1958 Sears Camera Catalog
5
Henry Richardson wrote:
I am reminded of a Magnum photo exhibition I saw in 2013 called:
Radical Transformation: Magnum Photos into the Digital Age
https://www.hrc.utexas.edu/exhibitions/2013/radical-transformation/
I wrote about it here on dpreview in 2013:
The photos were excellent and the presentation was good too. The prints were of various sizes by many Magnum photographers. I am sure lots of the people on the internet would have hated almost every single photo though because even many of the smaller prints (5x7, 6x9) were not eye cutting sharp when viewed at 3 centimeters. There would have been screaming and derision by the dogmatic extremists with their 10x loupes. Not sure about CA, distortion, and all the other things that so many people are obsessed with since I didn't even bother checking. They were wonderful viewed from a normal viewing distance. Very nice exhibition.
Probably about 90% of the photos in the exhibition were B&W. Some of the photos are famous iconic photos from Capa, Cartier-Bresson, et al that you have seen before.
Later I was walking around with my camera and I sort of wondered if all the photos in the exhibition had been taken with digital cameras if some of them, maybe a bunch of them, would have been deleted in the camera? I imagine these photographers are smart enough to not be over concerned (concerned, of course, but not over concerned) with all the technical details and let those things override what the image looks like and whether it is interesting. Fortunately, the photos had not been deleted.
Most of the photos in the exhibition could have easily been taken with my Canon G15 and the technical quality in many cases would have been even better. Just being able to quickly change ISO or use Auto ISO is a huge advantage. Good ISO from 80 on up to, oh I don't know, 3200. Even 12,800 is usable and quite good compared to just slightly fast film from a long time ago. Especially if shooting in raw. A long time ago ISO 400 film was fast.
This 1958 Sears Camera Catalog is very cool. Each page has been scanned on the website:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/nesster/albums/72157626944848453/
Lots of other cameras, accessories, film, etc. Very cool to see and here is just a small number of examples:
- Leica M3 + Summicron 50mm f2 for $456 -- adjusted for inflation that is $4106 in 2020 dollars.
- Nikon S-2 + Nikkor 50mm f1.4 for $415.
- Nikon S-2 + Nikkor 50mm f2for $333.
- Rolleiflex for $349.50.
- Speed Graphic Press Camera for $399.50.
The current digital Leica M10-R sells for $8295. The Leica M10-R for $8295 does not include a lens. We can add one though. The Leica Summicron f2 is $2695 so that makes it $10,990 for body and lens. The Leica M3 that cost $456 in 1958 is $4106 in 2020 dollars when adjusted for inflation. A couple of things to note:
- With the M3 one would have to spend lots of money for film, processing, taxes, etc. over time. With digital there is no incremental cost to taking photos (other than the minuscule amount spent storing them on digital media such as hard disks) so the higher digital camera price is not particularly important, IMO. One does need some sort of computer, but pretty much anyone even reading my post has one of those already. Doesn't even have to be all that powerful a computer if shooting jpegs or doing straightforward raw processing. Lots of software doesn't require very high end hardware to run well. Lightroom and some others do though need pretty good hardware.
- There are lots of 60+ year old M3 bodies still in use. How many think that an M10-R will still be usable 60+ years from now? Even if it still works properly (pretty unlikely) the chances of memory cards, batteries, etc. still being available then for it is pretty much nil. Also, digital file formats may have changed so much that most or all software can no longer handle the files it produces and old software may not run on whatever people are using in 2080. There is an excellent chance though that lots of M3 cameras will still be working...as long as there is film and processing chemicals still easily available.
It is cool seeing the film pages in the catalog to check out the 1958 film. Of course, the film ratings were pretty slow even compared to what I was using in the 1970s. And they are extremely slow compared to what we are accustomed to with digital cameras. Here are some examples:
- Kodak Tri-X B&W film was ASA/ISO 200. In later years it was increased to ASA/ISO 400.
- Kodak Panatomic-X B&W film was ASA/ISO 25. In later years it was increased to ASA/ISO 32.
- Kodak Plus-X B&W film was ASA/ISO 80. In later years it was increased to ASA/ISO 125.
- Kodachrome color slide film was ASA/ISO 10. In later years there were 3 types of Kodachrome that were ASA/ISO 25, 64, and 200.
- Ektachrome color slide film was ASA/ISO 32 and was rated as High Speed.
In later years there were several types of Ektachrome that were ASA/ISO 64, 100, 160, 200, and 400.
