whole ball rolling. Now I know there were dating back before the war but it was the introduction of the quick return mirror and the use of the pentaprism that really made the slr a usable tool. So early on the top honors go to the Nikon F and Pentax spotmatic.
a bit later on Canon introduced the F1 Certainly there were others back then but the NIkon and pentax were the trend setters.
In the autofocus era the Canon EOS led the pack. but Minolta was the firm that introduced the first commercially successful auto focus slr.
Many thought Leitz was lagging in technology but it seem they had patented the autofocus so common in slrs and dslrs but for what strange very Leitz reason didnt make use of it. They sold the rights to their patents to Minolta sometime in the seventies which led to the introduction of the Minolta auto focus slr.
JOhn
bosjohn aka John Shick [email protected]
Both the Crown Graphic and the Speed Graphic were considered the mainstay of professional photojournalists. Some used the B&J (Burke & James, sometimes called Bunk & Junk), but it never had the following enjoyed by the cameras manufactured by Graflex. Fitted with a 16-sheet film pack, the Graphics could be used to grab a lot of quick shots in fast-action situations.
I'll second that. Marketing handn't expoited the "pro" vs "consumer" snobbery yet. It was more what you did that determined which cameras you used... landscape and some portrait photogs were using a lot of Toyo view cameras and if they could afford them Horseman or Wista. A lot of reporters and street photogpraphers carried OM-1 etc. because they were small and easy to carry (Nikon FE-2 and FM-2 fit there, and Leica range finders were also popular with street photographers). Travel photographers often used Pentax K1000's because you could drive a nail with one and so cheap you wouldn't grieve too much if you dropped one off the side of a mountain. Sports photographers used Canon F1's, sometimes with those 200 shot roll backs or later a T-90 (had a 1/250 flash synch, probably the first 2nd curtain flash, and the built in motor winder could rip through 5 fames a second, which was blistering back then... the EOS 1 was modeled after this one). Rich snobs bought Leica R3 safari outfits. Fashion and Magazine photographers mostly used Hassy's or the Mamiya / Rollei equivalent. Sometimes Pentax 645s. Then there was the Contax RTS with the ceramic vacuum film bed, which was probably the gear-head's Leica (cost nearly as much and the glass was comparable, but had that technological film handling precision). Nikon F3's went to Skylab and I remember a lot of bird and wildlife photographers used them. Canon F1s and Nikon FMs and maybe the K1000 were also popular because they had mechanical shutters and could operate just fine with no batteries. And, if you were sneaky, you used a Minox ^-^ Pretty much all of them were pro cameras. "Ordinary folks" tended to buy the instamatics, brownies, and cheaper rangefinders.
David Hughes124436
Veteran Member
Mark Smith145430
Veteran Member
No the Milnolta AF system was taken from Leica (or E Leitz as it was back in the day) I think there were a number of agreements between Leica and Minolta, WRT to certain technologies- Lenses, AF and electronics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minolta#Autofocus_SLRs
Mark
I always dreamed of the Leica M4, 5 or 6 series for landscapes/things that didn't move/weren't close up. The closest I got was a Ricoh GR1 with fixed 28 lens that was reputedly designed by leica! Oh and a leica leather bound pocket book....(how sad?).
If the subject was moving then the canon EOS 1 was what I lusted after, the metering seemed infallible on slides and the af just seemed to work perfectly. A friend swapped from pentax to the EOS 1 and I stuck with pentax (just couldn't afford the swap), so I was able to compare side by side and it was impressive.
I always fancied a dabble in medium format as I had my own darkroom but apart from printing some 645's for a friend I just never managed to get their either....I suppose a Hasselblad would have been what I lusted after, for the fact that it had great lenses and it was 6x6 so no need for finders and/or rotating backs etc. I suppose a Bronica SQAi would 'have done'! I always thought the waist level viewfinder helped me compose a shot, like making it look more 2 dimensional as the final print would be (managed to use a friends Bronica ETRSi once).
--
Walt
http://picasaweb.google.com/waltdall
René Schuster
Veteran Member
I always love to see this fine lens, the Komine made Vivitar S1 200/3.0, congrats! The pleasure already start when just looking at it!I bought this camera in December of 1989 (still have it):
I bought mine used in spring this year, was my favorite lens on my 520 until I got the ED Nikkor 180/2.8.
Never had one of these F1 bodies, just the cheaper AE-1, which I used from the 80s until 2003, when I got my first UZI. My favorite lens on the AE-1 was the Canon 80-200/4, that good double-ring zoom.
Yes, just like most of today´s lenses are lightyears away in build quality when compared to something like this old Vivitar lens and many others like the good old Kiron macros!
René
MusicDoctorDJ
Forum Pro
- Messages
- 11,789
- Reaction score
- 11
I bought that lens back in the mid 80's after one of my camera bags got stolen, loosing two Canon F1 bodies (both with motordrives), a couple of Vivtar 283's and several lenses, most specifically my Canon 200 f:2.8L FD lens.
Being a newspaper photographer, I needed a fast 200mm lens quick, couldn't afford to replace with Canon (news photography didn't pay that much LOL), found this Vivitar used at one of the local camera stores and bought it.
I love that lens . . . I liked it better than the old Canon 200 f:2.8!
Matter of fact, I'm thinking about getting a Panasonic G1 just so I can use it again!
Here is another look at it:
Back in those days, most newspapers were all Nikon, but I chose to use my own camera gear as I prefered Canon better back in the manual focus day.
I was the only photographer at the paper who used their own cameras, and also the only one who shot Canon while on the job.
--
J. D.
Colorado
Being a newspaper photographer, I needed a fast 200mm lens quick, couldn't afford to replace with Canon (news photography didn't pay that much LOL), found this Vivitar used at one of the local camera stores and bought it.
I love that lens . . . I liked it better than the old Canon 200 f:2.8!
Matter of fact, I'm thinking about getting a Panasonic G1 just so I can use it again!
Here is another look at it:
Back in those days, most newspapers were all Nikon, but I chose to use my own camera gear as I prefered Canon better back in the manual focus day.
I was the only photographer at the paper who used their own cameras, and also the only one who shot Canon while on the job.
--
J. D.
Colorado
Rifleman1776
Well-known member
Razr said: "What killed most old film cameras was their short (les than 50,000 snaps) shutter lives"
That could be debated. But, you did say "most". No way to prove or disprove that.
However, I used a Pentax H1A professionally for several decades. I put, literally, hundreds of thousands of rolls of film through it. Admittedly, some only 12 frame. (I handloaded) Shutter snaps were beyond counting. Only failure was a screw holding the advance lever came loose once. Easy fix. Then just a couple years ago, it simply wore out.
And, there are some who would not consider this make/model a top end piece of equipment. I frequently used it when the company owned Nikons were in the shop for repair, which was quite often.
I'm a pretty stubborn old timer, often stuck in the past. (check out my on-line name) But, I would not go back to the days of film if given the chance. Digi is something beyond amazing.
That could be debated. But, you did say "most". No way to prove or disprove that.
However, I used a Pentax H1A professionally for several decades. I put, literally, hundreds of thousands of rolls of film through it. Admittedly, some only 12 frame. (I handloaded) Shutter snaps were beyond counting. Only failure was a screw holding the advance lever came loose once. Easy fix. Then just a couple years ago, it simply wore out.
And, there are some who would not consider this make/model a top end piece of equipment. I frequently used it when the company owned Nikons were in the shop for repair, which was quite often.
I'm a pretty stubborn old timer, often stuck in the past. (check out my on-line name) But, I would not go back to the days of film if given the chance. Digi is something beyond amazing.
bikinchris
Veteran Member
Nikon F, F2, F3 (skip the F4) F5 and (still produced) F6
Leica M6
Hasselblad 500CM
Sinar with Fuji or Nikkor lenses
But those are just my favorites.
--
I am an expert at contradicting myself. Just wait a while. It will be evident.
Chris, Broussard, LA
MusicDoctorDJ
Forum Pro
- Messages
- 11,789
- Reaction score
- 11
The F6 is no longer produced . . .
Still available . . . yes.
Still made . . . not for at least four years.
Nikon, Canon, Pentax and obviously Minolta no longer make ANY film cameras.
--
J. D.
Colorado
Similar threads
Keyboard shortcuts
- f
- Forum