Around 40 years ago I got VERY seriously into 35 mm photography. I had two match-needle Canon camera bodies, an AT-1 and a gorgeous F-1 (not the “New F1”). Also, prime lenses of 17, 28, 50, 135 and 300 mm, and a teleconverter. Also a 50 mm macro lens. And two macrophoto lenses that looked like black microscope objectives, and a bellows and extension tubes. All of it Canon brand. Then, a bunch of other accessories, including some from a couple very indulgent days in Spiratone’s amazing store in New York (it was worth it just for that fisheye attachment). I shot mostly Pan-X, Plus-X and Try-X, winding and developing it myself, and mostly printed on regular paper, though also sometimes the then-new RC papers and polycontrast papers, in my own darkroom in a house trailer. I studied the Zone System and read Ansel Adams, Minor White, Fred Picker, and others, and even learned Minor White’s trick of loading two thicknesses of film back to back onto a single reel for developing, in a film changing bag no less. I could shoot fairly well without metering, just by understanding exposure and reading the light, and I’d walk around with one camera strap around my neck, with a separate body and lens on each end of the strap, both set for a good versatile exposure and focused at the hyperfocal distance (infinity set at the upper end of the depth of field scale) so I could shoot in an instant. I dabbled a bit in color, and loved the Kodachrome 25, and tried the E6 process for Ektachrome. I even started color printing.
But it got to be too much like a job, and I sold it all and got out of the hobby.
Then I got some off brand cheesy wide range zoom lens on an off brand body, and used that for a few years sending film out for development and printing, and then sold it too.
Then I got back into it with Nikon equipment, with 24, 50, and 100 mm lenses, the 100 a macro. And an FM2 body. Sending film out. And that was fun for a while.
But then digital cameras came out, and I’ve had a few of them, superzoom all-in-one types.
And after that, iPhones, and I learned that the finest camera in the whole wide world is the one that you have with you. This was reason enough to opt for the iPhone 13 Pro Max, with three lenses including one that focuses quite close. I’m quite happy having that with me. Just a couple days ago I took a picture of the first tick of the season, quite a little guy, and was impressed with the quality of the photo.
But that old bug has never left me — lust for glass. Bigger lenses and film or sensor. Prime lenses. Super wide, super long, super fast. I guess I could afford to do it all again, and will have more time in retirement something like a year away. So sometimes my attention meanders like a butterfly onto the subject of digital photography with more serious equipment. And lenses, always the lenses.
So, what about Nikon — there’s FX and DX and Z mount. I like the idea of Z mount because it frees up lens design by getting the mounting further from the lens and further out of the optical path. But, wait, it appears not to be full frame. Should I get serious about a less than full frame format? For that matter, the regular lens mount is less restrictive, if we’re going to a smaller DX format, so maybe I should look at cheaper DX equipment? Or should I bite the bullet on FX format?
Maybe I should go back to Canon? Or somebody else — but I’d want a wide range of lenses available, including true macrophoto lenses, like a 20 mm and 35 mm to be used on bellows or extension tubes.
And, though I think it’s really about the glass, the camera body does matter, also. But I’m dismayed by the more automatic cameras I read about. I think of automation as an easy way of doing something I didn’t mean to do. I’d like a body oriented toward me choosing the aperture, shutter speed, and focus. Cameras with all those modes, I don’t understand. Like automatic transmission cars: the intended usage of each of the driving modes is too conceptually confusing! I’d rather just shift and clutch, which is conceptually about as simple as it gets. My ideal camera body would have a good fine resolution image sensor with a wide range of equivalent film speeds, and manual controls that fall naturally to the fingers. It should also have depth of field preview, and mirror lockup (if indeed it’s a reflex camera at all). As to cameras that are built to be used in automatic modes but have workarounds to let the user set aperture, shutter, and focus, those feel to me a bit like automatic transmission cars with those extra controls that let the driver kind of pretend to shift gears: they fix the wrong problem, by adding more conceptual complication, and just letting the driver go through the effort of shifting without having the simpler control feeling, making things worse.
Well.
Anybody want to play along? Share any similar experiences? It’s just, as I say, toying with the idea….
