We all walk a long and forked road on the quest for our photographic Shangri-la
We all walk a long and forked road on the quest for our photographic Shangri-la
What will surpass digital? From a technical perspective, I would imagine real-time recording through multiple sensors in a fractal interpolated augmented 4D reality. Beyond that, neural interfacing and quantum computing.
However, back to the spirit of the question, I think many people today are walking the same path as I find myself on.
I got into photography as a child when I was given a Polaroid Land Camera for Christmas. It gave me immediate feedback and a pack of 10 instant prints cost a week's pocket money, so I made every frame count. I would wait for light, arrange the composition and deliver my image. I was willing to say, "no this would be a wasted shot" and walk away.
Later, as a teenager, my school offered photography classes. I learned about depth of field and spent as much time in the dark room as out on the campus, bulk loading, pushing, pulling, dodging and burning. 100 foot rolls of Ilford FP4 allowed me to experiment, but still I was shooting with consequence because of the time I'd spend under the red lamp.
As a young man, I shot automatic compact 135 and APS cameras purely as a record of holidays and special occasions. I could rarely create images I intended, because my technical input had been taken out of the loop. I shot less and less.
I got into digital early, with a Casio QV10. It ate AA batteries at the rate of a pair for 36 shots and so cost nearly as much to run as a film camera. As digital technology flourished, I bought better and better compact but the results never compared to pro film shot through good glass.
Finally I bought myself an EOS 400D DSLR and a Tamron 17-50/2.8 and rediscovered my love of photography. I could again enjoy creating images I wanted to share. I'd stalk my local port town and parks during golden hour taking candids and scenic shots. I got into portraiture. I quickly reached the limits of that camera's sensor and accumulated a bag full of L glass, finally upgrading to a full frame sensor to maximise my field of view and to reduce my depth of field.
I was still not able to deliver that professional look until I discovered the Strobist movement. This is a major focus of my learning right now.
At this point I began to get frustrated. I was up to my armpits in gear at home and would go on a shoot with a minimum of two lenses, strobes and Pocketwizards. People started asking me if I was a pro, purely on the basis of the heavy kit I was lugging. Truthfully, I did get some good images. I had some lucky accidents out of the vast volume of pictures I took and spent hours in Photoshop tweaking them, but surely the pros were doing things I wasn't. Something was wrong.
At this point, my Mother bought me a Canon P with a clean 50/1.4 lens on the advice of one of my buddies. I was quickly hooked. I spent a week just re-learning to judge light levels by eye. I re-realised that the camera's automatic functions were not always right and that I again found myself master of my own images. I was empowered.
I also began to enjoy the eccentricity of shooting film. Once I realised that it was not just a sensor, but an artistic medium, I started to enjoy the quirks of saturated Velvia 50 and grainy P3200 or the subtlety of Portra NC shot wide open at midday. I even got into APS and delight in capturing moody sunset images with Nexia 200 through a wide lens in my EOS IX.
I also started to enjoy street shooting. I have few good images to show, but I like the technical challenge and the art. It was great shooting wide lenses on my Canon P and then on a Bessa L I picked up off eBay. Print film’s latitude and the depth of field I got from the wide lenses could do things that would be considered challenging with a modern DSLR. The rangefinders were so much quieter and smaller too. This culminated in my purchase of a Hexar AF, the most capable camera I have ever used for this kind of photography.
The only problem with the Hexar was the size. It’s almost the size of a SLR but so wide that you have to wave the big thing in someone’s face to fill the frame. I needed something small.
I bought a Nikon 35Ti which was gorgeous but turned out to be defective so I returned it in part exchange for a TC-1. Aside from a limited maximum aperture of f/3.5, it does the job, but I still miss the flawed Nikon. Researching these cameras, I realised that they were part of a small exclusive club of luxury compacts that allowed a high degree of manual control, had pro-level optics and in the Nikon’s case, the best 3D matrix metering outside of an SLR.
Up until now, I had been buying film cameras on the cheap, but these cameras were selling second hand for more than my 400D was new. I missed several opportunities on eBay because my pricing was always a step behind the rising prices. On a recent trip to Tokyo, I found out why. I and a couple of other people speaking Cantonese were the only ones carrying DSLRs. Everyone else seemed to be without cameras, until a character or a marching band came out and then everyone would whip out a compact camera. The vast majority, but not all, has LCDs on the back. For the last year, I have read media articles, heard radio programmes and seen TV features on the film camera resurgence, but last week my photography guru returned from a trip to Tokyo with stories of magazines dedicated to the luxury compact camera trend and tales of Tokyo camera stores with soaring prices on film compacts. There is a definite craze going on.
The good news is my friends will no longer see me as crazy and eccentric. The bad news is that they’ll be competing with me on eBay. I’m easy to spot, by the way, if the bidder starts with a “Z” and ends with a “9” or vice-versa, it’s probably me.
The luxury compacts were never manufactured in huge numbers and being the best ever made, everyone’s after them, while owners are reluctant to sell. As the trend develops into a full-blown craze, I can foresee top-tech compacts beginning to rival M-series Leicas in value. All but the early buyers and moneyed collectors will have to make do with more common and lower specification cameras like Olympus Mju II’s and Nikon Lite-Touches. At least there are enough of these to support a longer-term trend.
Leicas M series bodies have also jumped in value, but not as much as the M-series and LTM lenses which are compatible with the micro four-thirds bodies and DSLRs with a converter. I think the Leicas are gorgeous, but the Nikon RFs and Canon RFs up to the Canon P are of comparable quality, but better value, such as the comparison of a mechanical Omega compared to a Patek Philippe.
The next big trend in enthusiast collecting might be medium and large format cameras, for the increase in resolution and narrower depth of field they offer. I have considered buying examples myself, but as friends own them and I am focussed on rangefinders and compacts, I have been putting it off. I like the quirky old bellows folders with build-in rangefinders, the tilt-shift-able monorail cameras, the convenient 645 rangefinders and the affordable 6x7 system cameras. There is a lot of variety here and enough depth of supply that everyone can play.
We have already seen some brands bring out film cameras. Nikon’s excellent rangefinder, late releases of film SLRs by Canon and Nikon and of course the Voigtländer Bessas are all good examples. I bet we see more surprise releases over the coming 5 years. Film isn’t dead yet.
We will also see ever-more camera bodies designed to be able to interface with legacy lenses. Rokkor, Pentax, and Vivitar Series 1 lenses were of high quality in the day and haven’t held value like Leica, Contax or even Nikon and Canon FD lenses. Some examples rightly remain legends. I sometimes shoot my Rokkor-X 58mm/1.2 on my EOS cameras. If the next generation of DSLRs and micro four-thirds cameras offer firmware or user-calibratable lens correction, it will be a great day for users with legacy collections.
[FONT="]In summary, I think we all walk a similar path with the same end goal: finding our own personal Shangri-la; our photographic niche in which we can express ourselves in an individual way. This may be with film cameras of various kinds, with digital cameras, hybrids, or chimeras.[/FONT]
