post 101: On cameras

I'm buying a new camera. A Nikon D90.

Before I get into the details of this particular bit of dilletante whimsy, I should explain why this is, and isn't, a big deal for someone who's owned maybe a dozen cameras and is rarely satisfied with any of them.

Hardware is, of course, a well-regarded cure for deficiencies in software. The two best examples are golf (no, you really can't buy a swing) and cooking (Wow, Paul, that's great soup! You must have really good pans!).

In photography, you can at least make a case that a "better camera" and a "better lens" will *help* you take "better pictures". If you don't have a good eye and basic understanding of the concepts of light and form, you can blow $43K on a Hasselblad and still wind up with highly detailed pictures of crap. But if you're reasonably creative and willing to learn, a better tool can help you get to the point where you have what you thought you would get when you pushed the shutter.

After 40 years behind a lens I like to think I have a good eye. But I've often been frustrated by the tools in my camera bag, because I'm frequently seduced by bells and whistles and "easier" technologies. I've vacillated between SLRs, point-and-shoots, rangefinders, and what have you. And my indecision gets in the way of what I want. I make too many compromises as a result. I'm trying to put a stop to that at last.

Some history is in order.

1967: Polaroid Swinger. 
Cost: "Nineteen dollars and ninety-five!"

price in 2008 dollars: $123.50
Reason for compromise: None; Christmas gift, and knowing what I know now about the family financial situation in 1967, I'm surprised not to have received coal.

(yes, that's Ali MacGraw!) 

Even in the mid-60s, twenty bucks wasn't a heck of a lot of money, but you still didn't get much of a camera for it. The Swinger had a plastic body, a "single-element plastic lens", and for all I know a plastic shuter. It took Polaroid *roll* film -- only black and white -- The aperture, manually adjusted by squeezing and turning the shutter knob betwixt thumb and forefinger, worked with a light in the viewfinder that flashed "YES! YES! YES!" wh

en you were within three stops of proper exposure. 

The lens was sort of wide-angle, fixed focus, and roughly aligned with the film plane. The film itself was capable of delivering crappy pictures in a minute, but if you didn't remember to carry around the little brush-on tube of fixer, you'd see your stunning pictures of the sunset or beach party or protest rally fade to sepia, then nothingness, almost before your eyes.

I saw one of these at a flea market a while back. They wanted twenty bucks for it. Unlike a '67 Leica, not much of an inflation hedge.

1975: Canon FTbn

purchase price: $ 245 with 50mm lens

price in 2008 dollars: $934.50

reason for compromise: Couldn't afford an F1.

This was my first "real" camera, bought with christmas money when I was a college freshman. It was $245 and came with a 50mm f/1.8 lens. The FTb (officially, the revised FTbn, with a shutter speed indicator in the viewfinder and a plastic tip on the wind lever) was the bottom of Canon's SLR line at the time but was still a real solid piece.  

In fact one of the primary selling points was its ability to be wielded as a somewhat high-tech flail, since at 18 and just out of high school I still felt susceptible to bullying, 

a personality trait I eventually cured by.. well, by marrying a bully, but that's

 another story.

The camera seemed to weigh a ton. This was useful to a photographer like me, who was constantly shooting in available darkness. "Use a tripod if your shutter speed is slower than the inverse of the focal length" was for pussies. I'd waste whole rolls of film trying to prove that almost one in four shots of a spider-illuminated-by-a-candle-at-three-feet was almost clear. 

The FTb was completely manual, if you can  imagine that.. determine your optimum shutter speed based on the subject.. turn the aperture ring so the meter needle fits in the little circle.. turn the focus ring until the focus indicator sharpened up. I loaded my own bulk Tri-X film cans at school and did my own processing until I could afford to shoot color. Film seems so archaic now, it's hard to believe I ever had to consider what it would cost me to shoot 24 images -- never mind how long it would take to get anything out of them (and not knowing if i *would*).

I collected an assortment of cheap and fairly useless lenses -- a "Bushnell" 28mm with a dented filter ring and a sticky diaphragm, 

a Kenko fish-eye that screwed onto the front of the 50mm, making the entire camera look like it was designed for bovine insemination, and a Soligor 80-200 zoom lens, $80 at Jafco. The zoom, and my jaunty manner on the streets of Portland one winter day, were probably responsible for making me look like I had money to throw away, explaining why two Scientologists did their best to get me to pause my documentation of street life for a quick tour of their new Dianetics center. Little did they know I was broke; all my cash went for film. Then again, maybe they just knew a gullible doofus when they saw one.

Like most everything else I had at that time, I eventually sold the lenses for a fraction of what I paid, but I kept the camera quite a while. After four years or so the meter stopped working altogether. Never stopped me from shooting, though -- I got to be pretty good at guessing exposures, and, like blurred images, I had more important things to worry about than blown highlights or low contrast.

I had the FTb as my only camera for maybe 8 years, a lean period in my life, but eventually I saved enough for.. (the next blog entry).