Thursday Ramble: On Photography

I have my grandfather's camera from about 100 years ago. They were married in 1926, and I think he bought it when they were courting.  A folding Kodak Autographic.  The film that was made for it, had a paper backing like a 120 roll film.  On one end of the paper on each frame, was a carbon strip facing the film, you could open a slot on the back of the camera and use a stylus to write on the film, that would then come out as words on the print. The autographic film was discontinued, then eventually the film for it all together was discontinued.  It was a sophisticated bit of kit in its day.  My grandfather being the first in a line of "stingy bastards"* bought it used in a pawn shop in Detroit.  I also have a pocket watch he bought the same way. 

My first camera was a Kodak instamatic, that used 126 film cartridges. The series of was the first with a drop in film cartridge.  No film to thread into a take up spool, foolproof.  Also very wasteful, the cartridge was 100% disposable, to get the film out for processing you broke the cartridge snapping it into three pieces.  The 110 pocket cameras used the same concept in a much smaller size.  126 film was the same width as 35mm, 110 was 16mm.  I don't think I ever owned a 110 camera.  

For a year or so, I used on old 35mm Argus rangefinder that had been my father's.  It was a post war design, solidly made, but of modest quality.  He was using a Canon Ftb, 35mm single lense reflex.  The Canon was a great camera. 

I bought my first serious camera when I was 14, a Konica Autoreflex T3.  It had an early automatic exposure system, and so-so optics.  I used it for a year or two, then upgraded to a top of the line Canon F1. Then I started collecting lenses.  The F1 was an amazing machine, fast, solidly built. A decade later it was joined by a AE1, with a power winder and even more lenses.  I used those for several years.  Then traded the lot for my first Nikon, in the waning days of film.  I asked about digital and the honest answer was that digital was not really ready for prime time, but it was coming.  I used the Nikon film camera for several years, the first trips that my sweet bear and I took to Europe I used it.  I dropped it, it landed lens first on a stone floor in the Louvre, and broke the lens.  The next morning I want to a camera store across from the hotel and bought a used lens for it, a much better lens than the one I had been using.  I still have it.  

Then I bought my first digital camera.  I thought it would be a toy, a novelty item.  A year or so after I bought it, I realized that I had not finished in the last roll of film in the Nikon.  My conversion to digital took me by surprise.  

I went through a progression of digital cameras, some compact, some not, some very-very good (I had one with a Leica lens, that was crushed in my bag one day.) What I missed was interchangeable lenses.  A few years ago I decided I really wanted a solid camera with interchangeable lenses, and hence the current collection. I have two Nikon D5500s, and 8 lenses. I also use a Samsung compact - pocket camera, and a Nikon underwater digital.  A bit much for a stingy bastard.  

Everyman needs a hobby.**  

* A line from the musical South Pacific, one of the native's chases one of the sailors around the stage shouting that line at him. 

** I bumped into a professor I knew driving a 1950's Cadillac one day, and the next week he was driving a Packard. I asked about the cars and he said, "every man needs a hobby, I have barn full of old luxury cars."