Open Mike: All Cameras Yield Their Gifts

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial page of TOP. When everything is normal, it appears on Wednesdays.]

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My latest iPhone shot I like:

Tim

I have a friend named Ken who has a friend called "Clean" (because he looks like Mr. Clean) who sold his pool table (a Schmidt! Such things excite me) to a guy named Tim. Tim invited Clean to come play on his old table and Clean invited Ken and me. Clean and Tim were bar-table champions in their league for nine straight years, and they beat us 10–9 with two balls left on the table. That smarted.

Tim worked for the Parks (I think) and clearly has too much energy for being retired. Not only does he restore old games (above are just a few of his vintage pinball and arcade games) but he turned the swamp at the bottom of the farm field behind the woods in back of his house into a park: the swamp is now a lake with a bridge over it, everything's landscaped and manicured and mowed, there are working streetlights sprinkled over the area sprouting out of the grass, and he's set out vintage park and playground accoutrements and equipment here and there, along with a few gazebos and outbuildings. He holds big parties out there, with music piped through old horn theater speakers (big ol' Klipsches, which I also like).

The area where I live is sparsely populated. Tim lives out in the middle of nowhere. His little handmade fantasy park is surrounded by woods and by farm fields that disappear up and over the rolling hills. From a car, from any direction, you'd never know it's there.

As I mentioned, Clean's old table that is now Tim's is a Schmidt. A.E. Schmidt pool tables have been manufactured in the United States of America for 169 (!) years, under the continuous stewardship of six generations of one family, and you will find Schmidts—the people, I mean—on the factory floor to this very day. The factory is in downtown St. Louis, Missouri, between the Peres Drainage and the mighty Mississippi, a hop, skip and a jump from the Illinois border. They've never diversified—they make pool tables. The pool tables are superbly constructed but not overbuilt, and expensive but not overpriced. A.E. Schmidts are all-American, old-fashioned American. Not a lot of fuss, not a lot of fame. They make about 600 a year. They have a standard catalog but they build to order, so you can tell them what you want. Set one up right, with Accu-fast cushions and Simonis 860 cloth, and they're just the sweetest tables of all to play on.

I don't have one and have zero connection to the company. I made the foregoing paragraph tight because I can go on when the subject is pool tables. And you know how I can go on.

Zeiss Contessa and Sony NEX-6

As for my iPhone, which is currently one of my two main cameras (the other is a Fuji X-H1), all cameras yield their gifts. Of all the cameras I've ever shot with, the iPhone is another. It has been exactly like every other camera I've ever liked: it can be a lot of fun to shoot with, and, if I shoot with it enough, every now and then I get a shot I like.

I graduated from photography school intending to expand my experience of different cameras, and I've shot with an awful lot of them over the decades, from a Minox to a Contessa to a Wista to a Xapshot to a NEX-6. The only problem with my iPhone is that it shares some of the limitations of small-sensor cameras, and in the back of my mind it kinda bugs me that I'd have problems if I wanted to print certain ones past a certain size. But then, I love the viewfinder indoors. Win some, lose some: also like every other camera I've ever liked. 

It can be a lot of fun to shoot with, and, if I shoot with it enough, every now and then I get a shot I like. All cameras yield their gifts.

Mike
(Photo of Tim I. published with his permission)

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

Steve Jacob: "There's something comfortably reassuring about guys in sheds making things. My father's shed had a metalworking lathe, and he was forever making pieces to keep my decrepit Citroen on the road, or fix things around the house. He was also quite adept at mending clocks and heating thermostats and even fax machines. Now we live in a disposable society, oblivious to how things work, infantilised by 'smart' software and helpless victims to built-in obsolescence. We are becoming less individual and more like simple cells in an amorphous, aimless organism with an infinite appetite. Don't think we'll cope too well after the apocalypse."

Mike replies: I wish, wish, wish I could remember the title of the book—I can't—but in the late 1990s I read an autobiography written in the early 1900s by a woman who had grown up on a remote farm in the Midwest in the 1800s. Much of the book was not of great interest to me, but in the middle was a longish section about farm life in her girlhood, and she detailed a number of the specifics of how they dealt with problems, notably medical and dental emergencies—the nearest doctor was days away by wagon or horseback, so a trip was a big undertaking. They had to take care of most medical issues right there on the farm. The section made it clear how enormously resourceful those people were—they did everything from making their own clothes to taking care of their own toothaches to birthing their own children—and how much of that knowledge is simply lost now because it hasn't been needed for so many decades. As you say, after a big disruption, the survivors could well need such knowledge again. 

Tom R. Halfhill: "A family-owned business (A.E. Schmidt pool tables) operating continuously for 169 years is impressive. Offhand, the only older U.S. family-owned business I know of is the Martin guitar company, which has been operating for 186 years (since 1833). Sometimes, specialization beats diversification and consolidation. May both companies continue to thrive."

hugh crawford replies to Tom: "C.F. Martin & Co has been around for a while, but the Zildjian Cymbal Co. of Norwell, Mass. has been run by the Zildjian family since 1623. Founded 14 generations ago in Constantinople by an alchemist who was trying to make gold and accidentally invented the metal used in their cymbals. Oddly, most of the oldest family businesses in the U.S. are farms and funeral homes."

Mike adds: There is a funeral home near here in Bath, New York, owned by the same family for 94 years, that still runs a furniture store next door. Apparently in 19th- and early 20th-century America it was common to find undertakers and furniture stores adjacent to each other, owned by the same family, because the cabinetmakers who constructed the coffins would also make furniture.

Comments

[Bill Pearce]

I come to pick a nit. On the subject of the outdoor park, I am confounded by your description of Klipsch horn as theatre speakers. Yes, they are of the same design of some theatre speakers, but totally made for the living room. I don't even begin to understand how he makes the corner horn part work outdoors.

Theatre speakers today? Sound to me like crap, but in the day of the great theatres they were made primarily br Western Electric, and by Altec Lansing. They were remarkably efficient, and could be run to painful levels with but 10 watts!

[Who said anything about Klipschorns or corner horns, Bill? You did, I didn't. His were Klipsch theater speakers. They were under blankets in a shed, not being used. --Mike]

[James]

Yes, Mike, I too am surprised sometimes by how good some shots are from an iPhone. In fact, a couple of my favourite shots (by subject matter) are from camera-phones.
And isn't that the whole point?
It is the subject that matters. (Or, what one puts in the frame.)

[Bob Feugate]

Clearly you never shot a Zenit B. The back latch had no secondary lock and easily caught on straps, popping open and ruining an entire roll of film. The shutter speed dial spun during exposure, so you needed to keep your fingers clear. The only good thing about it was that it used Pentax screw mount lenses, which were all I could afford....

[Phil]

I still have that same model Contessa which my dad bought to take my baby photos 64 years ago!

[Warren Jones]

Hi Mike,
A fun post if you ask me. I often find your diversions off topic entertaining and informative. Not that I will ever use this information, but had I not read this post I would have never known of A.E. Schmidt. (I like old family companies)

As for that Tim fella, he sounds like a cool cat. And finally the iPhone can indeed be fun to shoot with. I use mine more than I should :)
Cheers

[Tom R. Halfhill]

A family-owned business (A.E. Schmidt pool tables) operating continuously for 169 years is impressive. Offhand, the only older U.S. family-owned business I know of is the Martin guitar company, which has been operating for 186 years (since 1833). Sometimes, specialization beats diversification and consolidation. May both companies continue to thrive.

[hugh crawford]

If someone perfects a small sensor camera with the software to defy the laws of physics, I’m all in.

I’m as much of a fan of big film/sensor fast lens with optical personality up the wazoo as anyone who’s build a 11x14 camera with a f/4 single element lens is, but actually I find that what I really want now is lots of depth of field and enough resolution for say 24x36 inch prints. A really high quality everything in focus camera is what I’d like now.

I’ve been working on a scene where I can’t get things sharp enough because things turn to mush at f/16 and 1/2 mile to 20 miles isn’t enough DOF, never mind 6 inch to 20 foot DOF garden photos.

That XapShot was sort of fun, totally silent but the flash made it jump. The camera was pretty expensive but the Targa computer video capture card was two or three times as much, and Photoshop didn’t come out for another two years. We returned it to the store after a couple of weeks and used a video camera or a slide scanner for input. No one could figure out what Canon thought it was good for, but it was a cool toy.

[mike]

You might be wrong about iPhone 11…
http://austinmann.com/trek/iphone-11-pro-review-china

[c.d.embrey]

Some old-tech hangs around for a long time. I was born-at-home, at the end of the Great Depression.

During WW2, my grandmother darned-socks and sewed every day. She also cooked a lot of rabbit, during the war.

My wife (a book-keeper) sewed clothing, including T-shirts, for the family. She also was a good mechanic. One time she overhauled a Honda 750 four motorcycle engine.

Some people are problem makers, while others are problem solvers.Guess which ones will survive?

[JonA]

My teenage years were spent with an A.E. Schmidt pool table and a Bally Eight Ball Deluxe pinball machine in the basement. One day my brother and I will have to fight over who gets to inherit them.

Some people no longer know how to repair things, but the information on restoring things has spread with the internet. I have an Eight Ball Deluxe manual with circuit diagrams that you can find online. There are videos online on camera repair.

I have dreams of restoring mechanical things in retirement, such as clocks, watches and cameras, but I am the opposite of Tim- I have always been lethargic and unmotivated. Also I've been scared of failure and ruining something of value. I'm learning that it is all due to undiagnosed ADD. I just started a dopamine supplement that is helping and I may try a prescription stimulant. When I've tried them, they have magically given me self-confidence, energy and motivation!

[Richard Parkin]

Carpenters/joiners were commonly undertakers in U.K. too. In my small town the office of one undertaker (now only the office of a multiple) is in the corner of what 25 years ago was still obviously a very large former joinery workshop but was then being used as a doctors surgery and is now a firm of solicitors — doctor -> undertaker -> solicitor , interesting conjunction of trades. In a nearby rural village there is a wood/fencing supplier who tells me they used to do undertaking too at one time.

[John Robison]

Re Steve Jacob’s comment and your response.
In the late 70’s there was a tv series called ‘Connections’ hosted by British science and technology writer James Burke. If my memory is correct the first episode was titled ‘The Technology Trap’ and featured a sobering reminder of just how dependent we have become on our devices. More true now than ever.