CK Dexter Haven said:
Couldn't disagree more. Look at Leica and Hasselblad. Their cameras haven't changed since the 50s, with the exceptions of meters having been added.
Hasselblads have changed quite a bit actually, the H series is not a 1950s camera by any standard. Leica had economic trouble for years and is complaining even today that a significant percentage of Leica sales is in used Leicas and that they don't see a significant portion of the money that is in the market for their own cameras. You can get only so far by producing 1950s products and then wondering why you are competing with original products from the 1950s.
CK Dexter Haven said:
Those 1950s-designed cameras took the bulk of the world's great photographs.
That's fine. Every professional uses the tools of his day.
I read that a significant percentage of people on earth have driven in a VW Beetle, a 2CV, a Renault R4, or a Zhiguli at some point in their lives, but if a company produced a 2CV with an automatic gear train today I wouldn't take it serious as a 21th century car.
CK Dexter Haven said:
What makes you think it's meant for glass cupboards? Unless it's ridiculously expensive, I want to USE it immediately.
Look, I don't want to get in the way of anybody's pursuit of happiness. I also don't believe in the death of film (I use film exclusively) and I also am no mindless technophile (I use a Leica M5 and a Kiev 88 among other things).
However, this is a
new camera. It just strikes me as completely ridiculous that the market is so, well, conservative that there is a
new camera and all it really is is a 1950s camera, like an old teabag brewed all over again with fresh water. I was moderately excited when I heard that Fuji was somehow committed enough to medium format that they produce a new camera, but this commitment is nostalgia and nothing else. As I said, what's next, Kodak announcing their commitment to film by producing an autofocus Kodak Brownie? There is no commitment to creativity in this, just a commitment to nostalgia, to the glory of the past, to a dream of simplicity and authenticity in a complicated world etc.pp., and ultimately it's all about a warm fuzzy feeling of "let's make a camera like the one our grandpa had". That's fine, but the result is a camera that is completely unimaginative. The automatic exposure is about the only streak of light about this. If you guys want to buy one, go ahead; if you want to use it and take pictures and upload them to the RFF gallery I'm all for it, great. But as a camera, this is really as imaginative as a Oskar Barnack Commemorative Limited Edition M6TTL.
Personally I think that if someone wants a 1950s camera they can buy a 1950s camera and in all probability save a lot of money, even if I get a CLAd one from a repair shop that gives you warranty. Your reaction and the irate reactions of others in this thread shows that apparently there are people who want exactly this kind of camera. Makes me wonder if your needs aren't served just as well with a $150 Zeiss Super Ikonta III or something. Or, as I've posted elsewhere, a Plaubel Makina 67 for which you can even get factory service. Apparently they aren't. Well, let's see if Fuji actually produces this, where it's sold and for how much money, and then we can see if this is actually worth something or if it's just a gear fondlers' fad that ten people use to take pictures that live and breathe and fifty other people use to photograph test charts and rhapsodize how it has the best medium-format lens they have ever seen. As I said, if you want it, buy it, take pictures, I don't want to get in the way of your creativity, but don't expect me to be excited about how great it is to have a
new medium format camera, because it's only a prototype anyway and it's new only in a very technical sense. It's really an admission that there is no point in producing something that would actually be new.
Philipp
