The Online Photographer

John Morris 1916-2017

Written by Peter Turnley

John Morris. Photo by Peter Turnley.

This morning I received a phone call in Cuba from my brother David in Paris to tell me that John Morris had just passed today. I went to see John just a few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon. As I walked into his room in the residence where he was staying, John lay, part asleep. I didn't want to bother him, but needed to see him, and whispered into his ear, "John, I love you." He responded clearly, "Peter I love you too." These were our last words, but the most important to me. John was not only my friend for the past 45 years, but truly a father to me and David.

One day a few years ago, as I sat eating dinner alone with him, I asked John, as possibly only a lifelong friend could ask, "John, what would you like me to say about you when you are gone?" John looked at me, and gently responded, with a smile: "I tried." He not only tried, but succeeded in touching the hearts of most everyone he met, and his story, and his passion and care for the world and for life, and his ability to love life, and to be in love, will be an example that anyone that knew him will carry with them forever.

John's life story was the story of our world and of photography over the past 100 years. The names of the great photographers of the world, Capa, Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, and on and on, were his family. I was very fortunate to be part of his family since first meeting him with my brother David when he first saw our McClellan Street photographs when we were 17 years old.

John's interest in success was not status, and no one felt more compassion for the left behind than John. His passion was in living life with love, doing the best one can, and fighting for a world where peace, care, decency, generosity, and honesty prevail—and his passion for public service was greater than anyone I've ever known. My relationship with John was not professional; he was my friend, and like a father to me. But he was demanding, and expected greatness—for him, there was nothing more natural. Every conversation was sprinkled with comments about Capa, Chim, Henri, and on and on, and these were not names on a pedestal, but lives of friends with feelings, stories, ups and downs, and heart. To achieve anything great in life, one must dream. Being around John always made dreams easy, because his life, like a dream, was reality.

Whenever I would return from some place where my heart had been scarred, Somalia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Irak, and on and on, the realities I had felt and witnessed were not, for John, something from a television set. They were part of his life blood and fabric and what he cared and lived for—trying to always somehow impact the world for the better. He also was extremely engaged politically, in a human sense. As we go forward, it won't be awards, or honors, or accolades that John will appreciate us for. It will be simply a kind and loving gaze upon our life with the question, did you do your best, did you try, did you try to make the world a better place? And have you loved. And when the answer to any of those questions will be a yes—John will raise his glass with a smile, and you will feel that as always, you are part of his amazing family of life.

John and Peter. Photo by Jan Kwarnmark.

I love you John. You are not gone, you will always be with me, and with us.

Peter Turnley
Havana, Cuba
July 28, 2017

[Ed. Note: There is a full obituary of John Morris by the critic and curator Andy Grundberg in the New York Times. Our thanks to Peter for sharing his very personal thoughts.]

©2017 by Peter Turnley, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Jim Metzger: "Beautiful."

Steve Rosenblum: "Five years ago I had the great privilege to participate in Peter's Paris Street Photography workshop. The highlight of the whole week for me was an evening when Peter arranged for all of us to go to John Morris's apartment where he (at 95 years of age) stood for an hour and gave us a lecture about the history of documentary photography over the last 70 years and his involvement in it. He told us the intimate stories behind many of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century, the people who made them, and the struggle to get them published. Then we all went out for dinner together.

[Photo by Peter Turnley]

"My wife and I agree that it was one of the most amazing experiences of our lives. We will always be grateful to John for sharing his vast life experience with us and to Peter for arranging it."

David Elesh: "Like Steve Rosenblum, I met John and his partner, Patricia, at Peter's Paris Street Photography Workshop in 2011. My wife and I were amazed by John's stories, vitality, and engagement with the present at 95. He spoke of his history, his current political activities, and his gratitude of finding a loving partner in Patricia Trocmé. As Peter writes so aptly, 'his passion and care for the world and for life, and his ability to love life, and to be in love' were fully on display.

"The New York Times has a five minute interview with John on its website recorded in 2006. There are also several photos of John taken at various points in his career. They are worth your time as his autobiography, Get the Picture."

Jan Kwarnmark: "Thank you, Peter, for these words. From our workshop and meeting with John in September 2013 I remember especially that John, after having seen so many war photos, wanted to be an ambassador for peace. And thank you for using my photo, taken with your Leica, at this precious moment."

[Ed. note: Jan's work was featured once before in these pages, as readers might remember.]

Three More Things About the Spotmatic

Three funky little points about the ultra-retro-hipster icon the Pentax Spotmatic that I failed to mention the other day:

1. Spottie without a spot meter: The name "Spotmatic" derived from the fact that the camera was originally intended to incorporate a spot meter. Late in pre-production the decision was made to abandon the spot metering function, but the name was already in the pipeline and for some reason more difficult to change, so it stuck—even though the reason for it had gone away.
2. The "Takumar" name for the early lenses was adopted in honor of the Japanese-American painter Takuma Kajiwara.
3. Like buttah: The Super-Takumar and its immediate successors has the smoothest, silkiest, most tactile helical focusing action in the history of cameras and lenses—better than any Zeiss lens, better than any Leica lens, better than any Nikon lens, better than any anything—at least in my experience, and I have a fair amount of experience with old lenses. It's the gold standard for manual focusing action, the apogee, the peak, the best of the best. That's not something some people give a fig about, but there it is anyway.

Four versions
There were four versions of the M42 screwmount 50mm ƒ/1.4 for the Spotmatic worth knowing about. The first was the original 8-element Super-Takumar. This had a cemented triplet with all surfaces of all three elements being spherical.

Lore I've heard concerning the Super-Takumars over the years:

• One of them has an element of then-special rare-earth glass that is radioactive. Some say it's the 8-element lens that has it (this is what I always heard, back in the day); some say it's the later 7-element version that does (more common to hear lately).
• Some Super-Takumars take on a yellowish cast over time and the cure is sunlight—leave it out in strong sunlight for a few hours and the yellowish tint will go away.
• Some people attribute the yellowing to the radioactive glass element, but it's more likely the glue between the cemented elements...
• ...which was made from pine sap.
• Set a Super-Takumar with the radioactive element on a piece of Polaroid film for a few days and it will record a faint circle of exposure on the film.
• You shouldn't hold it up to your eye for too long or bad juju will happen to you.

I don't know if any of these are true. Since Asahi quietly changed from the 8-element to the simpler 7-element version on the fly during production, there's no easy way of identifying the 8-element version. Some people think you can do it by weight (8-element version 245 g, 7-element version 230 g); some say the focusing ring on the earlier lens is slightly wider; some say it can be done with serial numbers, which method has the advantage that you can dispute happily about the serial-number ranges till the cows come home; some point out that the convex rear element on the earlier lens protrudes farther; and some say that on all the 8-element lenses, the red infrared focusing index mark is inside the "4"s on the D-o-F scale. All?

This early lens—I'm still talking about the 8-element Super-Takumar—was intended by Pentax to be a better lens than the Zeiss Planar of the day. And it was. Not only that, the Pentax fast 50s were better than Zeiss Planars all the way up to the AF era—sez me, anyway. This—the 8-element Super-Takumar—was most likely the lens that Pentax produced at a loss; it was a loss leader for the sake of company pride...and Japanese national pride.

Here's the rub, though: there's no evidence that the 8-element lens was any better than the 7-element Super-Takumar or the later versions. The contrary, in my opinion. That's if you can detect any difference at all beyond sample variation, which I doubt most people could. Some mavens go to great lengths to hunt down the fabled 8-element Super Tak, but there's no reason to do so IMHO. There's also no reason not to—this all falls under the heading of enthusiast stuff—so suit yourself. As far as health risks are concerned, I doubt the "radioactive" element could hurt you if you swallowed it, but then I don't know, and that's another thing people can argue about.

The second version is the garden variety 7-element Super-Takumar, produced in great quantities as Asahi's "The Pentax" became the best-selling "good" SLR of the 1960s. This reduced the cemented triplet with a doublet at 4/5 (but still with concave and convex surfaces, unlike the flat surfaces in most planar-types). Most Super-Takumars were single-coated but some late ones were probably multi-coated.

The third version has improved coatings. The whole truth about this is difficult to research, and indeed probably lost to history, but what I believe is that Zeiss and Pentax worked cooperatively in the early days of multi-coating came up with their solution jointly. Zeiss called it T* (pronounced "tee-star") and Pentax called it "SMC" (for super multi-coating), but they were more or less the same thing at first. Something that is not well known by photography buffs is that not all lenses are coated on all surfaces—many lensmakers try to cut corners, and coat lens elements only where they think it's needed. So earlier lenses might have a few elements multi-coated, a few elements single-coated, and in some cases even a few elements uncoated. Coatings are highly proprietary, but one of the reasons for that is that many lensmakers didn't want you to know how much they were skimping.

Of course, these days, coating of lenses has progressed greatly and gotten much cheaper, thanks to zooms—which were essentially made possible by advances in coatings. Before multicoating, a zoom with many elements would have been impossible—the aggregated flare from all those air-to-glass interfaces would have overwhelmed the image-forming light. One of the reasons the famous Tessar developed by Paul Rudolph of Zeiss was so sharp is that it had only six air-to-glass surfaces, which minimized flare before lens coatings came along. Now, Olympus can make the whimsical and fantastical 25mm ƒ/1.2 PRO lens with an over-the-top nineteen elements (I love that, I have to say)...and that lens probably has less veiling glare than an uncoated 4-element Tessar-type from the early 1900s! That 25mm PRO is a prime lens that only exists because zooms do. Coatings are much more important to lens design, and lens performance, than most hobbyists realize.

Third version—note that "Super-Multi-Coated" is written out.

Anyway the third version is marked "Super-Multi-Coated Takumar" (with the words written out). It's important to realize that at least up till this point, Asahi was trying its best to put as much value into these fast 50s as it could—the engineering it applied to the products was devoted to making them better rather than to making them cheaper. There's often if not always a war between these two impulses. So the Super-Multi-Coated version of the fast 50 was multicoated on every surface. It might have been early MC, but they weren't cutting corners.

Next we reach the end of our tour with the SMC Takumar, with the initials for "super-multi-coated" on the lens instead of the words written out. This version has a rubberized focusing ring with a checkered pattern rather than the scalloped and grooved metal focusing ring of the earlier versions.

What went with what
The Super-Takumars were the lenses sold with the original SP, including the SP500 and SP1000; the Super-Multi-Coated Takumars (quote-unquote) went with the much better-constructed but similarly-featured Spotmatic II; and the SMC Takumar was the native lens for the Spotmatic F and the Electro-Spotmatic, ES, and ESII, the world's first SLRs with autoexposure.

After that, Pentax changed to the K-mount bayonet mount, after sticking with the M42 screwmount probably a bit too long.

And the verdict...
So which one is the best? The same basic 7-element design followed the Pentax fast 50s all the way through the K-mount era into the autofocus era, with the SMCP-FA lens you can still buy today. That included the SMC Pentax-M and SMC Pentax-A. The SMCP-FA is the last 50mm that Pentax still makes that dates from the film era—and it's a direct descendant of the justly famous 7-element Super-Takumar screwmount lens of the 1960s.

Block diagram of the 7-element Super-Takumar

Block diagram of the SMCP-FA autofocus lens

I've used all of these lenses, each long enough to get a handle on them (but only with B&W film, it should be noted), and to be honest they're all great—"3D," characterful, and possessed of the famous old Planar-type "look." The Super-Multi-Coated Takumar was the best-built, but the later K-mount cameras are more convenient and I prefer the SMC Pentax-M as a user, as it handles the best. The SMC Pentax-A K-mount lens is considered by Pentax fanciers to be the sharpest of them all, probably attributable to coatings. Honestly, though, there's not much to choose.

I've never used any of them on a digital camera.

The Pentax fast 50 is not a Zeiss and it's not German, but in my opinion it's the ultimate expression of the classic Planar lens design—and one of the treasures of the Land of the Rising Sun.

Mike

UPDATE from Ray Ulrich: "Here's more information on Asahi and multicoating. I'd heard this before (OCLI was in my home town—Santa Rosa, California), but this was the only link I could find that mentions their part in it."

UPDATE from Paul Farkas: "If you haven't already heard, in May of this year former President of Pentax Ricoh Imaging USA Ned Bunnell made two posts on his Instagram account outlining the differences between the 8-element and 7-element 50mm ƒ/1.4 Takumar lenses: here is the first, and here is the second. Since then, he's been posting numerous photos of pictures taken with both lenses on a Pentax DSLR. Additionally, he wrote about the 8-element version on the casualphotophile website.

"His recommendation: 'The 8-element is quite rare and going up in value; samples in pristine condition are going for $200–250 and more these days. A similar condition 7-element will fetch just $70–100. So your choice is pretty easy. If you want a beautiful vintage 50mm prime M42 manual lens to use everyday, get the 7-element. Buy the 8-element if you want a part of Japanese lens history which will continue to appreciate in value and give you great satisfaction while you own it.'

"P.S. My favorite Pentax 50mm lens is an SMC Pentax-M ƒ/1.4."

Mike replies: Thanks gents! I had not seen Ned's posts.

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Smooth like buttah
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Tom Burke: "I enjoyed reading that, Mike—obviously a subject about which you care.

"A slight aside, but—what happened to Pentax? I recall that in the late '60s, when I first became aware of SLRs (and photography generally) a Pentax SP500 was the goal, at least for an amateur. Nikons were around but were probably viewed as professional cameras only. (This is in the UK, by the way.) The other camera that people bought was the good old Practica, from East Germany, and many people had them—including me—and they used the M42 thread. But everyone agreed that they were nowhere near as good as a Pentax.

"Then I suppose I started hearing about Canon SLRs—especially the FT QL—and then later models such as the A-1, AE1, and AE1-Program. I started seeing Nikkormats around that time also. The Olympus OM-1 appeared in the early '70s, followed by more Canons—T50 and T70 especially—and somewhere in there Pentax just seemed to vanish from consciousness. I know the ME Super was around, but by then Pentax was just one of the pack—at least in the UK the marque had lost the status it had enjoyed in the '60s.

"Do you know how that happened? And was it the same in the US?"

Mike replies: Well, the fortunes of companies ebb and flow. Just off the top of my head, I'd say Pentax was a player up until at least the LX, a wonderful camera with a couple of quirks (don't they all seem to have them?). Mainly that the strap lugs were proprietary and the shutter made a noise like a firecracker exploding. (I mean it was on the loud side.) The LX came along in 1980. There were 1,000 gray titanium bodies issued in 1994 to mark the company's 75th anniversary, with 300 more in black two years later; and finally there was a Japan-only Pentax LX 2000 to celebrate either the new millennium or the long run of the LX itself (accounts vary). It finally left the scene in 2001, after the digital transition had begun.

Pentax was still selling loads of cameras through at least the 1980s as far as I recall. Most, however, were amateur models—the company had gotten a reputation for catering to hobbyists, amateurs, and casual users, and of being for those who could not quite afford a Nikon or a Leica. Sort of the Chevrolet of cameras, if you will. Of course the company made the K1000, which was endlessly popular and well known as the basic camera for students to learn on.

The company was called Asahi Optical starting in 1938. It was dismantled after WWII but allowed to re-form in 1948. It changed its name to Pentax Corporation in 2002, probably because that's how it was mostly known anyway. Then in 2007 Hoya acquired 90% of its stock, mainly for the non-photographic businesses. Hoya then sold the camera bits on to Ricoh in 2011.

People who use Pentaxes are afflicted with a stereotype to this day. Which is, they're like Canadians—all nice, mild, and polite. They tend to be decent people free of disputatiousness and bloodymindedness, who love their parents and children, are modest about their wealth and accomplishments, and are courteous, kind and friendly to others.  :-)

Out and About with a Camera You Like

One more comment before I leave the subject of old film cameras to break for the weekend:

It's been a long while since I've recommended this, but Ivor Matanle's Collecting and Using Classic Cameras is a particularly delightful book. I think any photography enthusiast would enjoy it, even if you're not a film user or a classic camera user or a camera collector of any sort—and even if you have relatively little interest in old cameras.

It's great chiefly because Ivor himself is so present on the pages, and he's such wonderful company. This book was undoubtedly a labor of love, the result of many years of happy activity. It's the story of an enthusiast who likes getting "out and about" to run a few rolls of film through a variety of prized old cameras. In the book he tells you about each camera and shows you the pictures he took with it. Along the way you'll get to know a friend and kindred spirit. Quite incidentally, he imparts a good feel for the joy a lot of us find in doing what we do.

One of my favorite photography books, and I don't have very many books about cameras per se. It can be read straight through. Recommended warmly if it appeals.

Another nice old book not too far off from the first is What the Traveller Saw by the globetrotting travel and adventure writer Eric Newby. In it he gives an account of where he was and what was happening when he took a variety of whimsical and wonderful photographs. He, too, is great company, and his pictures are quite fine even though he's not primarily known as a photographer. And this relates very nicely to the past few days here at TOP, because most of the pictures in the book were taken with an old manual Pentax with a 50mm lens.

The crickets are noisy already
See you back here on Monday, and I hope you have a very pleasant weekend! I just can't believe the dog days are almost upon us—this Summer has sped by at breakneck speed. It will be Fall before I blink three times.

Oh, and a blog note: I'm way behind on the comments again, and there are many great comments on the last three posts still to appear. I need to go ship the Mamiya 7II to Victor H. now, and edit a portrait shoot I did on Wednesday, so please do come back later today or tomorrow to catch up on all the new comments.

Cheers,

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

More to come
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Rob L.: "I've just gotta laugh at shipping a Mamiya to a Victor H."

'Mamiya For Sale' Part II (Or, the Perfect Camera)

Here's what I bought with the proceeds from the sale of the Mamiya 7II yesterday—it's on its way from Japan:

Ebay seller's photos

I saw it for sale yesterday priced at $1,649, and I figured yeah, I would trade my Mamiya for that. (The camera shows up relatively often but this lens is genuinely rare.) So that's why I asked $1,649 for the Mamiya—straight trade, from my point of view.

I know it's neither as good a camera as the 7II nor as desirable. This acquisition is purely "the armchair narcissism of nostalgia," to use a memorable phrase whose author is lost to my memory.  The Exakta 66 Mod 2 with the 80mm ƒ/2.8 Schneider-Kreuznach Xenotar MF a.) was the first medium-format camera I ever bought, back when I was a nearly penniless high school photography teacher in the 1980s; b.) had the best lens I ever used, ever, although I'm fairly positive that the one I had was a "sweet spot" sample, at the apex of the sample variation—the lens coming from Japan will most likely not quite measure up; c.) was the camera I used to make the photographs in the only public exhibition I was ever in—a group show of six photographers I curated for the National Park Service in Rock Creek Park (which got reviewed in the Washington Post no less) and, finally, d.) is the camera that, over the years, I have most most regretted selling and most wished I had back.

Now I do. Once it's here and I've run a roll or two through it, maybe I'll write a post on the history of the camera. I actually know quite a lot about it.

Not to splash cold water in the faces of film fans and APUG.org denizens and enthusiasts of old cameras, but I doubt I'll ever use this seriously. However, I'm sure I'll be very happy to have it—and other people won't mind, either. When I wrote the post about the Mamiya 7II, several readers took me to task for hoarding it without using it, thus not allowing it to be used as it was intended to be. So now I've set the Mamiya free, so it can be used to fulfill its manifest destiny of making great photographs!

I doubt very many people will feel the same way about the Exakta. It's really not a camera most people would want to use. It has film-flatness problems and a delicate film-advance mechanism and a wonky viewfinder that is offset from what you'll get on the film. And the mirror is not instant-return—you get blackout after taking a shot until you cock the camera again. The lens mount is breechlock. Did I mention it's meterless? That's why I wrote the article "Train Your Brain...To Guess Exposure" for Ed Buziak's Darkroom User magazine back in the '90s. I actually guessed my exposures when I used the Exakta as my only camera. Never used a light meter.

Oh, and no way to attach a strap, at least not built in. The only thing this one has that is not identical to what I owned is that it has the strap bracket for attaching a camera strap—a $90 accessory back in the '80s, and something I could never afford. (It's that semi-circular bracket affixed using the tripod thread.) So I wandered all over D.C. with that camera simply holding it in my hand—I had no way of attaching a strap.

I'm going to take a WAG—wild-assed guess—and speculate that the cosmetic blemish in the word "Exakta" on the waist-level finder of this camera is the reason it's being de-accessioned from some Japanese camera collector's collection. But I don't mind that. It can stand as the one thing that keeps the camera from being perfect.  :-)

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Exaktaly!
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Featured Comments from:

Douglas Chadwick: "I am glad you mentioned being reviewed in the Washington Post. It reminds me of my one review there a few years before for a show at Henri's Gallery near Dupont Circle. It certainly seemed like a big deal to me to see a review of my work in that paper. Even though the review basically said it was the best of a bad lot, But a nice mention of one of my photographs. It seemed like the start of something, and it did lead to a show at a museum in West Virginia. But my gallery success was on a downhill trend as it turned out—business got in the way perhaps. But the Post was doing nice reviews of photography shows back then, I suppose they gave that up? It was just, I don't know, an interesting trend at the time? You were there for a while, what is your take on it?"

Mike replies: I was actually asked to write photography show reviews for the Post at one time. But the pay was so miserable I had to turn down the opportunity. The decision was wrenching for me—it would have been a high-profile position with a fair amount of respect and influence, but I had been doing lots of hard work for very little pay at the time and just seriously needed to be putting food on the table. It didn't help that my walk to work every day took me past the Georgetown mansion of the then-owner of the Post.

Andrew Lamb: "What a glorious folly! This is one for the romantics, a triumph of hope over experience. Congrats, Mike. I wish you all the best. We both know you're going to need it. Ex-Exakta owner."

StanB.: "That's some seriously serious nostalgia!!! You traded a precision instrument for an overgrown Holga...then again, some of my favorite photographs have been taken with one!"

Michael Roche: "Mike, I don't know whether I want to laugh or cry. I hope you will have lots of enjoyment from your purchase, but I can't convince myself you made a wise decision. However when it comes to hobbies all decisions are only temporary anyway and only serve to take us on to the next phase. Have fun."

Benjamin Marks: "I totally get the 'nostalgic' repurchase of a camera that is/was emotionally significant. Hobby-objects that fall into that category for me: A Pentax Spotmatic, a Pentax LX, a Crown Graphic, a Nikon FM2, and (off-topic, and recently) a Cannondale 53 cm road bike (what was I thinking?). I have often written that it's 'the painter, not the paintbrush,' but if that were really true, why do we painters get so attached to these specific paintbrushes? Well, my explanation is that sometimes things just 'click.' (and, oh yes, pun intended). When you have that relationship to your tools, you can do your best work. I had a Kiev 88 that, despite its many shortcomings, did pretty well for me. Not going to repurchase that one though. So: Mike—I am raising a glass of iced tea—here's to the paintbrush! I hope you take your best photograph with it. Or second best.  ;-)  That would be pretty great, no?"

For Sale: Mamiya 7II Rangefinder and 80mm f/4L Normal Lens

FOR SALE: Mamiya 7II and 80mm ƒ/4L lens in exc++ condition in original boxes. $1,649 plus $30 domestic / $60 international shipping. Return within three days for 100% refund (minus shipping).

Virtually no blemishes, no dents or dings, perfect working condition, rangefinder bright. More pics here.

Seller is slacker photo blogger known to hundreds. Caution: only takes Tri-X*.

Mike

*Just kidding. Takes all 120 and 220 films.

UPDATE: Sold! To Victor H.

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Featured Comments from:

Jim: "A fair to slightly high price, but seems in decent shape. This is the best camera you have ever owned or probably will own. Shame you never bonded with it. I'd be tempted, but already have two."

IanC: "If I were still shooting film, it'd be with this kit or (even better in my humble opinion) the Mamiya 6. The best film camera I ever used, with the best standard lens. That slacker photo blogger has good taste."

So You Say You Want a Film Camera?

"Slow photography" is hip, and everybody thinks you need an old Leica or an old Nikon if you want to participate. Not so, I say. If you want a film camera and have never shot with one, the way to go is Pentax.

Old silver Pentaxes are the quintessential 35mm film cameras. Mainstream, but iconic. Well made, but no frills. Stone classic.

There are lots of ways you can go with film. You can shoot color negative film and have it processed for you. You can shoot Ilford XP2 "chromogenic" black-and-white film and have it processed commercially, but then make your own prints with an enlarger. Or you can shoot genuine silver-halide black-and-white film and process it yourself at your kitchen sink—there's slow photography, and then there's slow slow photography.

If you want to go a little more modern, the killer camera would be a beautiful chrome MX. The MX was an MMM (manual, metal, mechanical) camera produced between 1976 and 1985.

But if you really want to go whole-hog into hip retro, no holds barred, no punches pulled, the way to go is to get a Spotmatic.

In either case, here's what you do: instead of spending big money on an old Leica, spend small money on an old Pentax, then spend as much as you can on the best servicing money can buy. Buy the top treatment at any good Pentax camera repair service center such as Abilene Camera Repair in the old Wild West cow-town of Abilene, Texas (401 Neas Road, Abilene, Texas 79601, 325/676-2524, [email protected] or [email protected]). I don't have personal experience with Abilene; use whichever shop you want. (Google is your friend.)

I'm just using Abilene as an example so I can talk about prices. Their top-level "restoration" service costs $245 for either an MX or a Spotmatic. Added to the cost of a good camera, the total is still cheaper than many classic Nikons and all but the most beat-up classic Leicas. And you will have a camera that works as it is supposed to—clean, lubricated and smooth, with new seals and all parts inspected. It will run as well as a fine pocket watch. And will continue to work as it's supposed to for years to come.

The fabled "Spottie" was the legendary mainstream screwmount Pentax that spanned a number of models from 1964 to 1976. (The top choices being the original SP, which had two "budget" alternatives, the SP500 and SP1000; the SPII; and the later Spotmatic F.)

One thing to look out for is sellers screaming "MINT!!!" at you like manic candy salesmen—the Spotmatics featured double chrome plating over brass, and the cameras wear like iron. Many of them still look fresh and clean today, even if they've been abused. This excites sellers, who think they have "survivors" even though what they have might actually be pretty typical.

Having been well trained by our consumer culture, we all have a strong tendency to want to optimize. My advice: don't. If you want to go slow and retro, then go slow and retro! Don't try to get the latest or the sharpest or the one with the most features. 

Another buying hint: both these cameras were much more common in chrome finish. The black ones, therefore, are more prized, rare, and valuable. The thing is, with any camera, the more valuable one will be the one in less supply. Don't think a black one is any better just because people are making a fuss over it. The classic look is chrome. Get that.

And you might be tempted to skip the CLA ("clean, lube, adjust"): well, that would be optimizing! (For minimal investment, in this case.) I just told you not to do that.  :-)

The first lens you want for the Pentax MX is called an SMC Pentax-M 50mm ƒ/1.4. The ƒ/1.7 is a fine lens and a little sharper, but the ƒ/1.4 has perfect bokeh and, optically, just looks a little better overall. 

For the Spotmatic, the screwmount lens you want will be called a Super Takumar, Super-Multi-Coated Takumar, or SMC-Takumar. Get the 50mm ƒ/1.4 first.

Although cheap now, they are legendary lenses: Pentax believed at the time they needed to do better than Zeiss if they wanted to overcome the perception that Japanese cameras were shoddily built (as many Japanese products were in the immediate aftermath of WWII). The company put everything they had into building these fast 50s, producing them, at least at first, at a loss. A famous comparison by Burt Keppler of Modern Photography and later of Popular Photography pitted the Pentax Super Takumar against the equivalent Leica lens. The Super-Tak came out on top.

With a 50mm lens, you will miss the pictures that you could have gotten with a wide-angle or a super-telephoto lens, but here's the way to console yourself: the number of possible great pictures you can take with a fifty is "infinity."

Don't fret. Have fun.

The right camera with the right lens: $159 for both,
leaving money left over for a thorough restoration.

True retro would be a restored and revived Pentax Spotmatic SP with a Super-Takumar 50mm ƒ/1.4, using a handheld light meter, shooting Kodak Tri-X or Ilford HP-5 Plus and developing it yourself, making your own prints on fiber-base paper. My personal choice would be a restored and revived Pentax MX with an SMC Pentax-M 50mm ƒ/1.4, using the camera's meter, shooting Ilford XP2 and getting it developed commercially, possibly making prints yourself on RC paper.

Either one is the perfect retro film-camera experience. You don't even need to bother with spending more money.

Mike
(Thanks to the commenter who mentioned the MX the other day)

UPDATE from Ned Bunnell: "Mike, FYI, the go-to-guy for servicing film Pentax cameras is Eric Hendrickson. He's a former Pentax service manager who moved to Tennessee many years ago. He has all the equipment to work on the early film cameras including the various 6x7 models. He adjusted the 67 I bought from you. His work is superb, and he's honest and very reasonable with his rates. Contact info:

http://pentaxs.com/index.html 

[email protected]

Cheers, Ned."

[Ned is the former President of Pentax USA. —Ed.]

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Double chrome plated
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Dennis (partial comment): "I just took a look at the Spotmatic after reading this—it's a beautiful camera! I noticed that it uses 1.35 volt mercury batteries for the meter and that rang a bell...years ago, when I bought my HiMatic 7sII, I paid for a CLA and to have the meter circuit adjusted to 1.5V batteries. Apparently, that's one of the things that Abilene does as part of their repair service, but just another argument to not skip the CLA step."

Mike replies: Thanks. I should have mentioned that. Yes, the Spotmatic takes long-since-outlawed mercury batteries, so it's necessary to get the circuit converted. Another option is to use the Voigtlaender VC Meter II, which has the added advantage of being transferable to all your other old film-camera bodies. If you get a Spotmatic SP and want to use a VC Meter II, note that you need the clip-on "cold shoe" (the bit above the eyepiece meant to hold the flash), which itself is an add-on with the original Spottie.

Andrew adds: "It is my understanding that Pentax Spotmatics have a bridge circuit in the light meter and can use modern 1.55v silver oxide batteries without re-calibration."

Mike replies: Thanks. I really don't know the ins and outs of the meter circuit. As I implied in the post, I always used a separate meter with my Spotmatic II.

Bill Poole: "Ah, yes. During my brief time working in a retail camera store in the late 1960s, I came to love the Spotmatic, and to recommend it often to customers. (You don't mention to lovely clunk of its shutter—the solid sound of quality.)

"I'm not sure why you didn't mention that commercial development is also available for silver-based black-and-white films. While I continue to develop at home sometimes, I also use Photoworks San Francisco, just down the street, which also has a mail-order service. They charge $8 a roll, cheap enough, and the quality is superb.

"Also, you do not have to print wet to get the unique look of film images. Scanning and printing digitally yields lovely results, while Lightroom and Photoshop provide impressive controls over image contrast, burning, dodging, etc."

Paul B: "My first camera was a Spotmatic II, and saw me through high school and college. Later cameras never pleased me as much as my Pentax, probably not even my Leica M3 (which I love dearly). That Pentax was as rugged as a tank, and took as much abuse as I could dole out. When I was 'done' with it, I gave it to my brother who used it until he went digital in the early '00s. So it served us for almost 40 years with barely a whimper. And the lenses were great. Worked in all kinds of weather, too. I often think that people who want to learn photography ought to start with a Pentax, either a Spotmatic (partly for the screw mount experience), or a K-1000, and use a hand held light meter. But I guess I'm just an old guy now, with old fashioned ideals...."

Richard Alan Fox: "I was a camera repairman at Brooks Camera on Kearny Street in San Francisco during the mid 1970s. Pentax Spotmatics have a spring-loaded lever under the cover used to cock the shutter; a typical problem would be this lever popping and needing to be adjusted (if my memory serves).

"I received this award from my fellow repairmen after a rather unfortunate incident, and now, forty years and a continent away, I would like to share it with the world:

Dennis Mook: "Photographed well over a hundred dead bodies in the '70s and early '80s with a Spotmatic, 50mm ƒ/1.4 Super-Muliti-Coated Takumar, Tri-X, and a huge Honeywell potato-masher flash with a 510-volt battery hanging off my belt. Never let me down, not once. And no, I'm not going to explain anything more...."

[I'll just add that Dennis is not talking about dead camera bodies. —Ed.]

David Raaum: "My first camera was an Argus C-3 while I was in high school. When I got to Vietnam I bought the Spotmatic with the 50mm ƒ/1.8 at the Marine PX for $189.50. I used it through my entire Vietnam tour, even in the dug-in radio relay hole in Khe Sanh, South Vietnam. It worked all through the rest of the '60s, '70s, and the '80s until I switched to Nikon in 1990. I took a lot of great pictures, on Kodachrome slides, with that camera. When I stopped using it the meter had quit working; other than that it was fine. Great memories."

Jeroen: "Another point: I think the MX has a more than decent finder magnification (almost 1x with a 50mm). That makes photographing 'with both eyes open' much easier."

Mike replies: Some of the Olympus OM cameras also have great finder magnification. A luxury that the market never quite understood, unfortunately, but a pleasure to use even today.

Rod S.: "Mike, your post sent a thrill down my spine this morning when I scrolled down to the picture of that handsome Pentax MX in all its delicious chrominess.

"I loved the Pentax MX and used two bodies from 1977 until 1995, when I moved to the medium-format Pentax 6x7. I looked for but never found a better 35mm camera. The MXs accompanied me on many challenging adventures, including trekking expeditions to Everest in 1978 and K2 in 1994, and I was able to publish two magazine articles as a result.

"One special image from 1978, a portrait of two local boys in long-gone traditional dress, under dappled sunlight, will forever be one of my best photographs. The framed 16x20 Cibachrome print is remarkably detailed.

"The MX's controls are simple and intuitive. In particular, the meter display with 1/2 stop LEDs is perfect, easy to read and quite genius in concept, making 1/2 stop underexposure of transparency film—but only in direct sunlight—straightforward for maximising colour saturation. And the placement of the K-mount lens lock makes changing lenses one handed easily done.

"My only regret is that the wonderful design of the MX held me back from changing to medium format by a decade. That eventual change, and the use of a hand held light meter it required, really challenged my understanding and practice of photography.

"My first camera, though, was a new Spotmatic F (F for full aperture metering), a gift from my father in September 1974 for my eighteenth birthday. That camera introduced me to the Pentax tradition of 'elegant simplicity.' By comparison, most other brands of SLRs seemed bloated, heavy or had awkward controls. I am very appreciative of my father's thoughtfulness.

"Still, I came to see that the original Spotmatic has the most elegant line of the pentaprism housing of all, narrow and uncluttered by the hotshoe of subsequent models.  :-)  "

Open Mike: Mike Olbinski

If you haven't seen this yet, you need to. Practically demands full screen, and after dark is best, with nothing else going on, no distractions, no other noises. I've watched it about five times now.

By Mike Olbinski. Pretty amazingly wonderful! The music gets better with each hearing, too.

Mike
(Thanks to half a dozen readers over the past few weeks)

"Open Mike" is our sometimes off-at-a-slant editorial page. It appears on Wednesdays, or sometimes.

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Jim Kofron: "It's truly fantastic. The beauty of nature captured so eloquently, with the ability to study the fluid dynamics of the atmosphere—just incredible. And the soundtrack that goes along with it is awesome. And as you read about his journey over the month, covering thousands of miles—I think 'it's still better than doing weddings' (which he also does). Great stuff!"

DavidB: "The time lapse videos put together by Mike Olbinski get better and better each year. His videos do great justice in explaining why we chase and photograph storms. For some chasers, it's all about risk taking and how many tornadoes they got; with chasers like Mr. Olbinski it's about showing how amazing the atmosphere is.

"I've been chasing and photographing storms since the early '80s—long before it became popular. For me—and the folks I chased with—it was as much about the beauty of the storms as it was about tornadoes. Also, since we were all atmospheric scientists studying thunderstorms and tornadoes, it was an opportunity to observe the very phenomena we were studying through computer simulations and Doppler radar analysis. Some of us were even fortunate enough to do storm photography as part of our jobs during the various research programs over the years.

"As I watched this video, I was amused to actually recognize some of those storms. It would appear that Mr. Olbinski and I were located very near each other on at least a few days this spring. Congratulations to Mr. Olbinski for yet another outstanding storm video."

Andre Y: "Mike does great work and I'm a fan, but I think one of his previous videos is even better than this one!"

The Problem of Aging-Out

The bike pictured on Harley-Davidson's home page might be aspirational for riders, but the rider pictured is aspirational for the company. He's not a member of the major demographic for the company's products.

Harley-Davidson, the American motorcycle maker based in my old hometown of Milwaukee, might be going downhill. Registrations of on-road bikes fell 6% last year, and it's been several years since H-D made its shipping targets. Sales of Harleys have mirrored, in advance, the decline in the number of non-Hispanic white males aged 45–49 who make decent incomes.

Two more trends have spelled trouble for H-D: people under age 30 have shown less interest in large motorcycles in general, and Harleys in particular, than predecessor generations; and there is reportedly a glut of used Harleys flooding the market as older riders transition to the gentler activities of advanced age. Harley's CEO, says Barron's, "knows that Harley can’t just make bikes—it has to create demand."

When I was (briefly) at Model Railroader magazine, it faced a similar problem. Model railroading is a huge, if quiet, hobby (most of it literally happens underground—or at least below ground level, in basements). In 2000 there were believed to be roughly 500,000 active model railroaders in the United States and Canada. The trouble has been that the peak of the demographic are middle-class males who were ten years old in 1950, when an electric train set was the number one most popular Christmas gift for boys. Individuals in that peak group are now 77 years old. Creating interest in the hobby among younger generations has been problematic, with only sporadic success. It's a time-, money-, and labor-intensive pastime. And it's generally only available to people who have enough extra room in their house or living quarters to set up at least a 4x8' sheet of plywood and leave it there.

(Many layouts are much more elaborate than that. At a workshop with model railroading gurus Bob Hayden and David Frary, we visited an avid model railroader in Houston. With his wife he had raised four daughters, each of whom had her own bedroom upstairs. When the eldest daughter went away to college, Dad requisitioned her room for his model railroad. When daughter no. 2 left, Dad knocked down the wall between the two bedrooms and enlarged the layout. The pattern held with the third daughter, and shortly after the last daughter left home the entire second floor of the house, by then one huge room with no walls, was entirely devoted to one enormous HO-scale layout.

...And then some: at one end of the house the exterior wall didn't allow enough room for a desired radius of track, so the fellow cut a big hole in the side of the house and built a bump-out, a sort of box attached to the outside wall of the home. He said when a train derailed in the bump-out, he had to get up on a ladder on the outside of the house and access it through a trapdoor. He claimed this was only inconvenient when it was raining! 

I don't recall the guy's name; someone out there might know. He was a rangy older guy with white hair who looked a lot like the late actor Jack Palance in the latter's later years.)

I'm not sure there are any identifiable demographic worries for the photographic industry quite yet; the digital transition involved such wholesale changes in habits and buying patterns that statistical trends have gotten swamped by the tsunami. Further complicating the picture is that the "digital era" is not steady-state; we haven't seen the last of the changes in the market, and it's even possible that we haven't even seen the major changes yet. But I'm sure cameramakers have been closely watching demographic patterns—at least since 2012 when the camera market peaked. What will happen when those of us who grew up shooting film start to drift out of the pool of buyers? Is the popularity of big DSLRs generational? What kind of cameras will smartphone snappers want if they get serious, as some percentage of them will?

My great-aunt Dickie, who died at age 101 and ten months, took her first ride on a Harley at age 95—she donned a helmet, climbed aboard a much younger friend's hog, and off they went. She reported it was "fun." One thing is probably true—while I'm guessing there are precious few 95-year-old Harley-Davidson riders out there, there's not yet any known upper age limit to the enjoyment of photography.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

A model blog for all ages
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Featured Comments from:

scott kirkpatrick: "General aviation (small planes) also has an aging problem. But few pilots last as long as Captain John Miller, who flew until the age of 100. He kept his twin-engined Baron at Dutchess County Airport in Poughkeepsie, where I would hear about him. He barnstormed, flew early airmail routes, lived through the whole era.

"His sister, Lee Miller, was a photojournalist, friend of Man Ray, and one of the first to come back with photos of the Holocaust at WWII's end. John Miller is not the fictional character who saved Private Ryan."

David Comdico: "There is something a bit hypochondriacal about the incessant anxiety concerning the impeding death of the DSLR. Is it a side-effect of our ubiquitous neophilia? Amongst other cameras I own an F100 and a D810. Those two cameras have 18 years between them, shoot to different media, but are still remarkably similar to one another (the F100 viewfinder is nicer, but I digress). For sure, the F series is much older with the current modern shape arriving, as I understand it, in 1996 with the F5. That's over a 20-year iteration of a single industrial design in a product category that has seen massive disruption. That's pretty amazing. To me, the story should be instead about the improbable longevity of the DSLR."

Tim Bradshaw: "I think that big DSLRs are indeed generational, because I think they have become absurd. I use film almost entirely (because I like making prints in the darkroom). I have three Pentax MXs, and a few lenses. Every once in a while I think I really should start taking the whole digital thing seriously and I look at DSLRs. Well, Ricoh/Pentax make a DSLR I could use my lenses on now...and it weighs a kilogram. That is twice the weight (and probably more than twice the size) of the MX: it's two thirds the weight of my view camera (OK, discounting mandatory tripod, spot meter etc., so this is unfair). That's absurd. I can carry the MX with a 50mm lens in one hand all day and have done so many times. With a lens hood to keep rain off the lens it is small enough to be covered by the sleeve of my coat so I can do this in heavy rain, all day. I can do the same with the Ricoh GXR. I can't do that with the K-1, not even nearly: it's too big, and too heavy. If I bought one it would take lovely pictures but I would never use it."

Mike replies: The Pentax MX with a 50mm ƒ/1.4 M lens was very close to perfection, no? Funny how we move on, even from the near-perfect. But if you enjoy the darkroom work (I'm probably one of the few people who appreciates that, as I always loved working in the darkroom), what's not to like?

Winwalloe: "Your mention of this Harly Davidson ad campaign cracks me up: a casting for the campaign occured at a bar in L.A. I was in with friends (I was offered to take a shot at it but didn't). Who knows, it could have been a picture of me on this post haha. Elsewise, here's what this casting for Harley looked like:

Ade: "Apropos toy trains, I spent years trying to cultivate an interest in model railways, and gave it a 'proper' go once I achieved a decent disposable income and, due to living alone, a rental with sufficient space and nothing better to do with my spare time—only to discover that watching 'electric mice' still held little appeal for me. I found what was missing once I did what everyone was always telling me to do—went outside. I sold all my miniature engines and started again with slightly bigger trains in the garden. True, you need a garden with some space but the kits are reasonably priced and you can do as much or as little scenic modelling as you like (nature takes care of the rest). For a modest investment, you can even propel your trains with real steam. I guess this was the 'large format' equivalent of the modelling world - seems like more work with bigger kit but actually simplifies a lot of things and brings you closer to the original spirit of the hobby."

Mike replies: You know this, certainly, but for others who didn't know this was a niche, Kalmbach Publishing, which publishes Model Railroader, also publishes a magazine called Garden Railways for outdoor train layouts.

mike plews: "I suspect the demographic HD is looking to recruit is more likely to favor something like this. It is also worth noting that I am seeing more scooters and mopeds out on the street lately. Not the majority by any means but they seem to fold nicely into the hipster lifestyle."

Mike replies: That is the coolest thing ever.

Ernie Van Veen: "I took up motorcycle riding at the tender age of 10, and I haven't been willing to get onto another motorbike in the last 30 years (since my youngest was born). On the other hand, I took up photography in 2011 at the tender age of 54, and I just can't see a time where I would lose interest in photography or cameras (of whatever configuration). I can't image the arrival of grandchildren changing that."

Cliff R.: "Well you have wide appeal, Mike. I started reading TOP when I was in my 20s (33 now) and my 70-year-old dad also loves your blog. I was a young subscriber to Model Railroader in the early to mid '90s. Never could afford any sort of decent layout as a kid, of course, and as an adult I've been bitten by an even worse bug than model railroading or photography—flying!"

Robert Roaldi: "If people just bought motorcycles and rode them, the way people do in the rest of the world, as convenient and efficient transportation, I'd have no problem with them. But every neighbour I've ever had who owned a large bike seemed to think that it was their duty to put on aftermarket loud exhaust systems and make as much noise as possible. As far as I am concerned, their demise cannot come soon enough, and I'm an ex motor-head. For some reason, in North America, motorcycles seem to be a fetish, not a reasonable method of transportation."

Mike replies: This is a sore spot with me, as I'm sensitive to noise. I don't mean to be, I just can't help it. Not only are there laws on the books governing vehicle noise that are simply ignored in the case of big street motorcycles, but the mantra "loud pipes save lives" drives the logical part of my brain slightly to distraction. The idea is that being noisy alerts car and truck drivers more effectively to the motorcycle's presence on the road. The contradiction is that most of the same people who say "loud pipes save lives" are also against laws mandating the use of helmets.

I'll be quiet now.

Joe Massey: "Mike, I read your blog most days and very much enjoy doing so. Today, especially so. I just got back this afternoon to my computer after spending a couple of pleasurable hours running large scale trains on the outdoor layout of my friend John Carl. These are 1:20.3 'G scale' trains that are more than 2x the scale of the Lionel "O gauge" trains of my youth and much larger than the HO trains that have come to dominate the pages of Model Railroader (which I've been reading since 1952) so 77 year olds like John and I can see what we are working on when something goes wrong or a locomotive needs being put back on the track.

"John and I fit your description to a T: both born in 1940. We're like most men I know and like: we grew old but we did not grow up; we still play with trains. And I still play with cameras, another thing I've been doing since I had a Brownie that I valued almost as much as my Lionel 2-6-2 way back in the early '50s. And like cameras the digital age has come to trains which nowadays have digital controls and sound systems that provide digital downloads of the actual sounds of the prototype engines. Which just adds to the fun of being a 77 year old kid."

JohnMFlores: "If I had a nickle for every time someone talked about the graying motorcycle industry, I'd have approximately $88.35. Seriously, it is a topic of conversation at nearly every moto industry gathering that I've been a part of for the last five years. It's true and it's not just Harley Davidson. I see it at rallies and events all the time. Barring some miracle, motorcycles seem doomed to the margins as a hobby that the old people used to do, like scuba diving and rollerblading. And you know what? That's OK. As long as I can continue to ride and share my stories with whoever wants to read them, I'm OK.

"And what about photography? I don't know about you, but I see an awful lot of grey hair at photo events these days, and any time three photographers get together, the fourth couldn't make it because of sciatica or some other ailment that young folks (damn them) don't have. The iPhone is the gateway drug, of course, but are the young talents stepping up to DSLRs or mirrorless or drones or 4k video cameras or 360/VR rigs? I don't know. Just like motorcycles, as long as I can continue to learn and grow and share as a photographer, I'm OK."

Ed. Note: Motorcycling journalist John Flores is a regular contributor to RoadRunner magazine. He visited TOP World HQ last Summer—riding a motorcycle that was blissfully completely silent!

Mark Sampson: "Around 1977–82 or so I had a friend who was the director of a small and under-funded transportation (trolleys mostly) museum. His statement was 'Why should I play with toy trains when I can play with real ones?' Which we did."

Mike replies: I really don't know the story, but I believe Rod Stewart, the singer, who is a rail fanatic, has both a model railroad and a real steam locomotive which he plays with, down to the engineer's hat. He was the ultimate "get" for MR at the time I was there, but he wouldn't cooperate for an article. I gather he eventually relented and an article about him appeared, but I've never seen it.

Jeremy E: "DSLRs, mirrorless, and their ilk depend upon computers to process, and purchase of computers of all kinds is also in decline—people have computers for work, but not necessarily for personal use. If you look at active development of photography software at places like Adobe, it's going to heavy lifting/processing of images in a datacenter (the cloud) with enough UX in an app or a browser to present a face to the processing service and move pictures over the wire.

"There is always a place for professional work and equipment—I understand a lot of Instagram posts are big-time marketing and those 'amateur' pics are not from a smartphone."

Eric Brody: "Never forget that emergency room docs refer to motorcycles, all of them, as 'donorcycles.' In my day, working in a small southern Alabama hospital, I saw some impressive wrecks—people wrecks—whose lives, if they survived, would be forever altered."

A. Dias: "Harley-Davidson is trying to buy Ducati."

John McMillin: "The same aging-out peril is being discussed regarding electric guitars, which were declared dying in a recent Washington Post feature story. Besides the obvious issues of arthritis, hearing loss and a lack of contemporary guitar heroes in popular music, there's this, which relates to the Harley situation: the big guitar makes are so wedded to the past. Walk into any big guitar store—you know, the big nationwide chains under rumors of financial failure—and you'll see rows and rows of Stratocasters, Telecasters, and Les Pauls, and not much else. New designs must not sell as well as recreations of the 1950s innovations that rocked the world so long ago. By aping the past, manufacturers increase the mystique of old models, furthering their own problem."

Hotspur Closser: "Had I been a middle-aged white guy 20 years ago, I would have bought a Harley in a heartbeat. But being a middle-aged white guy in 2017, living in a busy college town in the age of smartphones and distracted driving, they couldn't pay me to ride one of their bikes. It doesn't matter how skilled or defensive a rider you are—it's only a matter of time before some eejit messing around on their phone takes you out."

An Open Letter to Fujifilm

A humble suggestion: Fujifilm should publish an enthusiast's book about its cameras and lenses.

A TOP reader called Tommy had this comment to make about the "Meaning of Leica" post:

The best thing about Leicas as far as I'm concerned is that they are a wonderful subject to talk about. Just look at the number of comments here, all of which I've enjoyed reading.

Leica realized early on that one of the best marketing tools was enthusiasts showing their enthusiasm. The literature of Leica was magnitudes more voluminous than any other brand's. It was and is possible to compile a pretty impressive library of Leicaphilia.

(Film Leicaphilia, at least. Not sure the digital Leicas have elicited quite the same affections.)

I've been in this game long enough now to notice that when a cameramaker is really hot for being cool, it will issue an enthusiast's book. Olympus issued The OM System Lens Handbook at the very apogee of the OM system (which met an untimely decline because of Olympus's early decision to not pursue autofocus); The Eyes of Nikon first came out when the AIS manual-focus lens system was at its peak; and Canon EF Lenswork came into being when it became clear that the EOS system had been the right gamble and was paying off, and Canon was surging into contention for numero uno for the first time.

The old Leica realized that its products were, as Tommy put it, "a wonderful subject to talk about." So far, nobody has been creating much of a literature about any digital cameramaker or its system; perhaps things do just change too fast, or loyalties are just too fickle. But it's good for business to encourage such books, I think. Leica realized that, at one time. The Fujifilm system is right now at an ideal point of its development to become the subject for a book like these.

Just a thought!

Mike
(Inset: Leica books for sale on eBay right now)

P.S. If Fujifilm takes my advice, I demand to be paid for my suggestion. The charge will be one (1) free copy of the book.

P.P.S. I really notice the difference in "literature" between golf, which I got enthusiastic about in the late '90s, and pool (billiards), which I got enthusiastic about eight or ten years ago. Golf has a huge literature; whole sections in bookstore sports departments are devoted to it. The literature is almost better than the game. The literature of pool is almost nonexistent...and what there is is of marginal quality (with the vivid exception of Mark Wilson's Play Great Pool, by a considerable margin the best book of pool instruction ever written). The same goes for the respective teaching traditions...golf has an incredibly strong teaching tradition. Everyone is expected to take lessons and read books and try "systems" and on and on. Pool on the other hand has almost nothing—the tradition in pool was hustling, and practitioners were always trying to hide their true ability (only showing their real "speed" when the prey was in their sights) and keep their secrets to themselves. Surely this extreme difference in bodies of literature has something to do with golf's huge wealth and pool's acute poverty.

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Shoot more pictures...and more pool
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Featured Comments from:

BW Jones: "Fujifilm has had a digital magazine for some time now."

Richard Parkin: "They produce the Fujifilm x magazine. And the Fujifilm x photographers website. So good luck with our claiming to have invented the idea  ;-)  ."

Mike replies: Forgive me if I can't say this entirely politely, but I was talking about...a book. You know, stack of printed paper sheets, bound together along one edge?

Okay, that was not quite polite, and I apologize!

But still, I meant a book.

Maybe you're not familiar with the genre. Here's where my lack of a functioning library really hurts me—what I should do is pull out the six or seven examples I have of such books and photograph them, so you can see what I'm talking about. Only Zeiss is another example.

I guess it's just me—could be. I just have always had this sense that the publication of such a book is a sign that a particular system is in the ascendancy, or has arrived—it seems like it's only when a company has done well and knows it has done well that such a book comes out. Like it's feeling its oats, so to speak. It's proud of its engineering, proud of its product lines, and basking in its rightful popularity. So it's like...a signal. A signal to the world of success and collective group pride.

I could be imagining that!

Speed: "Perhaps there is more golf than pool literature due to the seasonality and weather dependence of golf. When rainy or snowy (or dark) and your clubs are polished, there's nothing left to do but read books."

Mike replies: What you say makes sense.

Eamon Hickey: "Good idea, I think. That said, it's always worth remembering the much lower relative impact of books and other organized, packaged media (i.e. magazines or 'annuals') nowadays, compared to the near real-time social media stream, which never has a last page. I'll note that Fujifilm does indeed have a very active social media presence.

"But there's not doubt a book does let you get much further into the nitty-gritty where us camera nutjobs...er, photo enthusiasts...like to roll around."

Michael Perini: "It's a great idea, and could include Fujifilm's great history of specialty cameras and lenses. In nearly every case these were superb products which would serve to give their recent offerings even more credibility, to say nothing of the educational value of well done books of this type.

"The Leica Manual was a course in photography. My last copy was the 15th edition edited by Douglas O. Morgan, David Vestal, and William L. Broecker. The Hasselblad Manuals by Ernst Wildi were great learning tools as well. Way back in the day, Nikon World magazine introduced me to Pete Turner and Jay Maisel. Later Canon published EF Lens Work—The Eyes of EOS vols. I, II, and III which celebrated their lens line. I've kept all of them.

"By far the best though was the Leica Manual because it was edited by people who were photographers and teachers. It was an anthology with chapters written by credited photographers. Fuji would do well to find a writer / photographer / editor with long experience to edit their volume. It would set them apart. So, I'd suggest that you call them up and pitch the idea. There is already a large group of relatively high-profile Fujifilm users who would probably be glad to contribute to The Fujifilm Manual. What do you say?"

Jim Meeks: "Maybe Fuji should hire Gordon to write their book. You're too busy keeping us informed and entertained."

Mike replies: I resemble that remark!

Michel Hardy-Vallée: "On a related note, there's something commendable for any technology manufacturer to spend as much time and care for its print publications than it does to its core technology. The system books you mentioned are good examples, but the best example for me are the Kodak Black & White / Color / Professional photo guide series of the 1950s to the 1970s. The ones with all the cool analog calculator dials and wheels inside the pages, awesome charts, filter samples, and other tchotchkes that make them close to a weird mass-produced cross between an artist's books and children popup books."

Michael Perini: "I think it's a fair comment in today's rapidly changing technology environment to say that younger folks may not be nearly as interested in a book as older generations. It's probably true.

"But what is also true is that Fujifilm's new X series probably comes closer than any other new system to gain a measure of the cult like support that Leica enjoys. The Leica Manual was less dedicated to individual model features (although it did cover those) than to how to use your camera in different situations, each explained by an expert in that style. The other thing is that for such a volume to benefit the company, it does not need to sell in 'best seller' numbers. I got my Canon Lens Work books as premiums for Canon CPS membership. I do not personally use the Fujifilm X system (yet, I'm contemplating the GFX) but I think their kind of success is good for the industry."

Mini-Collections Can Be a Clue

...Anyway.

To continue the interrupted conversation (I don't know what was wrong with me on Thursday; dyspepsia, or angst, or anomie; some sort of hazy undefined malaise), I hope you got a chance to check out the comments on the "Book Update" post. And sorry again for posting them so late.

I asked if people who collect photography books have noticed if their acquisitions have been concentrated in any particular areas—what I called "collections within the collection" or "mini-collections." The answers were what I expected: a wide range. Here are some that people mentioned:

• Leica-associated people and things
• Railroad photography (several mentions)
• National Geographic photographers
• Martin Parr
• Czech photographers
• Books from TOP sales and recommendations
• Photojournalists who spoke or presented at a particular academic photojournalism program
• The painter Edward Hopper, as a photographic influence
• Daido Moriyama
• Contemporary Korean photo books
• Biographies and autobiographies of photographers
• Michael Kenna books, because of their beautiful production values
• Post-WWII Japanese photography
• Stephen Shore
• A complete collection of the books of the late railroad photographer Don Ball, Jr.
• Books by Strand and Kertesz
• Conceptual books questioning the nature and meaning of photography
• Individual monographs mainly of landscape photography
• Photobooks with a textual component
• Books in the social documentary, street, and photojournalistic (Magnum) traditions about the human condition
  
• Josef Sudek
• Books of quiet landscape photographs that do not "pop"
• Books featuring proof sheets
• Books about formerly communist countries

It's curious that sometimes people zero in on gathering certain kinds of books without completely conscious intention. Sometimes we find ourselves being channeled into a particular area of interest almost despite ourselves.

I believe these little "mini-collections" as I called them can be significant clues to the nature of our real photographic interests. Insights into the nature of the subject matter we are drawn to ought to be precious to us. I know one photographer who identified the fact that he loved complexity and visual chaos, or even carnage, filling up the photographic frame; once he realized this, he was able to find pictures in many kinds of subject matter, everything from a harbor jammed with sailboats to photographs of hurricane wreckage to crowds at beaches. What a great—and enabling—insight!

Some photographers just have a tendency to investigate what other people consider appropriate subjects for photographs and then photograph "that sort of thing." That's what leads to what I once called "photo magazine disease"—the motley of "the usual subjects" known to make "good" pictures. This leads to people having portfolios that don't really indicate any subject-matter passion or coherence at all—rather, they're just a collection of conventional or clichéd picturesque "stuff." (And by the way there's nothing wrong with that if you're aware of it and you've decided it's what you want to do.) Thus a picture of fall foliage follows one of a zoo animal which follows one of a cute puppy which follows one of a ballerina which follows one of a city scene which follows one of a cool car. (I used to genially poke fun at flower and cat pictures, and this was the reason for that. Of course, you can have a passion for flower pictures or cat pictures and do great work in those areas, as Tony Mendoza's delightful little Ernie always reminds me.)

Personally, I've never quite found my subject as a photographer. I can say that, finally, at my age now. I've tried lots of things—family; portraits; event reportage; documenting a particular region or area. I'm particularly drawn to Summer life around water and beaches (not sure if you could get away with the latter any more—it's been quite a while since I've tried). But all of these have just been "tendencies" that tend to sort of drift away rather than catch afire and become something that I could commit to. When people ask me what kind of photographer I am, I find I can't really say. I regret that.

Of course it's not too late. I guess it's time to go re-read On Being a Photographer by Bill Jay and David Hurn.  :-)  What I'm talking about—finding yourself by finding your subject—is one of that book's big concerns.

Photographers who know themselves know their subject. They're the lucky ones. There are lots of clues to help each of us find what our direction is; the books we semi-involuntarily gather around interests that seem inevitable to us might serve as one such clue.

Have a nice weekend! TOP will be back on Monday.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

No subject needed
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Huw Morgan: "This is a fascinating line of thought. What draws us to collect certain works of art? What drives us to photograph certain subjects? I have to give an artist's talk at my gallery show in September and I've been doing a lot of thinking about how I get drawn to certain subjects and projects. To me, it starts with the gut. I find myself shooting things that interest me first, then try to make sense out a seemingly random set of images. Writing an artist' s statement often helps to find the deeper reasons for taking these images. When my motivation emerges, a grain of a project takes shape and starts to drive future photographs. The project evolves and grows and takes on its own life."

Dennis: "It used to vaguely bother me that I didn't really have a particular subject that I'm passionate about shooting (like you, I can identify a few trends that reappear over the years). Then I got turned onto Jay Maisel's photography. I can't say that I find his photos more enjoyable to look at than many others in my collection...but I found him inspiring because he just goes out and shoots what strikes his fancy. He looks for things that demand to be shot.

"I'd have to be careful looking for clues in my photo book collection because there's a big disconnect between what I like to look at and what I like to shoot. I can point to thousands of photographs that I'd love to be able to say 'I shot that' but I wouldn't, in fact, want to go through the motions of shooting it. I'm reading Jon Krakauer's Into Thin Air right now and embrace the romantic notion of standing on top of an 8,000 meter peak and being able to say 'I did that,' but I'm ridiculously far removed from being the type of person who would do that. So I'll read books like that and enjoy photos that I appreciate even though they're not representative of what I want to spend my time doing or creating. (It's also interesting to me that more than half of my photo books consist of black and white photos and over 99% of my own photos are in color).

"If there's a mini-collection in my photo book collection, it's probably 'how to be a photographer' type books (including the Jay/Hurn book, Jay Maisel's books, Galen Rowell, David du Chemin and others)—though after reading Jay Maisel's books, I think I'm finally coming to terms with my photography and can hopefully be done with that genre."

Mike replies: Note that I'm not saying what you collect is what you shoot or should shoot. It's just that it can be a clue is all. I'm not criticizing what you're said here, merely adding a clarification to what I meant to say in the post.

Dennis Ng: "I mainly have Saint Ansel."

John Krill: "My collection is not with books but LIFE magazines. In particular issues that have the great photo essays that LIFE was famous for. I started by referencing the LIFE book 'Great Photographic Essays from Life.' Collecting essays by Gene Smith was the main passion. I ended with issues from the Vietnam war. The one issue I have yet to find has the famous D-Day photos by Robert Capa. And yes, I have several books on Vietnam."

Blog Note

[UPDATE Friday afternoon: All the comments have been posted! Please check the "Book Update" post especially for lots of interesting ones.

[UPDATE Friday morning: Been working hard since I got up at 7:30, and only 100 more comments to moderate. Gaining on it! —M. the Ed.]

Thursday afternoon: I appear to be under the weather, so to speak. It might take me till tomorrow to catch up with the comments. Sorry for the service outage!

—Earnest-but-inconstant Ed.

The Meaning of Leica

Yeah, I know, "LEItz CAmera." But that's not what I mean.

I admit to a certain bigotry about Leica. It's photography's only marque for the carriage trade, the "lifestyle" (i.e., status) brand of camera. The Veblen Good...i.e., the more expensive, the better.

And I'm a Democrat. I believe in—or at least approve of—egalitarianism, voting rights, community, education, equal rights for all citizens, a strong middle class, strong government regulation of business, federalism, and so on. The more wealth inequality there is, the more markets tend to bifurcate into products for the rich and products for the rest.

You'd think I'd love Leica. It's a classic marque with a great deal of history and lore, and I appreciate that kind of thing. And the company does everything right. (Probably because it's owned by an enthusiast with a strong vision.) It has a large sensor camera with the world's best lenses. A FF mirrorless. Legacy film cameras. A B&W-only camera. Plus—and this is a big one—it's the only company in the world with the boldness and the self-confidence to make its products simple. This is often overlooked, but it's the Apple of cameramakers as well as the Ferrari*.

 New Leica TL2 with 35mm (~50mm-e) lens

Given my values, you'd think the just announced TL2 is perfect. Small and totable, extremely elegant, relatively simple, with a big sensor (APS-C) and lots of megapixels (24), and the perfect Leica lens (a 23mm ƒ/2, 35mm-e).

Since I already admitted today that I could be accused of snarkiness, I will also say that I really love the fact that it's a copy of the Japanese NEX-7. If you know a lot about Leica history, you know that early Japanese cameramakers copied German cameras, basically Leica screwmount rangefinder models—Tanack, and Leotax, and everyone's favorite, Nicca. There were even Canon and Minolta Leica copies. So to have a Leica that's a copy of a Sony is, historically, to go full circle—something I find wonderful and marvelous.

Anyway, I like Leicas. I shot an M6 from 1990 to 1993, and an M4 for a year in the later '90s. I think I'll try harder in the future to discuss Leicas merely as cameras, and less as a loaded idea.

Mike

*Did you know that Jay Leno doesn't own a Ferrari, despite having 169 cars in his collection?

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

Leicus.
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Lynn: "Two points. If a Leica suits your style of shooting, it's not as expensive as you think—model upgrades/iterations aren't as frequent as most other brands. Film Leicas in particular seem to hold their value well. And they keep on working, with an occasional service. Secondly, there's the secondhand market which lowers the cost of entry.

"I might also mention that Barnack Leicas are wonderful precision tools that can be had for less than half the price of an iPhone and have a wonderful range of lenses, from cheap Russian Zeiss copies to modern Cosina-Voigtlander (and Leica) designs."

Mike replies: For hobbyist fun maybe, but in all my years in photography I've met exactly one guy who shot seriously with a Barnack Leica—it was in the 1990s, and it was the only camera he had owned since the '40s. I tried it for a while...trimming my film leaders with nail scissors before leaving the house, etc. Man, no thanks. A view camera is easier to use!

Douglas Chadwick: "Leica has certainly changed and I think it's just under the current ownership. I've owned Leica M cameras since the mid 1970s and back then they were just a little more expensive than Nikons. Things changed, slowly at first and then, since 2000 or so, they changed rapidly. It's an interesting comment on the current economy—the 1% has done extremely well over the last 30 years, and the new Leica company has done well in the new market.

"My newest Leica camera is an early M6, a great camera that seemed a little expensive at the time. My newest lens a 35mm Summicron ASPH. That also seemed expensive even before the price tripled. Tripled? Yes. But they have not made a camera that even mildly tempts me in the digital age. An interchangeable lens version of the Q I would probably buy. I have the money and I am a pro so I can write it off. But they have not even come close. Even though I have pretty much every lens and have owned more M bodies than I can count. But they are profitable, and I find that a good thing, even if they don't make anything I want. Maybe they will come up with something and they cannot do that if they go under."

Mike replies: Leica certainly makes a camera I would want—the S. That's the one where over-the-top lens quality really shines through.

Stefan: "Maybe it's more democratic to buy a Leica than a 'Japanese' Vietnam-made affordable camera—from the egalitarian point of view. Given that the Leica is so expensive because of the first-world wages in Germany, a Leica costs what it costs to produce it under the conditions you, Mike, live in. So the buyer of a cheaper camera made in low-wage countries is like a rich man making profit from underpaid villains in the middle ages."

Mike replies: I don't know about that. From what I hear many of Leica's employees in Germany are low-paid immigrants. And as far as I know my camera was made at Fujifilm's Taiwa factory near Sendai City in Japan, where the standard of living is quite high. And anyway, bringing skilled industry jobs to underdeveloped areas is usually considered a boon to those economies and populations, no?

Tommy: "The best thing about Leicas as far as I'm concerned is that they are a wonderful subject to talk about. Just look at the number of comments here, all of which I've enjoyed reading."

David Dyer-Bennet (partial comment): "...The higher levels of Veblen good aren't really to impress the hoi polloi, they're to impress lesser cognoscenti."

Statements

This is probably pretty snarky, and I apologize in advance. But if you're gonna peg your marketing to "making statements"...

...Then you'd better make sure that the following is not the statement you have to make!

Don't get too mad at me. More about Leica in the next post.

Mike

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Laughing and Crying

This made me laugh...

I guess this is a cousin of the practice of selling used items on eBay for more than they go for new, apparently trading on the perception that everything on eBay or Craigslist has to be a bargain. Actual value of this enlarger: a little less than nothing, in that it would be a fairly difficult task to find someone willing to take it for free.

On the other hand, if I ever do build my Visitor Center, I would happily display a Leitz Focomat IIc, an enlarger which actually might be worth this price.

...And this made me cry...

Really? Really? It's not bad enough that Bentley and Porsche both make SUVs? The choice between driving this or killing myself would be a very near thing.

No further comment!

Mike
(Thanks to JG)

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Really, no further comment. I would just get myself into trouble.
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Edd Fuller: "To whoever buys that enlarger, you're going to need some way to develop your film. I have a vintage stainless steel tank and reel in excellent condition that I would be willing to let go for $1,200."

Brian in Alberta: "M-B is one of the largest truck manufacturers in the world. Just saying."

Mike replies: Okay, but this one is manufactured by Nissan.

Jeff replies to Mike: "Not wholly manufactured by Nissan. It's built on a Nissan frame, jointly built with Daimler, and sold through the Mercedes Van Division (yes, they do that, too). May not come to the U.S.; targeted for Europe, where midsize pickups are more common. U.S. customers like full-size trucks."

Mani Sitaraman (partial comment): "I saw a genuinely mint, unused autofocus Focomat IIC for sale in a specialist Leica shop in Tokyo for $5,000 around the turn of the century. The shop owner said he expected it to sell within a day. It was gone the next day. Gorgeous piece of kit, though Kienzle made an identical version, the A69S, down to the individual bolts."

Book Update

Happy to report that in the previous book sale with Yale University Press, you (the collective "you") bought 416 copies of Paul Strand: Master of Modern Photography, 148 copies of Lee Friedlander's Family in the Picture and 139 copies of his In the Picture.

A question for you, just because I'm personally interested: do you have anything in your photo book library that could constitute a mini-collection within the collection? I think book lovers / book buyers tend to do that. I have a poet friend who finds he has gathered, without deliberately intending to, a large number of different editions of Dante. The excellent bookseller Andy Moursund of Washington D.C. and environs has a magnificent photo book collection (I've never seen it), but it is particularly strong, he tells me, in books featuring New York City. I could see a street photography aficionado gathering a nucleus of titles about street photography, which have proliferated over the past few years. I personally have a little half-shelf of books of snapshot photography. I don't know why, really...it's just that each time I find out about one, it seems to want the company of the others.

In any event, thanks to everyone who bought a book in this sale; I hope you're enjoying your purchase!

Mike

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Spreading photobooks and good cheer across the globe
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Bill Mitchell: "Mini(?) collections of Strand, HC-B, Weston, AA, and Leica-associated people and things."

Edd Fuller: "While my collection ranges far and wide, I do have a 'mini collection' devoted to railroad photography. There is a large body of work by very accomplished photographers who have explored railroad subjects, from O. Winston Link to David Plowden. Of course, railroads interest me, but I generally find work driven by a single subject—baseball, sailing yachts, architecture, bridges, etc.—particularly compelling."

Joe in L.A.: "I'm not sure this is what you are looking for, but, while I have an eclectic mix of photography books, I just noticed that I have an entire shelf of those featuring National Geographic photographers. I just can't resist their work and the stories they tell!"

Andrew: "The best-represented photographer in my modest collection is Martin Parr. I have most of his monographs, a couple of collections and some of his writing too (the three-volume photobook history with Gerry Badger). Just got on a Parr kick at a time when I was ravenously purchasing books."

Nigli: "My collection is heavily weighted to Czech photographers: Sudek, Drtikol, Koudelka, Streit, Tichy, Mucha (better known for his paintings). Another sub-collection would be books I've found out about here."

Speed: "My mini-collection is of books offered for sale by TOP. Photo books are expensive enough that I'm not inclined to buy from Amazon sight unseen. And today, aside from TOP and your so-far excellent recommendations, Amazon is it."

Mike replies: Well all right!

William Schneider: "I taught in a department that offers photojournalism among its majors. Each year, we'd have three or four notable photographers visit and present their work to students. Often they would have a book signing afterward. My mini-collection is photojournalism as a result of this."

JG: "I have a few sub-collections in my modest photo book collection, but the largest of them are books by the photographers included in the 1975 New Topographics exhibition in Rochester. At last count, I had 37 New Topographics-related books, including a copy of the original exhibition catalog. (In case you are curious, George Tice and Gerry Johansson are tied for second place.)"

mike plews: "Mrs. Plews and I both like Wright Morris a lot. I'm a photographer and she is an English major so it works out pretty well. We have assembled a collection of his photo books, novels and short stories."

Barry Burris: "I have a subset of my normal collection that is just different editions of Henry David Thoreau's Walden. Maybe two dozen different editions, specifically several annotated editions. I have read the book at least a dozen different times during my life and have yet to read the same edition twice.

"And for reasons unknown to me I keep all my Keith Carter photograph books separate from all my other photography books (100+). Nick Brandt's book are kept separate also, but this is primarily due to the disparity in the sizes of each book. In both collections I keep all the books I have not yet read, and in the case of photography books, spent at least several dedicated hours looking at, separated from all the rest I have read. Guess which stack is always growing faster. In the words of the late Warren Zevon...(paraphrashing): 'We buy books thinking we are also buying the time to read them.'"

Mike replies: I also have a number of editions of Walden. My favorite is a tiny little reprint of the Oxford World's Classics hardcover, the one that's four or five inches high. But now we're off topic!

Rodger Kingston: "I built a major collection of Walker Evans publications—over 2,000 books, periodicals, posters, and ephemera—which I sold as a collection in 2011. Now I find that I've re-accumulated 50+ Evans titles, a number of which were sent to me by authors and publishers I've been helpful to over the years. Also, I've accumulated 50+ books on Edward Hopper. Both of these artists have been a big influence on my own photography."

Mike replies: I've heard of many collectors who continue to collect after the major collection is sold. It seems there is always some residual energy left over from the effort!

Steve Jones: "My photography book collection started relatively late in life, so I’m still just trying to get the basics. However, when I collected records, I primarily centered on 1970s Bowie, Elvis Costello, the Clash, and the Sex Pistols (five different versions of 'Never Mind the Bullocks,' for which my brother berated me as being anathema to the whole point of punk).

"It’s interesting that you pointed out 'don’t know why,' because while I was an absolute Bowie freak, the other concentrated efforts, particularly the Clash, just seemed to manifest subconsciously, as I certainly could have made a greater effort with, say, the Ramones. I actually don’t buy ‘to collect’ these days—it’s all much more utilitarian—but I’ve since discovered that the fleeting production of certain photography books (including ones that I’ve bought due to your intervention: Jason Eskenazi’s Wonderland and Edward Weston’s Life Work for example ) invariably become collectibles.

"Now that I think about it, 'Mike’s Recommended,' which includes the latest offering, has a pretty solid presence among my photography books.

"And while living in Tokyo, I picked up a disproportionate number of Daido Moriyama books—an embryonic mini collection perhaps. Just to note, perhaps no other country in the world caters so splendidly to collector fanaticism than does Japan…God bless them!"

Mike replies: I used to have a whole case of CDs marked "Kimfluence," since they were all recommended, or mentioned, or given to me, by my ex-DJ friend Kim Kirkpatrick. But now we're off-topic....

David sauro: "I've recently been collecting Paul Caponigro and John Sexton books. An amazing education!"

Michael Meyer: "About two thirds of my photo book collection is composed of contemporary Korean photo books. Within that focus I have several of what you might consider mini-collections. The publisher Noonbit has been publishing its 'Noonbit Collection of Korean Photographers' Works' series for several years now. I have the initial set of the series but have not been able to keep up with the pace at which they release new sets. I also have numerous books from small presses such as Corners and Datz Press. Of individual photographers, my shelves feature a number of books from the prolific Seung Woo Back, though by no means everything he's published, and a number of books from curator Suejin Shin, whose work I admire immensely. I started a blog several years back about the books in my collection, www.koreanphotographybooks.com, written from an (informed) enthusiast's perspective. It's been a wonderful way for me to engage with the books."

Peter Marquis-Kyle: "This mini-collection might not qualify for the photo book label, but I seem to have a lot of biographies and autobiographies of photographers (including Sally Mann's wonderful Hold Still that I heard about on this blog)."

Marcelo Guarini: "This is funny. I'm not a poet, but I like to read and (try to) memorize beautiful poems. In my poetry book collection I have nine different versions of the Dante's Divine Comedy. Today I'm able to recite a few parts in the original Tuscan dialect; it flows like beautiful music.

"Regarding my photo book collection, the only mini-collection is of Michael Kenna books. He is not one of my favorite photographers, so I think is because his books are beautifully presented (i.e., Japan, covered with red silk, and Hokkaido with real wood covers)."

SNAFU

"Situation Normal, All F**ed Up": a slang expression originating in the Marine Corps during WWII, according to Wikipedia. And of course it never rests:

• EU threatens to fine Canon approximately $2.9 billion: Canon stock took a hit last week when the EU threatened to fine it 10% of annual revenue over malfeasance in the purchase of Toshiba's medical unit. And 10% of a lot is...a lot. Here's the story.

• Monkey business ruins photographer: I swear, humans are just such damn monkeys some of the time it drives me crazy. Remember David Slater's world-famous picture of the grinning black macaque? Well, according to The Guardian, "Slater has been embroiled in years of arcane legal wrangling over the nature of authorship" rather than profiting from his pictures. He's almost broke and says he's trying to get a job...as a tennis pro.

I could swear I heard a story once about a famous studio photographer who would direct the setup of still lifes, let his assistants get it perfect, come into the studio, approve the image on the ground glass...and walk out of the studio again, leaving his assistants to make the actual exposures. Guess he wouldn't have owned those pictures in today's climate.

Moral: if somebody (or something) else presses the shutter button, shhh! Don't finger yourself.

• Nikon smacks own forehead: The Nikon D750 has been recalled for the third time for the same issue. D'oh! 

...I'm sure there are more examples, but these will do. In other words: all is normal, same as ever.

Mike
(Thanks to Nic M., Michael Perini, and several other readers)

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D'oh!
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Art in LA: "OK, so who owns the image when you ask a stranger to take a picture of you and your family when you're traveling?"

Mike replies: Exactly. Which reminds me of another possibly apocryphal story featuring Richard Avedon: a couple asked him to take their picture at a tourist attraction. When asked later if he told them who he was, he said something like "If I told them who I was I would have had to charge them twenty thousand dollars."

Dave New: "Those assistants were hired, and thus were making images under a contract that likely specified that all copyright reverted to the studio. That's perfectly legal (at least in the US). When I take pictures at the company department picnic, and I'm on company time, I wouldn't presume that I own copyright in those photos, either. Even Ansel Adams waited until he was off the clock from his government photography job to make his historical landscape pictures, in which he maintained copyright."

Joe Kashi (partial comment): "The 'monkey business' case legally verges on harassment of the photographer, in my humble opinion, and arguably might be sanctionable against someone on the other side."

Monkey See: "I have way more respect for the monkeys in these photos than I do for PETA. What ever your point of view may be regarding the welfare of animals—PETA's charter and purpose is to improve their treatment. Every single second of every day there are absolutely horrible things happening to animals (and humans, by the way), all over the planet. We are going through what has been called the Sixth Extinction with thousands of species being annihilated each year due to human activity, and what does PETA spend its limited resources on? Suing a freelance photographer who is obviously an animal lover (he flew all the way to Indonesia to take photos of monkeys, for God's sake) over the idea of whether a monkey can own a copyright, taking the case through the Federal court of appeals, and impoverishing the poor photographer. Perhaps the hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees they wasted on this stupidity might have been used to, say, help prevent monkeys from being eaten? Rhinos from going extinct due to poachers? They are spending money on this rhetorical legal crap? I'm sorry, but, 'ethical' shouldn't be part of their name. Ridiculous!"

Boat Show!

Ed. Note: It turned out that "Look at Tone as Light" post was a great last post for a Friday, because the lively comments kept it going all weekend. Thanks to everyone who contributed their expertise and spoke to their own experience. I thought it was interesting that a number of people reported doing something similar (by a variety of different methods) as part of their regular workflow, and several people said they thought "depressed midtones" predated digital. Check out Doug Thacker's Featured Comment on that post, last in the stack.

Earlier last week I used a classic wooden boat as a rhetorical parallel (you remember the picture of the Chris-Craft barrel back), and, as if to order, there was a Classic Boat Show in Hammondsport this past weekend. I took the Fuji and THZ (the hated zoom) and did a little photography. How can you not like a boat show?

Do classic boats make you happy? These smiling ladies were clearly having a good time. Or maybe they just thought my hat looked funny.

Massive throngs of people jamming the waterfront. (You don't often see anything that can be called a "crowd" up in this part of the world).

The boats first did a slow parade in front of the crowd and then each did a "fly-by," i.e., passes at speed.

Just as all cars above a certain level of luxury are muscle cars these days, so all boats are now speedboats—you could pull skiers behind most bass boats, fer pete's sake. This is a launch, a boat intended to go slow. These have been replaced by the "martini boat" or pontoon boat for relaxed cruising these days, although Olive Oyl here has more style, don't you think?

(Even some pontoon boats are speedboats now too, and look at this!)

Old and new. I took the picture on the right up at Morgan Marine. Although you can't tell from the picture, the 200-horsepower supercharged Merc (spellcheck thinks I want to write "Mercado") is enormous—taller than the average ten-year-old and as burly as a gorilla in a zoo. Most outboard engines are now bizarrely huge, come to find out. When did that happen? I was unaware.

At one time there were 24(!) active boatbuilders on Keuka Lake where I live. This is a Penn Yan, named for the town just north of me. The Penn Yan Boat Company built wooden runabouts like this one meant to compete with the likes of Lyman. (The town itself was named to settle a dispute between Pennsylvanians and Yankees over who got to name it. There are a number of boats on the lake named "Penny Ann.")

The stylishly nautical helm of 1958 Century Raven, a boat that's just a tad younger than I am. The owners were very nice. The boat is an unrestored survivor in remarkably good shape.

The third cockpit of the appropriately named Razzle Dazzle, a three-cockpit Gar Wood. I learned to my surprise this is a 2007 boat—they still build Gar Woods new. You will need to bring your wallet.

Classic boating is a family affair!

Something for everyone—classic car buffs had these 1940s Chevrolet "woodies" to gawk at. And classic train buffs amongst ye will doubtless be interested in the police station building behind the cars, as it used to be the town train station.

Note the height of the vehicle—and we thought SUVs were a recent idea? This one had the original invoice in the window—written on a typewriter. The car cost just over $2,000 in the mid-1940s.

loading Queeny on her trailer. I hope you like the positions of the two gentlemen in the frame—it took me a lot of shots and lot of jockeying to make it look easy!

Time to wrap up! Show's over.

Mike

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John: "Your post triggered some good memories. As a kid I spent my summers on Keuka Lake, skiing behind a boat much like these. Our cottage was just across the lake from the college. When we five boys weren't on or in the water, we were usually exploring the endless creeks and gorges. Or in Penn Yan spending the quarters our grandfather paid us for pulling weeds. Life speeds along like a Penn Yan Swift. Thanks for the flashback."

Steve Higgins: "I think we need to see the hat to be able to make a sensible critical decision....  :-)   ."

Mike replies: Here you go. Bought on doctor's orders—dermatologist's, actually—to protect my bald spot from excessive sun and possible future skin cancer.

MikeR: "Your hat looks funny! (I have one just like it. Recent trip to Florida proved its worth.)"

Mike replies: It only looks funny if you're younger than 55. Otherwise it looks perfectly natural.

Dave Kee: "I have a hat like that, but years ago I was told by SWMBO not to wear it because it made me look as old as Henry Fonda did in 'On Golden Pond.' Just checked, and I am now as old as Henry was when he made the movie. I think I will dig the hat out of the back of the closet."

Bob Johnston [no immediate relation]: "Thanks for showing these great photos Mike. Those boats are works of art. I particularly liked Olive Oyl. Isn't it great that there are people who keep these going for us to see?"

Mike replies: It certainly is. I wouldn't want to do it. I have a cousin who loves these boats, and he's rich, but what he does is build models of them. When I asked him why he doesn't buy a real one, he said something like "who needs the headache?" Re the hat scene from 'Caddyshack': "Looks good on you though."

D. Hufford: "Yep. Checked the hat at the link. No doubt it was the hat."

Look at Tone as Light

...So to pick up where I left off yesterday...I was railing with good-natured hyperbole about the general run of digital B&W. And on that point I need to begin by making a short digression to emphasize two points:

1. I wasn't necessarily talking about the B&W of devoted practitioners—experts—many of whom know more about conversion than I do, and do splendid work (at least, they do the work they want to be doing).
2. It's not a matter of film v. digital with one or the other being better or worse. I always used to gadfly at length about the normal run of poor printing with film on photo paper, too. Ninety-five percent of digital B&W might be crap (present company not included in that), but 95% of film B&W was crap. It's not a status thing we're on about here: it's about improving our perception, vision, taste, and technique, whichever medium we use.

...So then. As I mentioned, earlier this week I was agonizing over the Sony A7II vs. the A6500, and happened to run across this photo by a guy who shoots the A6500 and Sony 16–70mm ƒ/4 zoom, Paul Grubb. It perfectly illustrated what I was saying about modern digital tending to depress the middle values, so it provides an opportunity for discussion. Paul gave me his permission to use his picture for that, for which our thanks to him.

[For emphasis: Check out the photo on Flickr first.]

And I need to add—yet more qualifying, but it will come up in the comments otherwise—that there's nothing wrong with his picture or the way he's presented it, as I see it on my monitor. Insofar as it was deliberate I have utterly no problem with it; people own their own pictures and should do with them whatever they want to do. In critiquing, I'm not criticizing, necessarily. Paul for instance can take my comments and reject them all and that's perfectly okay with me. It's his picture.

But this should show what I mean by the way digital tends to shift the middle values downward:

Original on top, modified version on the bottom. They may look quite close to you at first, but before we go on, let your eyes go back and forth between specific areas of the two until you start to get a handle on the differences.

What I did was take a quick screenshot of a portion of Paul's picture—so I'm working with far less information than would be in the original file—and add an inverted S-curve to it:

At the risk of muddying the waters, I also added a touch of sepia color. But really, most of the effects you see are tonal.

Start with the man's and the woman's faces. Notice how the change in tone seems almost to change their expressions—in the top version their eyes are hooded, their features more sharp. The man looks a little angry, even, like he is scowling, and seems to have his mouth in a slightly different position—seems a bit more closed in the top version and a bit more open in the bottom picture, do you see that?  In the top version, the bridge of the woman's nose is bright and her facial planes are emphasized.

Next look at her hair. In the top version it almost seems unnaturally streaked; in the bottom version it just looks like soft blonde hair.

I'm probably exaggerating just in order to put these things into words. But do you see how the top version feels just a little stormy, a little harsh? The bottom version just looks like people in a crowd enjoying themselves on an overcast day when the weather wasn't the best. This is the stuff interpretation is made of in black-and-white.

Note that this has nothing to do with "contrast" in the conventional understanding of it*. With the curve modification the black and white points stay in exactly the same places. It's merely the distribution of tones in between.

You might not agree that the change is an improvement, and that's okay, of course. The point I was trying to make is that the default conversion processing—across the tens if not hundreds of thousands of digital B&W representations I've looked at online, and far fewer (but still lots) in prints—tends to depress the middle values. In Paul's picture it's noticeable but moderate; sometimes it's much more extreme.

Flip over
I'd also encourage you to try to learn the trick of backing away from the technical observations and paying attention to the emotional representation. How do the expressions on faces look? What is the overall "feel" of what you're seeing? At the risk of more hyperbole—I'm emphasizing slight differences too much here—the top version imparts just a touch of dread and brooding, of severity, while the bottom version is more relaxed, more harmonious with the meaning of the scene we're looking at—a family strolling in a relaxed way in a crowded city.

It's a matter of learning to flip over from looking at the representation to looking at what's being represented.

The same mental trick can be learned with the light. We look at tone as a technical matter, and we see grays, contrasts, edges; but it's also possible to learn to look at it as light. Look at the representation and try to see the light of the day. What was the sky like? What time was it? To me anyway, the subtle change from the top version to the bottom version makes the light become real.

Please do grant me a bit of leeway here, in trying to put subtle visual effects into words! And also for the fact that the critical tones might appear too light or too dark on your monitor or device.

In any event, I think if you start looking for depressed midtones and learn how to recognize the "look," it will start to pop out at you, and you'll see it everywhere in online B&W.

Anyway, have a nice weekend! TOP will return on Monday, "same as it ever was." IF you happen to go shopping yourself and you're not in York, please start here!

Mike
(Thanks to Paul)

*[UPDATE: By "conventional understanding of it" I meant macro/overall/global contrast, i.e., pushing or pulling more or less information into or out of pure black or pure white. This short phrase has caused a lot of consternation in the comments. It's impossible to stop to define every term and qualify every phrase when writing a short, basic article. Please grant me that leeway I asked for.... —MJ]

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Ed Hawco (partial comment): "I'm following this with interest, because I do a bit of digital B&W and I come from a B&W film/print background. The standout item for me was the comparison of high end and low end. But I'm not 100% convinced on the middle values part. Mike, you said '...the way digital tends to shift the middle values downward.' My question—and I hope this doesn't sound flippant—is this: is it digital that shifts the middle values downward, or is it digital photographers who shift the middle values downward? By that I mean I wonder if it's primarily an aesthetic trend."

Mike replies: Various people have complained about this, including privately. But as I took some care to explain, it's not a film vs. digital status thing and I made no attempt to pinpoint the root causes. I'm just characterizing what I often see done, typically or usually. There's no time in a short, basic article to go into every ramification of every phrase.

I think your insight that it's partly an aesthetic trend is wise, however.

Paul Grubb: "Mike, thanks for the critique, they are always welcome, it's how I grow as a photographer by understanding how others view my photos. For me B&W post processing is one of the hardest, as pictures can change significantly with the smallest of tweaks to a lightroom slider. I do like the idea of the emotional approach to post production as it separates out some of the hard science and allows you to focus on what you are trying to portray. That said what I have learned is that the tone curve can totally transform the emotion of a photograph. Looking at the photo again, that guy's brow does trouble me, a little shiny and as you say a tad 'angry.'  :-) 

"Thanks again for the critique, it's given me some good food for thought and a desire to revisit this pic."

Michael: "Thanks a tremendous amount for this, Mike. (And thanks to Paul, whose photo from York reminds me vividly of the, ah, heightened experience when we first went there with two small children on a swarming Saturday and lost track of each other and the kids.) This illustration is a perfect teaching example and I will look for these effects much more carefully now that you have made the effort to tune my eye. I can certainly understand liking Paul's original, because it captures the moodiness of a winter's day in northern England. (It was on such a moody day that we misplaced each other and the kids.) But the raised mid-tones do, to my eye, reveal both a kinder side, and probably a more faithful interpretation, of people in in The Shambles (which, during the missing kids episode, seemed so ominous because it means the medieval slaughterhouses and butcher's shops of the city)."

Al C.: "Technically, your curve is not an 'S' (cyma recta), but a cyma reversa. Don't you always apply a cyma reversa in post, whether B&W or color? I do, for all the reasons you noted."

Henry Rinne: "I tend to agree with you about the basic B&W conversions in most software. I always find these defaults to be rather muddy and poorly defined. I have been using the Nik Silver Efex II for quite sometime and have created my own recipes for conversion that largely do what you suggest. I also like SEII's ability to indicate the ten step tonal range, which I have used to help understand the tonal relations in the image especially the mid and high tone values. I also agree that stepping back from the image and removing the technical aspect from your assessment is very important. After all it is an expressive work that should communicate something and not just enthrall another photographer because of its technical proficiency."

Lynn: "My starting point for B&W conversions of digital images is:

1. What are the existing light conditions—is it bright/sunny with high natural contrast and deep shadows, is it overcast with a flatter tonal curve and more nuanced transitions from light to shade?
2. What is the overall mood of the picture I visualize?

"When processing I prioritize maintaining the natural tonal relationships in 1. so the image retains a natural credibility rather than looking over-processed. Any tone re-mapping with curves to tweak the mood have to be done within the constraint of retaining credibility. The failure of most B&W conversions is when the natural tonal relationships in the picture for the existing lighting conditions are destroyed, and the image looks manipulated and fake. Most HDR (unless done subtly) falls into this category. The eyeball test is 'does this look credible?' Low contrast on a bright sunny day or high contrast in open shade or an overcast day usually fails the test."

Andrew: "This is an interesting discussion, with the crossing threads between technique, aesthetic, and technology.

"I recently went to see a Georgia O'Keeffe exhibit, and to provide context they included photography from her partner Alfred Stieglitz, and her friend Ansel Adams.

"I was very curious to see Stieglitz's work, as he is one of the giants in early American photography. But I was truly underwhelmed by the prints I saw there! Whether it was the medium, or the age of the prints, or his exposure, I noticed precisely this phenomenon you're talking about—the midtones were just wrong. Everything about the images seemed a bit too drab, and they felt underexposed, especially in contrast with the bright white matting of their frames.

"Perhaps I wouldn't have noticed it quite so acutely if I hadn't been able to juxtapose Stieglitz's work with Ansel Adams's. The Adams photos just had so much more depth and nuance in them—while there is no denying the talents of his eye, his mastery in exposure and printing was what truly stood out to me.

"A bit of a rambling story, especially placed against the very neat visual comparison you have up there, but all this to say that I wholeheartedly agree.

"Now, to load a roll of T-Max in my old Koni Omega 6x7. (Ugly camera, as your other post illustrates, but fantastic results that come out the other end....)"

William Schneider: "About strong opinions regarding 'right' and 'wrong' renderings of tonality...

"In 1995, I was hired to teach darkroom photography at the same time a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper photographer was hired in our department. She preferred a much higher print contrast than I did. I had used large format film and the zone system extensively, and preferred that softer kind of rendering.

"To me, her B&W photos approached a kind of 'soot-and-chalk' appearance that Adams complained about. In pondering why, I thought of her experience. Newspaper printing destroyed subtle pictures, and couldn't reproduce all the shades of gray apparent in an original darkroom print. She preferred a print suitable for the inevitable shifting of tones when on press and strong graphics in the content. That's what she was used to. It was right for her, and she had a Pulitzer Prize.

"We still poke fun of each other about our printing preferences but we both understand that it's a decision born of taste, experience, and circumstances. It's not a 'right' or 'wrong' decision.

"By the way, I would have gone further than Mike did. But that's my preference, not his."

Mike replies: Something similar happened to Carl Weese and myself, but with the opposite result. When we (first?) met in the '90s, he was in D.C. to photograph some athletic events on the Mall. We argued spiritedly over print contrast, with me advocating softer, gentler contrast and he advocating stronger, livelier contrast. But some time later, we each realized our arguments had had an effect on the other—he had begun exploring soft, gentle contrast, and I had moved to "punch up" my printing style to make it stronger and more lively.  :-)

Peter Wright: "This discussion had me pulling out my copy of Peter Turnley's French Kiss which was a TOP book offer some time back. Peter doesn't include technical details, but I believe that the pictures are split fairly evenly between film and digital using a film Leica and a digital M-Monochrom Leica respectively, each with a 35mm ƒ/1.4 lens. If you want to study good, consistent tonality across both mediums this is a great place to start. Most photographers would be able to tell which was which, but the tonality alone gives no clues. In my case, I also took advantage of the associated print offer, and bought one of the pictures which happened to be printed by Voja Mitrovic (who printed for Henry Cartier Bresson). Seeing examples like these has helped me know why and where to move that pesky tone curve! Time for another book/B&W print offer!"

Ken Tanaka: "Re 'I'd also encourage you to try to learn the trick of backing away from the technical observations and paying attention to the emotional representation.' That's actually the most important message here. Learning how to use color and tone to implicitly communicate from within an explicit scene should be the goal. Rightness can only be judged against communication intentions, not against technical standards."

Doug Thacker: "I think this suppression of the midtones in B&W photography pre-dates digital. I think it represents a change in the collective eye.

"When I got into photography as a high school student in the early 1970s, it didn't take long to realize I detested the middle gray of most black and white photography. To me, it looked bland and boring and old fashioned. Shortly after I learned to print, I started using a higher contrast paper and printing for deep, rich blacks, and luscious, pristine whites, with only enough tonality in-between to hold up both ends. I also wanted to know why art photography couldn't be shot in color, and proceeded to do just that.

"Life then intervened and I got sidetracked for a while, but when I next looked up, sometime in the '90s, I noticed color photography had gained wide acceptance in art, and lots of people were printing black and white the way I used to—lots of advertising and magazine photography reflected this trend, as well.

"So that's when I concluded that this must be a generational shift of some sort, a change in the collective eye. Maybe being inundated with advertising all our lives had something to do with it, who knows? Or maybe it was the influence of electronic media—bright colors and high contrast B&W being the visual equivalent of sugar and fat.

"Then digital came along and made a necessity of preference, if not a virtue, and here we are. Even still, I hate the way digital typically renders highlights, but this may be changing. I've noticed that some current cameras seem to retain info even in the brightest highlights, and no longer just fall off a cliff the way digital used to. These seem to be the ISO-invariant sensors, such as the Nikon D7200."

Brief Speculations on Nikon and Mirrorless

Written by Eamon Hickey

There's been a bit of buzz in the past week over Nikon's future plans for mirrorless cameras. The good folks at Digital Photography Review even managed to wrangle an official statement from Nikon that the company is "currently developing new mirrorless products," although no details were provided, of course. Three random points on this general topic have been circulating in my mind recently, and I feel like getting them off my chest…er, mind…whatever!

1.) In the general Internet commentary, there seem to be two factions regarding the lens mount. Some want a Nikon mirrorless lineup that uses the current F-mount, ensuring the continued usability of the 100 million or so Nikon F-mount lenses still focusing light in the world. Others insist that Nikon should not cling to "old" technology and instead go with a new mount that specifies a shorter distance from lens flange to focal plane (a.k.a. flange back distance), which will allow somewhat smaller (mostly thinner) cameras for those, like me, who wish photography was less burdensome. Literally.

I honestly think this one is pretty easy to predict: Nikon will do both. (Same for Canon, by the way.) It's the only believable business decision. So my prediction is that by some point in the not-too-distant future there will be Nikon mirrorless camera models, including full frame 35mm models, that natively use the F-mount and other Nikon mirrorless models that use a new mount with a shorter flange back that can work with both APS-C and FF sensors. Of course, there will also be an adapter (or adapters) to stick F-mount lenses on the new mount bodies. (Nikon already has a fully modern short-flange-back mirrorless lens mount for the Nikon 1 series cameras, but that lineup is clearly not, nor was it ever intended to be, the platform for future success in the higher-end interchangeable-lens camera segment, a segment that Nikon must aggressively pursue.)

The fully waterproof AW1, usable underwater, is part of Nikon's
mirrorless 1-series of consumer 1" cameras

It should go without saying that Nikon will also continue to develop and sell DSLRs as long as there is a healthy market for them. (DSLR sales are, for the time being, still much bigger than mirrorless ILC sales.) This approach has some definite drawbacks—market confusion and effort fragmentation being the biggest—but all the alternatives will be judged by Nikon to have even greater drawbacks. I'm pretty convinced of that.

Canon will do this, too. They are already halfway there with the EF-M mount. There will be native EF-mount mirrorless cameras alongside the current EF-M mount mirrorless cameras and almost certainly even FF EF-M mirrorless cameras, eventually.

In a way, Sony already does this—the short-flange-back mirrorless E-mount supports both APS-C and FF cameras, and Sony also continues to support the old (Minolta) SLR A-mount with cameras that, while they still have a vestigial mirror, are, in fact, electronic viewing cameras and operate like mirrorless models in every important way except their autofocus system.

2.) Now, some people at this point will posit that Nikon can't afford a development effort like the one I'm describing. But that's just not true, which is easy to see if you take the time to read Nikon's financial statements and know a little about how to understand them. Nikon has a lot of cash and a healthy balance of assets and equity versus debt—in plain language, they are worth a lot more than they owe. Nikon could spend $1 billion (with a "b"!) on R&D tomorrow and still have a very solid solvency profile. (Their equity ratio, one common indicator of solvency, which is now about 50%, would still be about 35–40%, much better than either Sony or Panasonic, for example. Speaking loosely, anything above 20% is considered solid.) And a billion dollars is way more than enough to develop several mirrorless camera systems, plus, oh, I don't know, a talking toaster. Nikon does have important long-term growth and profitability worries, but that's not the same thing as current financial troubles, and it's also not the topic of this ramble of mine.

3.) Finally, a lot of people are convinced it's too late. Game over. Ship sailed. Other people, including Thom Hogan in a comment at Nikon Rumors, have explained why that's not necessarily true at all. I'll just add my two cents that I think that many people overestimate the value of being a first-mover in a market. There are literally thousands of examples of latecomers succeeding, and even overtaking, the early birds. There's a huge example just in the recent digital camera era: Canon was very late to embrace digital cameras seriously and badly trailed the market behind Sony and Olympus (the big first-movers), and even Nikon (the third mover). I well remember the "dinosaur Canon is doomed!" wailings on the Internet in 1999/2000. Then the dinosaur bestirred itself and started moving, and it crushed everyone under its big dinosaur feet, dominating all levels of the standalone digital camera business for almost 15 years now. I could cite many other examples (for many companies, not just Canon) over the course of camera business history.

Now, it's obviously true that you can't catch up if you execute badly. For those anxious to comment thusly, I'll say it again: yes, catching up is a challenge, and bad execution will doom the effort. I'm not overlooking that little wrinkle. So that's the crux of the matter. If Nikon (and Canon) want to do really well in mirrorless cameras, it's not too late, but they do need to execute well. (Canon is actually already doing decently well with its EF-M cameras, especially in Asia.) Maybe they won't execute well. Nikon in particular has had a few bad strikeouts lately, to be sure. But they have a perfectly good chance, if—note the "if"—they do the job right.

On the question of whether they will in fact do it right, my prediction machine is broken.

Eamon

Longtime camera industry analyst Eamon Hickey is a Contributing Editor of TOP.

©2017 by Eamon Hickey, all rights reserved

Original contents copyright 2017 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Dennis: "I think you (and Thom) make sense saying it's not too late, but Nikon's running out of time to make any mistakes. (I think Nikon 1 was poorly conceived as a half high-end, half dumbed-down hybrid that was too expensive for its sensor size. I also think Sony, Olympus and Panasonic all did mirrorless poorly with their initial systems aimed at 'point-and-shoot upgraders' but had time to pivot).

"I'm not so convinced on what we'll see in the way of a mount. I would expect to see either F mount or something that works seamlessly with F mount (a really well done adapter solution) but have a little bit of a hard time seeing them do a new mount with new lenses. Recent new F mount lenses look like they're geared towards mirrorless use.

"Any take on the likelihood of seeing IBIS incorporated in future mirrorless models (now that other brands' 'dual IS' is getting rave reviews)? In the past, IBIS might have seemed like an admission by Nikon or Canon that lens-based IS might not be superior. But now the IBIS manufacturers also offer lens IS (and make the two work together)...and IBIS makes more sense with live view where it stabilizes the viewfinder image (where only lens IS does that in a DSLR). It seems like if they had any thought of doing IBIS, a new mirrorless system might be the right time/place for it. The problem I see is that they have excellent lens-based VR already and might have to pay to license IBIS patents from Sony and/or Olympus."

rosuna: "Hello Eamon: Early birds have to invest a lot in R&D and assume a lot of risks. Late comers show up when all technologies are mature, the costs are low and the risks are negligible. Any company can develop a mirrorless system now with a low investment effort and an assured level of quality, just using standard components.

"For Canon and Nikon mirrorlesses are only a part of the cake. They will go for it, minimizing risks and investment. At this moment there is not much income in the camera business. The most innovative companies are forced to do that, or disappear. The big ones' strategy is to preserve. The mirrorless systems by Canon and Nikon will be deployed slowly, in a conservative way, without innovations, looking at particular market niches. Well made products, but unexciting."

Ilkka: "Re 'Canon was very late to embrace digital cameras seriously.' Really? I thought their D30. (Or was it 30D?) was among the first 'serious' consumer DSLRs on the market? And the 1Ds among the first full frame pro bodies? They did lag badly in mirrorless but I think in DSLRs they have always been quite advanced."

Eamon replies: Yep, really. It's a tangent to the point I was making, but many people nowadays are understandably surprised by it. So just for the record, here's what the Chairman and CEO of Canon said about it in an article in Electronic Engineering Times in May, 2000: "Canon introduced a digital still camera in the early '80s, but it was too early and was not successful," said Fujio Mitarai, president of Canon. "Since then, we have been concentrating on analog cameras and have let our competitors get ahead in the digital still camera market. But while we were behind, we used the time to develop key components, and now our digital still camera strategy is in good shape," he said.

The digital camera business really started getting serious in 1997, with Sony and Olympus way out in front of everybody else; Canon didn't get into the top four until 2001. So strange as it may seem, Canon napped through the first few years of the biggest market shift in at least the last 100 years in the camera business. But Mitarai was 100% right about their ability to come roaring back. They took the lead in 2002 and have never lost it.

Paul Grubb?

Does anyone know a photographer who lives north of Lockerbie named Paul Grubb? He's a photographer on Flickr and I can't figure out how to contact him. I'd like to make some comments on the B&W conversion of this photograph of his (which is perfectly fine as he has it, no insult intended at all) for teaching purposes here. I would only reproduce a detail (a portion of the image, that is). I would rather not do it without his permission.

I've spent several hours attempting to contact him. I've found his Facebook page (a message from a non-"friend" is likely to go unanswered, I know from experience); his Instagram account; his Flickr photostream; and his website—nothing I can see provides an email address or any means of contact.

Which raises another question—what good is social media for photographers if it doesn't provide any means of contact? Perhaps this particular person just doesn't want to be contacted, I don't know.

I'm not very good with social media, obviously. Maybe one of you is better at it.

As I said before, technically I have the right under the Fair Use doctrine of the Copyright Act to reproduce work in order to comment on it or critique it. But I'm loathe to do that to a fellow photographer without his or her consent. It might be legal, but it doesn't seem polite.

I hope this illustrates the relative impossibility of doing critiques of found work on a regular basis here on TOP. The whole enterprise would just slow to a crawl if I had to do all the work to secure permissions to use examples.

Paul Grubb describes himself as a "Sony a6500 bore and keen walker :)  ." He's done some very nice work, mainly in color.

[UPDATE: I sent Paul a note via Flickr Mail. The problem might have been that after I signed up to join Flickr, somehow the path took me back to Flickr in my un-logged-in state, and even thought I thought I was signed in I still didn't see any way to make contact. Every mistake that happens on a computer or the Internet is your fault, though, so, my fault. —MJ]

Mike

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Featured Comments from:

David Raboin: "Every photographer should spend the hour or two that it takes to link together all their online presences. Last week, I was contacted by two national TV news networks to use an aerial photo I took of one of the large California wildfires. They found me through Twitter and then followed the link back to my website that has all my contact info. Of course they wanted my work for free so I told them to bug off, but it was fun anyways."