The Camera for Me

I've always loved photographs, and visual art more generally. I got to visit the East Wing of the National Gallery when I was visiting Maryland with my son and his girlfriend, and I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it and by how many artists I recognized on sight. But I've also always loved cameras and lenses. For many years I considered this a separate hobby.

Looking back, there were many times that I've been disappointed by developments in cameras, and I thought I would discuss a few of these this morning. These disappointments were usually caused by expectations, or assumptions. Not for nothing is "Don't make assumptions" the third of the famous "Four Agreements" of don Miguel Ruiz. 

The first time it happened was the Nikon N8008 of 1988. It was very cutting edge at the time, collating some of Nikon's then-recent advancements—I think it was their second consumer AF camera, and it had the futuristic Matrix Metering from the FA. I really liked that camera, but there were several things about it that I thought should be changed. It's been so long that I can no longer recall what they were, not that it matters to the story. But when the updated N8008s came out, in, what was it, 1991 or so, the company had made changes I had utterly no desire for, and had not addressed in the slightest several things that I considered blatantly obvious shortcomings. I was frankly amazed by this—I had allowed myself to sincerely believe that the improvements I desired would be widely shared and would be crystal clear to anyone who was familiar with the original camera, and thus, clear to Nikon. Not the case.

That came on top of an issue I'd had with my previous Contaxes—I had wanted a particular lens that I was certain Zeiss would eventually deliver. Yet new lens after new lens arrived and they were all things I didn't want. My "obvious" addition to the lineup (a 35mm ƒ/2) never materialized.

The huge disappointment (for me) of the N8008s, on top of those frustrations with Zeiss, was when I formulated a personal rule: never put any stock in vaporware. That is, always buy cameras and lenses based only on what actually exists now, and don't assume that what you happen to want will ever be produced in the future...no matter how obvious it seems to you, or how logical it seems to be based on trends.

I only wish I had been able to follow that principle more firmly over the years!

Digital days
The next disappointment was the further development of the Sony F707, which was one of my favorite digital cameras. The sensor was alarmingly bad by today's standards—noise was overpowering over ISO 400, and the red channel clipped easily. But that camera was one of the most fun to use of anything I've ever tried. It was a constant pleasure, and I just loved it. The early years of digital were a delight, because camera designers were initially unleashed to be creative in dynamic ways, and many early designs were extremely inventive. It was a lot of fun, and it was both perplexing and hugely disappointing to me when digital cameras eventually settled down to be nothing more than digital versions of what had previously existed in film: standard point-and-shoots and standard SLRs. All the promise of the innovative early years of digital turned out to be only a phase that passed.

Again, I can't recall any more the specifics of my disappointment with the development of the Sony F[xxx] line—of which the F828 was the last hurrah—but it doesn't matter now. I mourned when the line came to an end.

In the 2000s I was shaken by the demise of three of my favorite marques. Contax and Bronica both ended camera production in 2005 (I never owned a Bronica, but I rented one whenever I had a job that needed medium format), and Konica, which had previously merged with Minolta (which itself had never recovered from the Honeywell lawsuit), followed in 2007. My first DSLR, the Konica-Minolta 7D, was another of my all-time favorite cameras, and probably the digital camera I liked best of all. The color was second to none, although the highlights lacked headroom. My particular camera went wonky—something in its electronics went haywire, and it stopped being reliable. If that hadn't happened, I wonder how long I would have used it—probably as long as I possibly could have. I bought mine used in 2006, right before the company that produced it called it quits. You can understand that I mildly entertained the superstition at the time that I had become some sort of Jonah!

Corporatethink
The last time I got fooled by my tendency to make assumptions was, as you probably know if you've been reading TOP awhile, the Panasonic GX8 of the summer of 2015. I really liked that camera, and actually bought it twice. It was perfectly reasonable to believe that it would receive a "Mark II" iteration, which it needed in my opinion—that's the way most camera models renewed themselves in the years around the mid-2010s. Little did I know that Panasonic was already no doubt internally strategizing its launch into FF mirrorless (FFM) and, in its planning (I almost said "thinking," but corporations aren't sentient entities and don't think, of course), had effectively left Micro 4/3 behind.

I don't think I've ever been less settled in my cameras than I am now. Not since my very first Contax that I bought for art school. I just don't feel like I have what I want or know what I want. I actually dreamed last night of photographing—I had found an ideal camera, but for some reason I never had it with me. I kept coming across great scenes, then leaving to go find the camera, and returning to find the scene had vanished. Strange, frustrating dream.

The great shift to FFM of 2018–19 is of course the biggest development in dedicated ILC manufacture in recent years, and I haven't yet gotten with the program. I'm still soldiering on with my Fujis and my sentimental one-off sortie back to Sony. Once again, I've been marching to the beat of a different drummer, out of step with the rest of the troop—I still believe smaller-than-24x36 sensors are such an obvious advantage of digital that I can't see the sense in leaving them behind.

I don't like to think of what will be the next big camera marque to fail, but I have always doubted that there is enough energy in FFM to sustain four companies (Sony, Nikon, Canon, and Panasonic) pouring their resources into the format, with another (Leica) tagging along with one model.

What to get?
I've been thinking recently that the ideal camera for me is...

The Leica Q2 Monochrom*. Small, basic, uncluttered, well made, and B&W only.

There's only one little trouble with it...it costs about four times more than it should because it's a fashion brand. I would need Sony, Fuji, or Panasonic to make it, not Leica. $1,550 would be a perfectly reasonable price for what it is and what it offers.

Always some Achilles' heel, eh? Some "flaw in the ointment," as my brother Scott used to say. You know what they say: Oh well!

Mike

*However, it's possible that it is only the perfect camera for the old Mike. I've noticed that I have a tendency to achieve things after the time for them in my life has passed. Years ago I bought a wonderful loft in West Chicagoland, a really beautiful and stylish place, but eventually I realized that the loft was the perfect place for me to have lived as a single guy in my 20s, an era which by then had already passed—I was a parent in my 30s by then. The loft wasn't the perfect place to raise a kid. (I did adjust successfully, though.) I think I have a tendency to want things that are perfect for a "past self" rather than my present self. Still less my future self. I wonder if many of us don't do this to some extent. The Q2M is ideal for an older version of myself, a guy who was ambitious to create art, carried a camera everywhere, liked moderate-wide primes, was devoted to B&W, and printed. Not really "me" any more, alas.

Book o' the Week

Home Fires Volume II: The Present. There is of course a Volume I: The Past.  TOP reader Bruce Haley has produced documentary work relating to conflict, humanitarian crises and environmental/industrial/land use issues for 30 years. He received the Robert Capa Gold Medal for his coverage of the ethnic civil war in Burma.

These book links are a portal to Amazon.

Today at B&H Photo

Original contents copyright 2020 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. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

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

Comments

[John]

I hear you: I’m currently shooting with old film cameras and even bought stuff to develop film, while part of me is thinking that this is just a phase and I’ll soon be back to 100% digital. Is it nostalgia? Does it make sense?

Actually, it’s similar in the digital world as well for me. I know I don’t need the Canon R5 anymore as my specialty shifts, but I find it hard to give up FFM for micro-four thirds, even though I prefer using my MFT gear.

[Hans van der Molen]

Hi Mike, can you explain what’s attractive about the monochrome Leica, or for that matter any black-and-white-only camera? I shoot only RAW, most of the time people, but print mostly B&W. One of the great advantages of digital over analog - to my experience - is the flexibility in translating color to gray-tone in post. Especially when working in Lab-colorspace you have the luminosity (the L-channel, the image in luminosity-values) plus two channels (a and b) of separately workable color-information with which I decide which color will be converted to which greytone. But even in RGB: why throw away two-thirds of your information and limit your B&W-conversion to the one that’s baked into the chip in your camera?
My favorite guide in this matter is Versace's From Oz to Kansas: Almost Every Black and White Conversion Technique Known to Man.

Can you explain?
Hans van der Molen, TOP-fan from Holland.

[psu]

The camera that I bought when I took up photography again as an adult was a used N8008s ... I had the 35/2 lens that you were maybe waiting for, and the storied 75-150/4 manual focus zoom lens.

I had two of them for a while, and still keep one as a nostalgia piece. Lent it to a co-worker when his son had a darkroom class in college, which was interesting.

What I don't understand about modern digital cameras is why even the mirrorless ones are bigger than the 8008s. The m4/3rds are about the size you'd expect digital cameras to be ... but everything else is just so chunky.

Anyway, it was a nice machine. Great viewfinder. Too bad the AF only worked sometimes.

Also, with regards to this question

>>> the monochrome Leica, or for that matter any black-and-white-only camera

The theory here is that the monochrome camera does not need the Bayer, or other filter for color reconstruction, so overall the sensor might be more sensitive (since the Bayer filter blocks light) and there might be a small improvement in overall sharpness and resolution since you have less plastic/glass in front of the sensor.

The other theory is probably that B&W converted RGB files are not as nice to work with as monochrome.

And, finally, some people have trouble interacting with pictures in black and white if they have seen them processed for color, which can be hard to avoid with RGB cameras. I have had this experience, but sort of learned to power through it.

[Daniel Schnall]

Lumix G100 with 20 mm f1.7 lens or 17 mm Olympus F1.8 lens. L Monochrome D.. Cheap, discrete, great viewfinder, great touchscreen. 20 megapixel sensor. Forget re video credentials.

[Oleg Shpak]

If you have means to buy it, get it used and sell in a 2-3 years. Your total expense would maybe 1/3 of the original cost, and it will be cheaper than buying and processing film for sure.

[Richard Skoonberg]

Mike, I print and show black and white work and it has been well received. So I wondered if I should get something like the Q2 monochrome. So, I have researched these monochrome cameras. I think they would be fine for shooting Jpegs, but with Raw? I would not want to give up the B/W color sliders in Lightroom. I agree with Hans van der Molen above.

[Steve Rosenblum]

Weren't you going to get a Pixii loaner camera to review? I will be interested in your take on it once you get to use one.

[Bob Johnston]

I used to have a Minolta 7D and I agree that it had something special. It did have a ccd sensor though, which, on long exposures, suffered with something called "amplifier glow". Your night pictures would acquire an uneven purple cast. Mine gradually died after I got it wet in a heavy rainfall.

The marketing bullies seem to have convinced most buyers that full frame has some kind of special sauce. Fuji have been very canny in not going for it, but jumping straight into "medium format". Anyway, although mft might wither due to lack of sensor development, I don't think that apsc is going to die. My advice is abandon the search for the impossible perfect camera, set up your Fuji to be as simple as you like and get out to enjoy taking some pictures.

[Barry Reid]

Re Steve Rosenblum’s Pixxi comment, above, you should try it. They now have a B&W mode in the latest firmware.

[Kye Wood]

I really enjoy reading when the author conveys a true insight, honestly. It inspires me to be more honest with myself. Thank you Mike.