Jason Schneider - The Camera Collector

Camera Repair Horrors: These are the models that give repairmen agita. A rogue’s gallery of cameras that are tough to put back in working order. By Jason Schneider Not all cameras are created equal when it comes to repairing and servicing them. Some models are blissfully straightforward and accessible, others are devilishly complex and require extensive disassembly just to get to the problem area, and most fall somewhere in between. We asked three experienced camera repair experts (two men and one woman) which cameras they dreaded repairing. Here’s an overview based on their hands-on experiences. In general, cameras that are idiosyncratic and mechanically complex are the most time consuming and challenging to repair. A classic...

How Lomography Singlehandedly Revived the Moribund 110 Format! A boon to shooters and collectors seeking something different and fun. Lomography: The Origin Story Lomography is currently a highly diversified marketing and cultural influencing company based in Vienna Austria, and with branches in several major international cities including New York. Lomography promotes the freewheeling philosophy that photography should be spontaneous and fun rather than narrowly focused on image quality, sharpness, and technique, and it has attracted legions of enthusiastic followers all over the world. The Lomography saga began in the early ‘80s in the USSR when General Igor Petrowitsch Kornitsky, then right-hand Minister of Defense and Industry...

The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of the 110 Cartridge Format By 2009, 110 was kaput. But in 2011, Lomography brought it back! Part 2: A selection of fascinating 110 cameras from the classic era. By Jason Schneider The overwhelming majority of the 75+ million 110 cartridge cameras turned out by Kodak and competing European and Asian camera manufacturers between 1972 and the early 2000s were point-and shoots ranging from simple fixed focus models to scale focusing cameras with basic feature sets. However, there was also an active “niche market” consisting of more advanced 110 cartridge cameras aimed at serious shooters, including rangefinder models with fast lenses, zoom SLRs--even a complete miniature SLR system with interchangeable...

The Rise, Fall, and Resurrection of the 110 Cartridge Format By 2009, 110 was dead. But in 2011, Lomography brought it back! Part 1: Drop-in cartridge film formats: Prioritizing user convenience. By Jason Schneider In the palmy days of Eastman Kodak Co. when film was still king and digital cameras (the first one was developed by Kodak scientist Steve Sasson in December 1975) were but a distant blip on the horizon, Kodak introduced a new film format about once every 10 years. The objectives: to “refresh” the market by selling a new breed of cameras and film that offered clear operational advantages to consumers, thereby helping to maintain Kodak’s leadership position in the photographic space, and to increase its profit margins For...

Jason will have surgery tomorrow December 30 2024 for a painful back injury. Godspeed Jason.

The best model for you depends on your priorities and pocketbook! by Jason Schneider When did digital imaging supplant film as the primary image capture medium? There’s no definitive answer to that question, but it happened a lot sooner and faster than many imaging experts had predicted. By the mid to late 1990s the process was well underway in newsrooms and other venues where fast turnaround is essential. And by about 2004 digital had clearly overtaken analog overall, and many photographers were swiftly dumping their fancy film cameras (other than Leicas and twin-lens Rolleiflexes) at giveaway prices. Meanwhile Leica aficionados were anxiously awaiting the long-rumored digital Leica M, the camera that would triumphantly transition...

How Long Will Your Pictures Last? It all depends on you, your successors, and whether anyone else cares. By Jason Schneider Analog aficionados like me are excruciatingly aware that shooting pictures on film is considerably less convenient and a heck of a lot more expensive than shooting equivalent images with a digital camera. We do it because we love the leisurely pace of the traditional shooting experience, the distinctive esthetic qualities of images shot on film, the vintage rendition of our ancient cameras and lenses, and the astonished expressions on folks who watch us loading our cameras with strange metal cartridges or cylindrical rolls of paper-backed film. We’re also amused by the quizzical looks we get when we explain that...

The Rise & Fall of the Kodak Empire: Part 2: How the Colossus of Film was broken by a disruptive technology By Jason Schneider Kodak did not “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” as many have claimed, but the company did miss many opportunities by not having a clear and consistent strategy. This would have helped, but it wouldn’t have prevented the eventual collapse of film, and its dire consequences. Kodak’s Electronic Still Camera Prototype of 1975: A secret until 2001! Back in 1974, Gareth Lloyd, a supervisor at the KAD Research Lab, creatively challenged Steve Sasson, a newly hired engineer from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), to investigate the imaging potential of Fairchild’s newly developed 100 x 100-pixel...

The Rise & Fall of the Kodak Empire: Part 1: How Kodak came to dominate the photographic industry By Jason Schneider Everybody knows the sad story of the Eastman Kodak Co., the formidable Rochester N.Y- based enterprise founded by George Eastman in 1892 that grew to dominate what was then known as the photographic industry for well over a century before running aground on the shoals of the Digital Revolution in the early 2000s. Kodak, the once mighty behemoth that held a 71% share of the U.S. film market, and an astonishing 50% share of worldwide film sales was forced into Chapter 11 (a reorganizational bankruptcy) on January 19, 2012 to settle outstanding debts, with the goal of emerging as “a lean world-class digital imaging and...

Film fanatics freak out as Kodak Alaris is sold to venture capitalists! Is Kodak film now an endangered species? As they say, it’s complicated. By Jason Schneider On August 1, 2024, Kodak Alaris, the worldwide distributor of Kodak film, announced that it had been acquired by Kingswood Capital Management, an L. A.-based private equity firm, following “strong growth and performance by Kodak Alaris.” The press release caused an instant panic among film shooters who assumed that Kingswood Capital were typical “vulture capitalists” who would break up Alaris, and sell its component parts to the highest bidder, putting continued production of Kodak film in jeopardy. And with Kodak film out of the picture, Fuji, Ilford, Agfa, et al might also...

Kodachrome: Gone Forever, Or……? What would it take to bring it back? You don’t want to know! By Jason Schneider It’s now been 15 years since Kodak stopped making Kodachrome color transparency film in 2009, and nearly 90 years since Kodak first introduced it to the market in 1935, but it’s still regarded by millions of photo enthusiasts and professionals as the finest color film ever made. Invented by two friends, Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, both talented musicians with a passion for science and photography, the manufacture and processing of Kodachrome is probably the most complex system of color photography ever invented. The fact that it was literally cooked up (at least in protype form) by two scientists in a home kitchen...

The Pixii Max: The first real competitor to the Leica digital M’s Adding a full frame sensor and matching range/viewfinder ups the ante! By Jason Schneider The French have a penchant for doing things their own way, especially when it comes to designing cameras. Examples of their defiantly idiosyncratic approach include the long-running Foca line of un-Leica-like interchangeable lens rangefinder 35s and the extensive range of spartan yet sophisticated Semflex 6x6 cm twin lens reflexes. All these beautifully made, high-performance cameras were fitted with superb French-made optics. It’s therefore hardly surprising that when Pixii (PIXII SAS), a French company located Besançon France unveiled its first digital M-mount rangefinder camera...

(Almost) Everything you wanted to know about Black Finish Leicas. Here’s what we could find without poring over the records in Wetzlar. By Jason Schneider To say one could write a book about the staggering variety of beautiful black finishes that have been applied to Leica cameras over the last century and precisely how they were done is a vast understatement. It would require a tome, and even then, there would be some significant omissions because some important questions simply can’t be answered by people still living, and not every detail was recorded, even in the meticulous production records of E. Leitz Wetzlar. Production Leica I (Model A) No. 47138 has nickel hardware, glossy black enamel finish. Note brassing on optical...

The Pentax Papers, Part 3, from the Super A of 1983 to the *ist of 2003 The last Pentax 35mm SLRs: great shooters that are often overlooked. By Jason Schneider In a way, all the analog Pentax SLRs that came after the glorious pro—level Pentax LX released in 1980 live in its shadow, and none surpassed it in terms of overall performance, construction and elegant design. However, the succeeding Pentax A-series, three models that debuted in 1983 and were in production for 4-5 years, all included noteworthy technical advances. They added a programmed autoexposure (P) mode to what were basically M-series bodies, and that required a new KA mount that allowed in-body control of the lens aperture. The KA mount was backward compatible...

The Pentax Papers, part 2, K-mount 35mm SLRs, 1975 to 1980. From the first K-mount K2 to the magnificent pro caliber Pentax LX. By Jason Schneider The M42 screw thread mount served Asahi Pentax very well for 16 years, from the brilliantly basic Asahi Pentax (AP) of 1957 to the impressive autoexposure Pentax ES II of 1973. It even became the de facto “standard mount” adopted by Ricoh, Fuji, Mamiya, Petri, Chinon, Cosina, Edixa, Kalimar, Zeiss—even Alpa (the Si 2000) and Olympus (the short-lived FTL). But by the time 1970s rolled around it was clear that a quicker changing, more precisely seating bayonet mount with additional flexibility for configuring mechanical linkages to control aperture and metering was the wave of the future. The...

The Pentax Papers, part 1, 1919 to 1973: From the founding of Asahi Optical Co. to the last screw-mount Pentax By Jason Schneider In 1919 Kumao Kajiwara founded the Asahi Optical Joint Stock Co. in Otsuka, Tokyo as a “town workshop” turning out wearable eyeglasses and binoculars. By 1923 the company, by then known as Asahi Optical Co., introduced the first movie projection lens made in Japan. Now, more than a century later, the company that subsequently became the Pentax Corporation, was later merged into Hoya Corporation, and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh Imaging, still makes superb Pentax branded eyeglasses and binoculars in addition to a full line of Pentax digital SLRs and lenses, and a popular range of digital...

The Voigtlander Vitessa: Most elegant rangefinder folder 35 of all time The “Mercedes 300SL” of cameras it was doomed by its brilliant design! By Jason Schneider The Voigtlander Vitessa was introduced in 1950 in a bid to challenge the wildly popular German-made Kodak Retinas, specifically the Retina II (type 014) of 1949-1950, the first folding Retina with a combined range/viewfinder. But Voigtlander was determined to come up with something special to knock the Retina off its exalted perch, and they sure did. The Vitessa replaced the conventional single-side-hinged folding bed with a pair of “barn doors,” hinged on both sides, that fold very flat when closed, and snap open to support the extended lens board on 4 robust spring-loaded...

What Were They Thinking? A compendium of classic camera design blunders and omissions By Jason Schneider Over the past 180 years or so, a vast amount of talent, effort and thought has gone into designing cameras, and the best ones of any era are masterpieces of ingenuity and craftsmanship that enable photographers to articulate their vision seamlessly, often at a high level of technical excellence. However, nothing created by humans is perfect, and even the best cameras are beset with everything from minor foibles to inherent limitations imposed by their basic design parameters. Some older camera designs (such as the Canon 7 of 1961 to 1964 with its huge clunky built in selenium meter) were limited by the technology of the day, while...

A mysterious black Leica IIIf outfit with a U.S. Navy connection? Yes, and it’s for sale at the Ostlicht-Auction in Vienna on June 5, 2024! By Jason Schneider My ears perked up when my longtime friend and fellow camera fanatic Stephen Gandy tipped me off to a unique black Leica IIIf being auctioned off at the prestigious Ostlicht-Action headed up by esteemed Leica expert Peter Coeln. I knew there were about 125 black finished Leca IIf’s and IIIg’s produced on special order for the Swedish military from around 1956 to 1960, many engraved with the Swedish “three crowns” logo and fitted with black finished 50mm f/3.5 Elmar lenses. I’d also heard the story of one lucky LeicaRumors reader who had purchased a rare factory black Leica IIIg...

A Breed Apart: Leaf shutter 35s wth lenses faster than f/1.7! Two are rare, two aren’t, and two are easy to find and quite affordable! By Jason Schneider During the “Golden Age of Rangefinder 35s” that peaked in the ‘60s, there were literally dozens of Japanese-made, non-interchangeable-lens 35mm rangefinder cameras fitted with fast normal (45-50mm) lenses in the f/1.7 to f/2 aperture range. All had leaf shutters, most featured range/viewfinders with parallax-compensating field frame lines, and many had built-in CdS-cell meters, providing non-TTL autoexposure and/or metered manual exposure. The reason this type of camera was able to flourish is that, at the time, it offered photo enthusiasts something akin to the Leica shooting...