new generation of RF users

[reagan]

I just turned 21 .... (30 years ago) .... but even with my worn-out-bifocaled-age-impaired eyeballs, I can cruise the Gallery and clearly see why some of the younger folks are using instruments of the RFfilm persuasion --

-- THEY'RE DAMN GOOD PHOTOGRAPHERS!! 😱

 

[traveller]

I can't comment on the status quo overseas but here we are getting a quite curious situation. When I did take my first pictures 3 years ago everyone started digital, myself included, because it got affordable and it was such a nice thing to show the pictures on the screen. The Volkshochschule (VHS), a organization that provides education for adults, cut down darkroom classes.

When I visited a class this spring I have been the only one with a RF, but maybe a third of the class had analog cameras, one even a pinhole and everyone wanted to have a look at such exotic cameras.

Next saturday is the inscription for the next semester and I have been informed better to be quick because the have a lot of inquiries from young people about darkroom classes. The (for me) most interesting class, a photo project solely in film and BW, is invitation only just for the preselection. Last year they could skip the preselection and had free places after the selection.....

And RF's? Three young people I met while commuting recognised my GSN and were quite interested in getting a RF. This recognition rate is exactly 100% better than last year 😎

No, I don't think it's about being hip (with the usual exceptions). IMO there are a lot of young people, especially creative ones, out there who got bored with digital and are ready to give analog a chance. I'm no fortune teller so I don't know how many will use RF's but I give them a good chance of getting used.

 

[tomtodeath]

- A photo dealer here in Oslo told me that Leica cameras has turned 'hip' among young people because of a (cinema) film. Which film he did not know. Does anyone here know?

there was a movie in 1998 called "Pecker" about a young photographer with a canonet, but i havent seen it.
There was also a movie in 2004 called "Euro Trip", about a group of friends, who all go to Europe for various reasons, and one of them has a Leica m7 (i think) and talks about it several times and if i remember correctly, ends up selling it so they can all get home.
thats all i can think of. maybe we should start a "leicas/RFs in the movies thread"?

 

[IGMeanwell]

Bam!!! http://rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=21981&highlight=movies

actually there is a few of those threads

Its funny in Eurotrip he does have an M7 but when he is talking about it he describes an M6

Anyways, yeah the camera shop scene is quite funny

Though it hardly desribes a trend... more of what a typical virgin/geek in a movie might be into

 

[40oz]

If using RF film camera was a chick magnet.... well I don't think I would be posting as much as I have been 🙂

"Excuse me, could I get a picture of you and your friends?"

"Why yes, I am a photographer."

"Now, if you would give me your name and phone number, I'd love to give you a print of the photo I just took."

Alternatively:

"I have an argument with my friend in (for example) Austin, Texas. He says there are more beautiful women there than thare are here. Would you mind if I took your picture to prove him wrong?"

or

"I am working on a photo project documenting the night life in the city. I need photographs of 'the beautiful people.' Would you let me take your picture for this project?"

followed by

"This is going to turn out great, thank you so much. Now, if you would give me your name and phone number, I'd love to get you a print of your portrait."

Work smarter, not harder 🙂 An SLR makes you a geek with a camera. A rangefinder makes you a topic of conversation. Um, sayeth the single man 🙁 LOL

 

[MoTR]

Yup and pretty girls generally LOVE having their photo taken in my experience.
And RF's(expecially FSU's) are great conversation starters.
However I have found that when shoooting somewhere with 2 SLR's on the shoulders, the girls pay more attention.
Then ya whip out the RF and the conversation starts 😛

 

[irees]

I'm 23, and out of 50,000 or so exposures I've made in the past 5 years, maybe 60 have been film. I've always been a computer oriented person, and photography just didn't really appeal to me on a deep level until digital capture become an economically viable option (I started out with a Elph digital P&S.)

I'm interested in RF because while I love my dSLR and am very pleasured with the image quality and flexibility, I want to experience a 'new way of seeing.' I'd like a smaller/lighter kit. Potentially a collapsable lens to help fit the body in my laptop bag.

I know what my tastes are photographically, and the RF has traditionally been a successful format for that style. Although I'm definitely going to keep my Nikon digital setup 🙂

So anyway, yeah, I hope to purchase a decent condition M6, CV 50/1.5 and 35/1.8 by the end of the year.

 

[Olsen]

I see that one of you have a Yashica Electro 35. That is also a camera that brings back childhood memories. My father had a cusin in USA who came on frequent and long holiday trips to Europe. (She was a teacher and used to test us kids about what we could of math, english etc. - we had great respect for her and kept a comfortable distance in our summer holidays. We didn' like to work overtime)

One year she brougth this fantastic Yashica camera (exactly which one it was I am not sure, but certainly one o the very first) with an automatic shutter and two lights on the top indicating over and under-exposure. My father and I was all in awe. Then she forgot the camera when going back to the States. My father wrote her a letter telleing her that we had found the camera (making a phone call back then was forbiddingly expensive,- it was only John F. Kennedy and Chrustchov who could efford that kind of extravaganza) and that we would keep it for her untill she came back. He got a letter back generously telling him; 'use it as much as you like', she must have known how facinated my father was of photography. - He did. As well as I.

I have this fine collection of B/W photographs taken the summer of 1967 (must have been) from a particular part of Norway called Sørlandet, as it was in the old days with fishing boats and fishery. Today it is the plastic cabin cruisers that totally dominates etc. But also excellent photos of old relatives no longer alive. When I think of it; this Yashica must have been a first of it's kind. A very good camera.

Yea, this Yashica was quite a camera.

 

[MinorTones]

I started out with a Canon AE-1P from my father. I had that up through school and untill I bought my first RF.
I got to use an M6 ttl while i was in school a couple years before that, and it sparked a love for the cameras.
I bought my first rangefinder at 19 or 20 I think. It was a IIIf with 50/2 summicron I paid $575 for it on eb*y.
I think it was mostly my teacher at the time who got me into RF. He used one and I liked his work a lot, there was a Leica at school. So I said why not, I'll try it out.
At first it was kind of awkward, I didn't know how to use the thing and only shot 1 roll of film. I rented it out a couple more times after that, and then left school for travel. A couple years later I had the bug for a Leica and picked up that IIIf.

It was all lemmings over the cliff from there.

-Mitch- The Kids Are Allright

 

[photogdave]

You 're absolutely right Photogdave - I had absolutely no intention to make the younger members appear thoughtless fad followers and I didn't for a moment expect them to take my comment this way. The excellent comments by Jocko, FrankS and all the others explored the same issue in a way with which I am in complete agreement and which, I still think, affords a reading that is not in the slightest patronising or disrespectful to the younger members (heck, at 36 I am not that old myself). For I never said they were trying to be hip by simply totting a weird camera but I implied the converse, i.e. that cameras and film are getting hip because they are being discovered as the wonderful image mediums they are. I accept though that the term 'hip' may be loaded for some (nothing more unhip than trying to be hip) and I am willing to replace it with any other suitable term :angel:

So, one can still uphold the conjunctive statement that rangefinders (and film!) are (how should I put it without stirring the pot) different and yet the proper tools for certain photographic applications. Their 'difference' is something that may (or may not) appeal to all of us, irrespective of age, although I would venture to say that it may be found to be a lesser factor with advancing age. This is not the result of some deep statistical analysis, hence it does have many exceptions, but an observation, the general veracity of which is open to dispute, but not seriously I would think.

😀 Haha! To quote a once-hip band, The Killjoys, you're "walking on eggshells over mountains made out of molehills."

 

[bafonso]

I am 26, just barely over 25... and I'm now going back to shooting with my father's (he offered it to me now) yashica gsn. Funny enough, when I was a kid I shot a lot with it without any battery. So, it was always 1/500 and I would change the apperture according to my judgement. My father didn't know that the battery would have been useful. Still, I have beautiful photos taken with it, lovely machine.

I've had a nice average digicam that produces interesting photos but I soon realized that I was making most of my photos b&w and looking for the film like image I've always lusted for. Recently, I offered the digicam to my father and decided to get another one after a year. realizing that I could spend 1k and not even a decent VF was the death of the new digicam project. For a long time. The digicam market is fairly disappointing to me now.

I'm going back to film and playing with my gsn. with time, I will try to get good deals on some leica material. There's something about RFs that you don't get with dslrs, etc. I love it.

Managing to capture the right moment is the most important thing, but I like to make the journey delicious by using equipment that I enjoy. This is why I'm going back to film.

b

 

[matt fury]

Funny story regarding photography courses. When I first started to get seriously interested in photography, I signed up a for a class at the community college. I waited until after the first class to buy a camera, in order to get an idea of what I would need out of the camera. Well, I did all sorts of research, and I figured out that for about $1000 (the cap of my budget), I could get a Leica and a 50mm. I'd rather spend $1000 out the gate for something worth it than $400 on, say, a Rebel which I would have hated in short order. Before ordering, I asked my instructor if it would be OK even though it wasn't a SLR, and he told me quite assuredly that it would not be OK, since some of the assigments would require capabilites that SLRs possesed and RFs didn't. Well, I ended up with a Contax 139Q, which isn't a bad camera by any stretch, but I was quite angry when I realized when the course was done that I could've done every single assignment with my grandpa's Retina IIa, nevermind a Leica.

Funny, the instructor for that class told stories about shooting Leicas for the army in Korea, and I don't think he led me astray regarding anything else in class, but he was certainly adamant that I purchase a SLR.

 

[Kat]

Frankly, the initial reason I got into RFs was because I wanted to get into manual controls and more "serious" photography but could not afford DSLRs. There, I said it. Hopefully no one is offended by my comment. And as someone mentioned, lomography had something to do with it, however little, because I discovered RFs when someone mentioned lomos to me and I looked them up. Found love and hate sites on lomos, the latter suggested RFs like the Oly XA, and from there I got my first Yashica GSN.

Of course, after that I fell in love with RFs for their own sake. I have to confess mainly I love them for the sheer enjoyment I get out of using them. Unlike some folks here, I unfortunately have little talent and creativity, so whatever "tool" I choose, be it an RF or some other camera, I get the same unimaginative results. I suppose that proves what people say about "it" being the photographer and camera. At least with an RF I get to have fun.

 

[Kyle]

I guess my story is pretty typical of some of the ones I'm reading here. I started shooting 3 or 4 years ago when I picked up a Minolta XG-1. I mainly used a 50/2 with it but also had a couple other primes to go with it. Naturally, I felt that my next progression was an autofocus SLR, so I bought a Canon A2e. Shortly after I got my first DSLR, a 20D. I had the typical 28-78/2.8 and 70-200 zooms, but they just didn't feel right so I replaced them with primes. They were a little better, but I didn't like auto focus and controlling aperature with little dials, etc. I found out about RFF over on FredMiranda.com and started reading up. I decided to pick up a Canonet and I loved it. I now shoot ONLY with rangefinders. I prefer them over SLRs in nearly all aspects- the focusing, the feel, even the placement of the viewfinder (the center placement due to the prism of an SLR annoys me now). I have no need for long teles, zooms, or macro lenses so an SLR would do nothing for me. I love RFs and wouldn't replace them with anything.

 

[shadowfox]

I blame this forum 100% for my RF *adoption* (I still love my SLRs).

Started late (then 28 yrs old, now 35) with digital P&S, chasing the megapixel trail for a while, finally settled-in with an Olympus E-300. Realized that OM lenses kick butt *and* I can use it on my DSLR.

Stumbled upon this rangefinder and tuned in and out for a while without joining. Discovered that the folks in this forum are some of the nicests, opinionated-but-respectful bunch of net-dwellers compared to just about any other forums I've participated in.

Off collecting Olympus classic cameras (OMs and Pens) without paying attention to the rangefinders until one day it hit me: Hey, Olympus made quite a few rangefinders, hmmm time to go back to that Rangefinder Forum.

Then the Oly gurus here clued me in: for less than $50 I can give one a try. Got my first XA (I have two now) thinking that I got a dead camera (can't barely hear the shutter during the first roll) and was blown away with the results. Then I got my Oly 35 SPn for $46 off eBoy and my jaw just plummeted to the floor... what clarity, what construction, what intuitive metering (having never heard of the term EV before in my life), and finally, what picture quality!!! ... and... I can shoot 1/15th standing in a 40 degree weather at night and still get an un-blurry picture. Not even my most shake-proof SLR (Olympus Pen-FT) can do that, at least not in my hands.

So here I am now, happily Range-finding away with my XA in my jeans pocket, my Konica C35 in a tummy pouch, and I only bring the 35SPn for special occassions.

My next goal is to save enough to get a decent used M6. Wish me luck 🙂

 

[dadsm3]

Funny this old thread came up again.....
I just bought my wife (who has no desire to fool around on a computer, just the prints, thanks) an Olympus Stylus 120 film camera, nice little thing with a 38-120 zoom.
When I jokingly asked Roger here at Camtech in Hamilton "Guess you don't sell too many film cameras anymore, eh?", he replied that actually he sells a ton of them lately. He said at least half were to people who had recently bought a digital from him.....
I know this applies to the point&shoot crowd, those who are computer challenged or simply can't be bothered downloading etc., but it does bode well for film availability in general.

 

[manfromh]

I bought a film SLR, because i couldnt afford a digital SLR. After using it for a while, i wanted something small to keep in my pocket. I got a Minolta Hi Matic F. I didnt like the automatic exposure, so I got a Kiev-4a. At first it seemed so big, and I thought I probably wont use it. I didnt touch it for over a month. Then one day, I decided to pick it up. It started to look brilliant to me. I got very intrested in old cameras. Later I got a Fed-3, Zorki-4k (fsu rf's are very easy to get here. No hassle with ebay) and few days ago, a Zorki-6. Leicas and Bessas are, unfortunately, still too expensive for me.

 

[dpetrzelka]

I use photography to get me away from the computer for a while (though, this forum is not helping!)-

I think there is a lot of DIY energy right now- I'm 25, but am drawn more to "old" technology than anything else- I make wine, have built my own glass blowing furnaces, carved a violin, collect and restore letterpress printing presses- shooting a manual camera, and developing my own film is an extension of this energy; it just gets me closer to the art.
For me its as much, if not more, about the process than it is about the product.

--
I'm new to rangefinders- and expecting my M4-P in the mail next week! (I shot a lot f 35 in highschool, and have been shooting 4x5 and 120 lately, it will be nice to have a camera that can fit in my pocket.)

 

[aad]

Funny this old thread came up again.....
I just bought my wife (who has no desire to fool around on a computer, just the prints, thanks) an Olympus Stylus 120 film camera, nice little thing with a 38-120 zoom.
When I jokingly asked Roger here at Camtech in Hamilton "Guess you don't sell too many film cameras anymore, eh?", he replied that actually he sells a ton of them lately. He said at least half were to people who had recently bought a digital from him.....
I know this applies to the point&shoot crowd, those who are computer challenged or simply can't be bothered downloading etc., but it does bode well for film availability in general.

I hear the same thing-I guess, if you don't want to play around with a computer, there's little to recommend a small digital P&S over a film P&S, especially for folks who want to keep pictures for the future generations.