Page 17 from Nikon's Nikkormat FT3 (c. 1977) instruction manual. You can find .PDF copies of thousands of manuals for older cameras at Mike Butkus's Orphan Cameras. The .PDFs are shareware; $3 is the suggested donation. Beats spending $18 for a bad photocopy any day.
Featured Comment by Adam McAnaney: "Mike Butkus' site is an excellent resource. Here are a few other sites with classic camera manuals available for download:
KY Photo
LensInc.
DessauPhoto (Special-interest only: brochures for DDR (East German) cameras)."
Featured Comment by Ken Tanaka: "May I join the chorus singing the praises of this unsung hero, Mike Butkus?
"Although I am not an ancient camera collector (contrary to some evidence) last year I found a mint-condition Rolleiflex for sale, a camera I'd always wanted and an opportunity too good to ignore.
"But I knew zip about the correct care and feeding of my 50 year-old 'new' camera.
"Enter Mr. Butkus with a downloadable copy of the camera's original manual! Needless to say I was stunned and profoundly grateful to discover Mike's site. I am also still gobsmacked by the realization that someone could assemble such an enormous collection of extinct camera documentation. I bought a few other manuals for cameras I either never owned or owned long, long ago!)
"So here is my chance to publicly thank Mike for his efforts!"
This is something that should be coming with all the cameras. I've seen heaps of people who raise their left elbow way up, put their left thumb below the lens and their fingers above it so their left hand has almost no role in supporting the camera.
This manual page should also be required reading for those who want to review Olympus E-4xx series and similar cameras. _This_ is the way to hold them. Do not try to hold E-420 like it has a grip and then later complain it's uncomfortable to hold. It's almost the same as holding your fork like a spoon. You can do it, but it's awfully awkward.
Posted by: erlik | Sunday, 18 January 2009 at 03:51 AM
It's a shame that camera makers don't include this advice in their manuals any more. When friends ask me about curing "out of focus" (actually fuzzy) pictures, there usually follows a lesson in holding the camera steady.
Posted by: Martin Doonan | Sunday, 18 January 2009 at 04:15 AM
I expect a healthy Swiftian debate between those who insist that when the camera is in portrait orientation the right hand should be down to stabilize the camera, and those who insist that the left hand, which has nothing to do except stabilize the camera, should be lowest.
scott
Posted by: scott kirkpatrick | Sunday, 18 January 2009 at 05:16 AM
Mike Butkus has a great site.
A few years ago I remarked to a friend who still owned a Nikkormat that if the thing stopped working, he could attach one of those inexpensive 400 mm Spiratone lenses to it and keep it by the front door to bash burglars with. That combo would make a daunting weapon.
Posted by: Robert Roaldi | Sunday, 18 January 2009 at 08:35 AM
Mike Butkus' site is an excellent resource. Here are a few other sites with classic camera manuals available for download:
KY Photo: http://www.kyphoto.com/classics/manuallinks.html
LensInc.: http://www.lensinc.net/freeuser.html
DessauPhoto [Special-interest only: broschures for DDR (East German) cameras]: http://www.dessauphoto.de/Prospekte/body_prospekte.htm
Best regards,
Adam McAnaney
Posted by: Adam | Sunday, 18 January 2009 at 11:41 AM
Pentax is great with things like this. They offer manuals for many of their old cameras as free PDF downloads, so if you're not sure how to use your Spotmatic or ME Super (the latter has instructions on how to hold it just like the Nikkormat manual) then go to http://www.pentaximaging.com/support/manuals-and-literature/ -- no $3 necessary.
Posted by: Erik | Monday, 19 January 2009 at 05:20 AM
I would like to suggest an alternate title:
"How to Hold a Nikkormat like James Bond"
Posted by: Michael Barkowski | Monday, 19 January 2009 at 11:03 AM
The posture that erlik describes in the first comment is a dead giveaway that the person is an amateur (and not just and amateur -- a beginner). It always riles me up when I see a movie or TV show where an actor is playing a pro photographer and they hold their camera like that. It completely ruins the scene.
Posted by: Ed Hawco | Monday, 19 January 2009 at 12:10 PM