I Am a One-Camera-At-a-Time Guy
No brand loyalty, except I stick with one model and brand…until I don’t. (Fickle me.)
In my professional time, I have had a lot of cameras. I have shot all formats from 35mm film through 8x10-inch sheet film cameras. In those thrilling days of the Lower Paleophotograpic, when men were men and cameras used film, the formats were more critical. 35mm full-frame was “miniature.” 60mm in any dimension was “medium.” Anything larger (4x5, 5x7, 8x10 inches) was, um, “large.” You chose your format based on what you needed, for convenience, for image quality, to make huge enlargements, whatever.
When I had my studio, my most used cameras were 6x6 or 6x7cm. All the color was shot with them. The 6x6s were used for all the weddings despite 35mm making inroads. The old thinking was that 35mm was “miniature,” and the small negatives couldn't tolerate much enlargement.
I made black and white portraits with a big old school camera of unknown provenance with a 5x7-inch “dividing back.” Two distinct 3x5" negatives were made on a 5x7" sheet. The cost per shot was less than individual 4x5" sheets, processing time was reduced, while the negatives were more than large enough for fine hand retouching.
When I transitioned — late — to digital in 2007, the sensor formats were unexpectedly small. If 35mm analog full-frame was “miniature,” what was I to think when my first digital had a microscopic sensor that nevertheless made incredibly sharp and detailed pictures. Professional cameras were now the same full-frame as the original 35mm, but no one called them miniature. “Full-frame” was now the benchmark.
I was trying to remember the sequence of cameras I’d had, when I realized that, while I preferred to stick with one camera at a time, I had no brand loyalty. For example, today I am a Ford man, but once I was a Nissan Man and an American Motors Man before that. My first car made me a Volkswagen Man. One car at a time.
Like most people, I had one camera at a time, long before I contemplated turning pro. I paid no attention to brand, but I faithfully used one camera even if I owned more.
Some of my cameras in chronological order.
ARGOFLEX 75–1953
I excitedly paid $19 for this because it was my first camera. The Argoflex 75 was produced from 1949 until 1958. The camera probably retailed under $10 brand new. Simon Nathan (a famous name if you knew him) gave me mine right after my dad, a professional photographer, died in 1952 when I was ten years old. Si Nathan had worked with my dad for years. The Argoflexes were simple 620 box cameras, but the twin-lens featured a big, brilliant viewfinder image. This camera still works perfectly. I’d need some 620 roll film and a place to process it. Well, I didn’t buy it to use it. I bought it to cherish it.
Graphic 35–1960
I graduated from high school in 1960, had a job and a little scratch for my photographic itch. This camera was a short-baseline rangefinder with a unique focusing system: a pair of buttons, a rocker, to the left and right of the lens. You pushed one or the other while watching the superimposed images in the finder. When they aligned, the camera was in focus.
That big flag-gy looking thing on the left was the winder for the self-timer. Guess who did lots of goofy selfies with the thing? Really. Guess.
A year later, the draft was breathing down my neck, so I volunteered to Be All That I Could Be long before the Army came up with that slogan. I left the camera at home. Three years later, I mustered out without taking any pictures, even of two years in Germany (f’cryin’ out loud), and I couldn’t find the camera anyway.
Polaroid SWINGER Model 20 — ca. 1965
Once again, I had a job and a little money. Polaroid introduced this fairly idiot-proof camera that took B&W peel-apart instant pictures. Model 20 was for the MSRP of USD 20. “Swinger” came from the wrist strap that the fun little thing swung from while you were having all that carefree glossy magazine-well-scrubbed fun with your gang.
It was, indeed, fun, so it wasn’t long before I inve$ted in a better Polaroid that took color but was only slightly more sophisticated than the Swinger. It quickly proved inadequate. I needed a real camera.
Yashica 35mm SLR and Yashica-Mat 6x6cm Twin Lens Reflex — ca. mid-1960s
I went a little nuts during this 1967–1970 period. Batching it, making not-bad money, and the bug had sunk in its little fangs and refused to let go. I had both of these cameras. The TL-Electro was a knockoff of the far more $pendy Asahi Pentax Spotmatic, one of the most successful SLRs ever made. The Yashica had the same through-the-Lens (TTL) metering and M42 screw mount as the Pentax for about half the price of the Spotmatic.
The TLR was pure nostalgia. I remembered my dad using them; only his were Rolleiflexes. Yashica made a very decent knockoff for much less money. I was really into TLRs for a long time, but they had drawbacks as professional cameras.
Virtually all of the cameras in the below picture are 6x6cm TLRs, probably Rolleis that by 1957 had supplanted the massive 4x5" Speed Graphics that were the benchmark press camera for decades.
4x5 SPEED GRAPHIC, newspicture mainstay for decades — 1970
Ironically, the guys that trained me from 1970–1973 hadn’t got the memo that the big-as-your-head Speed Graphic was obsolete. I had to shelve both my beloved TLRs and 35mm that school classed as “miniature.” Every assignment had to be shot with 4x5" or larger for the first two semesters, and the negatives turned in with the prints to prove you hadn’t cheated.
Studio Owner/Operator — 1978–1994
HASSELBLAD 6x6cm SLR
Nikon F2AS 35mm SLR — ca. 1971
I shot weddings in color with Hasselblads and general publicity and events in B&W with 35mm Nikons, until…
Canon T90 35mm SLR — 1986
The still highly respected 1986 Canon T90 replaced my stolen Nikons and lenses. We had the inevitable break-in that year. The thieves nicked all of my Nikon kit but left the Hasselblads. We figured they didn't know what they were. Like many small businesses, we were — (ahem) — “between insurance” and had to replace the 35s out of pocket. Nikon was priced far out of my market. The Canons (I bought two) were the best “affordable” deal. I used them with those “slow” zooms for many years after that. Superb performance. I learned to shoot entirely with zoom lenses, and the T90 introduced me to electronic cameras, both easing my eventual transition to digital.
DIGITAL! 2007 Nikon “Coolpix” L12 compact with near-microscopic sensor. $100 new.
By now, you’ve noticed that I went from Canon back to Nikon. See? No brand loyalty. The fact is, I wanted a Canon, but Sears was out of stock. They offered me the equivalent-model Nikon. So. Meh? If it takes pitchers I’m good. Brand, schmand.
2015 — Suddenly Sony! (SONY?!) 😳
Out of the blue I suddenly coveted a larger than micro-sensor; a Sony RX10 (original model) with its “big” one-inch sensor. One-inch is hard to classify: is it the biggest of the small sensors or the smallest of the big? It was the largest sensor I’d ever had.
Hey! Woddabout Nikon, pal? Wotchadoon muckin’ about wit’ SONY?
Welp, I’d read good things about the positively hyped RX10. When I found one used at a bargain-basement price owing to a bit of budding fungus, I went for it. Nikon had nothing like it after the failed Nikon One experiment. Canon and several others had one-inch point and shoots, but the blogs and vlogs and reviews said there was only one clear winner: Sony DSC-RX10. By now, I didn’t care: I jus’ wanna’d take pitchers.
I loved that camera. I backed it up with my Nikon P7800, sold the older Nikons, but pretty much used the Sony exclusively until two happy years later…
BLAaarggh! I hadn't paid attention, and anyway, there was nothing I could have done about it. I only noticed when I took some pictures that seemed muddy, less contrasty, looked at the lens, sighed, and watched wing-ed dollar bills flap away.
I was gonna need a bigger camera.
I was at a crossroad: do I buy a more sophisticated but still 1-inch RX10 (The latest Model IV featured a fixed ZEISS® Vario-Sonnar® T* 24–600 mm (FF equivalent) F2.4–4 large-aperture high-resolution, high-speed zoom lens.)
Or — do I finally go for baroque, buy a Real Big Boy camera with interchangeable lenses? Go back to my roots, schlep bagsful of heavy gear like I’d insisted I never wanted?
For ten years I liked compacts. I liked fixed zooms. But the 1" RX10s were fabulously $pendy, well over $1500. For less than that I could buy a compact, obsolete APS-C “half-frame” Sony A6000 with two kit lenses, plus both cameras used the same batteries. I was accustomed to Sony’s much-maligned byzantine menus. It was a no-brainer; stick with Sony. I shamelessly lurves me my Sonys. I have not looked back.
I recently saw a controlled professional comparison of image quality using an A6000 APS-C against a new medium format. There is a barely-discernible difference that most photographers have trouble seeing. I am committed to APS-C owing to my small stable of lenses formulated to cover the format; they will vignette a full-frame. I am happy. I don't see myself ever going full-frame.
Thanks for reading! I got a little yakky this time. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
