The Saturday Morning Post - A Photographer's Lament

Reduce by one, the number of working camera I own.  The shutter in the 2 1/4 twin lens has stopped working.  This was the last photo taken with it, a few months ago of the only real snow of last winter.  The camera is a Chinese copy of a Japanese copy, of a German design from the 1930's.  I bought it new, in San Francisco 15 years ago.  I have only put 3 or 4 rolls of film through it.  It was cheaply made (not necessarily cheap to buy) at the time it was the only thing like it being made in the world. 

I periodically get the urge to return to my photographic roots, film, black and white.  The old cameras force me to slow down, compose, focus, set exposure.  The cost of film and processing, encourages me to shoot one or two good shots, instead of 100 quick shots knowing that one or two will be good. 

Back when I was in High School (when dinosaurs roamed the earth) I bought a Yashica Mat 124G,  probably the best mass market 2 1/4 twin lens cameras available. As I recall I paid about $200 for it new.  At the time a used Rolleiflex was $300-$400 and was likely 20-30 years old and most looked like they had been through a war.  I used it for a couple of years.  Then I bought a Pentax 6x7, a 2 1/4 by 2 3/4 inch format. The Pentax 6x7 was a single lens reflex, with interchangeable lenses.  It was a massive piece of professional grade equipment. A couple of years later, someone offered to buy the Yashica, and I think I sold it for $100 or $150.  A sale I have long regretted.  After I gave up on making a living as a photographer, the Pentax was sold, for more than what I had paid for it new. It is worth even more today. 

If you have a 120/220 roll film camera stuffed in the back of a closet you would like to get rid of, let me know. 

In recent years, film photography has experienced a  renaissance. It has become hipster cool. All of the major manufacturers have stopped making film cameras.  The used camera market is hot.  The only Yashica Mat 124 G I can find online is $400 and the light meter does not work. A working Rolleiflex will fetch $1,500- $2,000 and there are waiting lists to buy one from reputable dealers (dealers who will test it to make sure it works.)  These are cameras you couldn't sell of $50 ten years ago.  Probably the only "bargains" right now are Hasselblad, you can buy a good working one, for under $2,000, a little less than what they sold for new, 40 years ago.  More than twice what they were selling for five years ago.  

Over the years I have said thanks, but no thanks, to people who wanted to give me old film cameras.  Opps! 

I am going to get really camera geeky here for a couple of minutes, if you are into cameras enjoy, if you could care less, leave a comment and check back tomorrow for the Sunday Five. 

Last weekend I explored one of only a couple of real camera shops left in the DC area.  I hadn't been in one for several years.  I would like to add a second camera body, and a longer lens.  Lenses are in short supply right now.  Cameras are in stock. I looked at the step up from what I am using, a Digital Single Lens Reflex (DSLR,) and at a mirrorless in the same category - a couple of them. In a Single Lens Reflex or SLR, you view through the lens that takes the photo, this is done with a mirror that flips out of the way when the shutter is fired.  In a mirrorless camera, there is no mirror.  For the eye-level viewer, there is an LCD screen that displays what the image sensor is receiving through the lens.  The camera on your smartphone is in essence a mirrorless system, but without the eye-level viewer.  The challenge of a camera without an eye-level viewer is seeing the image in bright sunlight, and in the fine details.  I have been using SLRs since the early 1970's.  Overtime you learn how to analyze and assess what you see in the viewfinder, and how that will render in the final image.  It is not what you see is what you get, but you learn to tell what will likely result based on what you see. I found the mirrorless system displays artificially bright.  What I am seeing there didn't match the light conditions around me.  All of the major manufacturers are moving in the direction of mirrorless.  If mirrorless is what you start learning with, I can see how it would feel right.  But for someone with decades of experience with SLRs, it felt misleadingly artificial.  Mirrorless has an advantage, in that the same view shoots video and still, but I record very little video.  Do I want to relearn, or do I want to stick with what I know and hope the technology works as long as I am taking photos?  The salesman was saying about the mirrorless, "oh you will love the autofocus" but he is saying this to someone who at times wishes there was an easy way to turn off the autofocus on the lenses I have (there isn't.) I remember old guys in camera stores 45 years ago saying the same thing about cameras with built in light meters. Oh, yes, I am getting old.