Cameras, Watches, Pinball Machines and Objectophilia

You are zeroing in on some truths with me. But no one has discussed the alternative to being into these old objects: Being a sheeplike consumer who buys every new piece of consumer electronics that the commercials and ads tell you too. Spending more hours playing an electronic video "simulation" of life than you do with real life. Being so tied to a cell phone and texting that your realtime socialization suffers (or you don't really know how to socialize in person). Buying a new PC with the new version of Windows every year, until you switched to laptops, then netbooks, and now...this year...tablets.

Nah...I'll stay in the objectowhatever minority. Oh...I have and ride mules instead of horses.
 
NickTrop said:
I seldom lurk but reading the self-delusion on this thread and denial is most entertaining. Carry on, objectophiliacs... You're putting on a fine show!
Click to expand...

Funny. I see a post-middle aged man, in denial.

Collecting is more of an obsessive compulsive thing.

Declaring that certain objects are the absolute best that can be owned, and declaring infallibility on the statements- would that be objectophilia?

NickTrop said:
Cameras (analog, film) come in three flavors.
1. Shutter priority (most all fixed lens RFs)
2. Aperture priority (Just the Electros and one of the Minolta RFs)
3. Manual

Often I hear on threads people dislike the Electros because "there's no manual control". Here's what I pose to you.

Your "manual camera" - if it has a coupled built-in light meter, for all intents and purposes, is really a shutter priority camera.

Do you really, really ever futz with the shutter speed dial rotating it in its position, probably right next to the film advance, to match the shutter speed to a particular aperture you want to shoot?

I'll answer for you - no, you never do. It's possible, but it's slow, cumbersome, awkward. Such cameras - most cameras, simply weren't designed to work this way. (It's actually less cumbersome to +/- the film speed setting when you want an extra stop or stop down!)

No - you set the shutter speed and rotate the aperture on the lens. 99.99-100% of the time. Therefore, your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera because that's how you use it. And because it's really a "shutter priority" camera - and this includes Leicas, every time you shoot you make a compromise. You set the shutter speed to - whatever works for the light, and match the aperture to that setting. Therefore every picture you take is probably a compromise that effects your final image quality. The aperture indicator floats around, and "rounds up or down" and is a "surprise" in the end. You've lost creative control of the most important aspect of how the lens will paint the image. Sure, you can rotate the shutter speed setting - forget it if you try and your subjects are human or your trying to capture the "decisive moment". That happened a minute ago before you - through trial and error, having to pull your eye away from the camera to reset the shutter setting so it gives you the aperture you want.

Like that candid? Want to blur the background more? Wish you could have shot it at f4 instead of f5.6 but you would have missed the shot if you pulled the camera away from your eye to increase the shutter speed. Forget the shot. So you "accept" f5.6 and its higher DOF.

Just one example.

Your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera. Hate to break it to you.

In conclusion, taking all things into consideration, the Yashica Electro series is the best 35mm film camera ever made. Only the Electro series by Yashica give you 100% creative control over most images. You set the aperture on the lens barrel. It's the aperture and the apeture f-stop alone that determines how the lens paints the image - its DOF, its bokeh. Shutter speed does not really matter for 90% of shooting situations that RFs excel at and were designed for. Your "manual camera" is really a shutter priority camera. This includes SLRs and modern Leicas. You set Yashica or any aperture, which determines the aesthetic qualities of the image, not shutter speed, and it sets the typically unimportant shutter speed - stepless, in "infinate" intervals. There are no shutter "stops", so in conjunction with its excellent metering capabilities , it renders "perfectly" exposed images. It lighing calls for a shutter speed of 1/78 a second - you got it. Perfect. Not 1/60, not 1/125 like your "shutter priority" manual camera or your shutter priority camera. You set aperture and shoot instantly, with a silent shutter thats right up there with Leicas and Hexars.

Combine this with a parrallax-corrected viewfinder, a lens that might not beat a Cron in a lens test, but for all intents and purposes is just as good, an amazing ability to meter an shoot at shutter speeds over 30 seconds for low light still life and low light effects photography if the camera is tripod-mounted that is unique and unmatched in any other camera.

The Electros are the best cameras ever made because they are the only "pure" aperture priority cameras, as such give the photographer instant control over what matters most - the aperture setting, in conjunction with a stepless shutter. Your "manual camera" is inferiour to this system because it's really a shutter priority camera.

Oh - and "PS", only the Lynx series - with both aperture and shutter speed on the actual lens barrel, it the true "all manual" camera that I'm aware of... But that's a post for another day.
Click to expand...


And this thread- more amateur psychology than philosophy.

And with that invitation,

Posting many threads that declare what a person uses is the "best ever made", rationalizing the decision and declaring infallibility on statements made, and now- projecting your affliction onto everyone else. Nick, you suffer from objectophilia.


One thing for sure- posting threads just to sit back, and "watch the show"- that is trolling. Hate to break it to you.
 
Last edited:
I don't own a mechanical watch, can't afford one. Probably never will be able to. My Seiko Quartz Chronograph, which my parents bought me as a high school graduation present 17 yrs ago, still works beautifully and has more useful function (I use the stopwatch to time long exposures all the time) than any mechanical watch costing less than $10,000 new. I think my dad paid $500 for it. Costs me $5 a year for a new battery. I can do that!

Never played pinball, and video games bore me to tears.

I don't have many cameras, can't afford to be a collector, I'm an artist, and they're my tools, so I have what I need for my work and no more.

Never driven a car with a manual transmission. I've always driven big full-frame sedans like the Chevy Caprice and (currently) Ford Crown Victoria. They have not offered manual shift in those kind of cars in my lifetime.
 
Last edited:
Nick, you read like a book. You feel guilty for neglecting & selling off your once beloved Yashica rf's & you never got over the fact of betrail. Approaching 50 you feel the need to start threads such as this one to convince yourself digital was the answer to staying youthful. It doesn't matter Nick. It's all about the outcome, the final product, the print my friend. Get onboard & post some freaking photos dude:) Go to Pat's Steaks or Geno's, get a steak & take a pic. Chill bro!;)
 
I think we rangefinder buffs just love old things that allow us to be in control. A control thing rather than an object fetish thing.

I love my manual cameras as well as my aperture priority cameras (F3, M7). I do have a digital point and shoot, but that's about my least favorite camera.

I like stick shift, but the spouse doesn't see the point in it, so we have automatic transmissions in our cars. However, on vacation in Europe (Greece, Ireland), the cars available for rent were primarily stick shift, so I did all the driving.

I love fountain pens, but most people don't even write these days. I'm a relic who loves cursive handwriting. Most people type or text these days. Legible handwriting sticks out, and makes a really good impression.

Another passion is steam locomotives. I don't know if anyone else has mentioned them. The entire mechanism is out there for you to see.
 
Robert Lai said:
I think we rangefinder buffs just love old things that allow us to be in control. A control thing rather than an object fetish thing.

I love my manual cameras as well as my aperture priority cameras (F3, M7). I do have a digital point and shoot, but that's about my least favorite camera.

I like stick shift, but the spouse doesn't see the point in it, so we have automatic transmissions in our cars. However, on vacation in Europe (Greece, Ireland), the cars available for rent were primarily stick shift, so I did all the driving.

I love fountain pens, but most people don't even write these days. I'm a relic who loves cursive handwriting. Most people type or text these days. Legible handwriting sticks out, and makes a really good impression.

Another passion is steam locomotives. I don't know if anyone else has mentioned them. The entire mechanism is out there for you to see.
Click to expand...

so much love and denial.......:D
 
English is not my first language.

To who refers to one individual. I was replying to one, Not many.

But thanks anyway.

Presumably I do what I can with what i got.
 
Robert Lai said:
I think we rangefinder buffs just love old things that allow us to be in control. A control thing rather than an object fetish thing.

I love my manual cameras as well as my aperture priority cameras (F3, M7). I do have a digital point and shoot, but that's about my least favorite camera.

I like stick shift, but the spouse doesn't see the point in it, so we have automatic transmissions in our cars. However, on vacation in Europe (Greece, Ireland), the cars available for rent were primarily stick shift, so I did all the driving.

I love fountain pens, but most people don't even write these days. I'm a relic who loves cursive handwriting. Most people type or text these days. Legible handwriting sticks out, and makes a really good impression.

Another passion is steam locomotives. I don't know if anyone else has mentioned them. The entire mechanism is out there for you to see.
Click to expand...
Love the thread.
And +1 for steam locomotives :D.
Mechanical (mostly) cameras for repair, tinkering, use; mechanical watches (wearing my 21st automatic Longines again after abandoning battery power). Old cars for most of my life, no longer fettling them myself due to age 70:).
 
Guilty as charged. Sorta. I have a wind up Hamilton watch (now broke since I dropped it) and an old wind up Timex that I bought to replace it. We got rid of our cars many years ago (yay), but our bicycles are manual shift. Same w/ the electric bike. I favor well made mechanical things, but only to a point. The cameras were trimmed down to an all electronic Nikon N90s body w/ two Leica R lenses, a full manual Retina Ia, and a Bronica 6x6 that's on the way (full manual w/ no meter). Truthfully, I wish the Leica R lenses were auto focus. I gave up my Leicaflex for the Nikon because the Nikon is a much better tool for taking photos.

So my preferences don't fit well into an overall theory. Once we get moved we're eliminating high speed internet too. It will be just dial up, and whatever channels on the TV that an antenna will pick up. TV and the internet are tremendous time wasters, and totally addictive. Mainly, I prefer simple things because they make less stress. Less is more kind of thing.
 
Corto said:
English is not my first language.
Click to expand...

Wonderful quote from the late Linda Smith concerning John (now Lord) Prescott, famed both for his incoherence and for punching a reporter (I think) who annoyed him: "You have to realize that that language is not his first language".

(This is NOT any form of criticism of you. I just thought it might amuse you and others. We all know people like that.)

Cheers,

R.
 
Thnaks for figuring this out for us, Nick.

B04-E41-14.jpg


Now, which is the "best" 35mm lens?
 
NickTrop said:
I seldom lurk but reading the self-delusion on this thread and denial is most entertaining. Carry on,objectophiliacs... You're putting on a fine show!
Click to expand...

Sorry doctor, that is improper suffix use.

We are objectophiles, thank you very much.

Carry on.
 
Last edited:
When it comes to enjoying the photographs I make, the M9 is fine. When it comes to enjoying the process of making the exposure, an M3, a Tachihara, and RZ67 give me a bigger kick. There's a mechanical objectophilia there, to be sure. And perhaps greater is the satisfaction of the mechanical connection. Functionally, however, the result is about the same.
 
mto'brien said:
Sorry doctor, that is improper suffix use.

We are objectophiles, thank you very much.

Carry on.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Matt. On this and only this, I stand corrected. For the rest? Objectophiles (especially Brian Sweeney who clearly doth protesteth too much...) a few confessors, the rest in various stages of denial.

If anyone wishes, now that you've all been "outed", to marry one of your cameras, I can preform the ceremony for you on-line as I am a "preacher" too as you well know.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom