Every time I sell stuff on eBay I end up...buying stuff. I bought another film camera a few days ago.
Geez. This marks what, five months since I swore up and down to myself that I would never, ever, under any circumstances ever buy another film camera again? Yeah, about that long.
It was a pure impulse purchase. I wasn't even looking at film cameras at the time.
I now own twelve, which might be a lifetime high number (I don't actually keep track), which I think you'll agree is very appropriate in light of the impressive amount of film I shoot every year, namely, nada, also expressible as "zilch." So I need all these cameras, obviously.
I had a girlfriend once who had such a thing for shoes that she seemed to be incapable of walking past a women's shoestore without being drawn inside by an invisible tractor beam. Shoes were like a compulsion with her. Well, can't imagine that.
But wow, look...I scored a Nikon N8008 for a mere $99 and it turned out to be new. In the box, with the protective film on the bottom and the JCII sticker fresh and sparkling. It even had the little plastic insert over the film gate. Not a mark of any kind on the thing. Looks untouched.
Of course, the seller might possibly have been being just a wee bit disingenuous even so—because the battery compartment was hard to open and the batteries, which the camera had obviously been stored with for a long time, had oxidized and bled some of that white crusty stuff (what is that, anyway?) on the insert and into the battery compartment.
Or possibly there was no intent to deceive; maybe the seller just didn't realize. It's possible. Things happen. People do pass away, loved ones put their belongings up on eBay without really knowing how or if they work...things like that. Collections are broken up and sold. Things are parceled off to intermediaries for selling. Could have been quite innocent. Then again, maybe that's why a pristine LN Nikon was for sale at a measly ninety-nine bucks. And how come he described it as "in perfect working condition. All of the shutter speeds, program and manual modes, light meter, motor drive and all other functions are working as they should"? Really? How would he know that, with ancient dead-as-a-doornail batteries frozen in the battery well? Methinks the seller doth claim too much.
Caveat emptor all the way on Ye Olde Fleabay.
Anyway, an hour's soak of the battery holder in a weak solution of vinegar and a little careful swabbing of the battery compartment with a dry Q-tip, some fresh batteries, and all was forgiven.
For a camera that's 30 to 33 years old, this is a time capsule.
Leading edge but not bleeding edge
Takes me back (nostalgia being no doubt the main attraction here). In 1988–91, the original 8008's production run, Nikon pitched it as an amalgamated successor to both the FE-2 and the FA. The FA was the first camera to feature what came to be called Matrix metering, although it was called "Automatic Multi-Pattern" (AMP) metering in the FA. That was the beginning of the end for photographers understanding how metering works. It boasted the "world's fastest autofocus" at the time. It's also very easy to focus with manual-focus AIS lenses, what with its AF-confirmation dot in the viewfinder. It has auto-load and auto-wind and -rewind, ultramodern features in the '80s. Woo-hoo. It also had lots of of plastic, which alarmed everyone.
Oh, and I need to eat a little crow, too: remember the other day when I was expressing dismay that the new Pentax K-3 III will cost two thousand dollars? Well, the N8008 cost $857 when it was introduced in 1988, and that is, ahem, $1,934.37 in 2021 dollars. Hmm. Maybe the problem here is that my sense of the value of money is stuck in 1988?
I had two 8008's back then (for some reason no one then ever used the "N" when referring to it). I joined a professional studio with the condition that I would switch to Nikon, because the other three photographers all used Nikon and everyone pooled their equipment. Needed a particular lens for a job? Somebody had one. My Contaxes wouldn't have been useful in the mix.
I wanted to get an F4s, and had one on order, but there was a several-month delay before it would be available, so I bought an 8008 to use in the meantime. When my F4s arrived, I de-accessioned the 8008, as planned. Then, after using the F4s for a year, I decided I actually liked the 8008 better! So I bought another one and sold the F4s. So this is my third of these.
I slugged it out as a pro for five years, although gradually my business and income shifted mainly to high-quality custom B&W printing for exhibition and reproduction. I was better at that than anyone in town. I was not better as a professional photographer than anyone in town.
Now all this old camera needs is an AF-Nikkor 35mm ƒ/2 D, which by a strange vagary of fortune is still available new. Not gonna do it, not gonna do it, not gonna....
The F4s was the camera that turned me off of big cameras, by the way. For the duration, as it turned out. What a portly beastie it was. (Paul, whose name was on the lease at our beautiful studio, called his Nikon F3 with full motor drive "Darth Vader." So of course he called my F4s "Luke." He was sadder than I was when Luke departed.)
Will I ever take a single picture with this survivor 8008? Probably not. But one thing's absolutely for certain this time: no more film cameras for me. This is it. No question. Never buying another one.
Believe me? Why of course you do. How could you doubt?
It's hip to be square
Meanwhile, back in the here and now, I've been taking pictures with the X-H1 using the widest lens I have, the 14mm prime (21mm equivalent), with the aspect ratio set on square. It's very different for me. Not the way I'm used to seeing at all. But I've been in a rut, so I'm shaking myself up. Trying to be more iconoclastic in my compositions, too, to loosen the visual calcification.
We'll see how that goes. But I always enjoy experiments.
And y'know, I do love photography, so it's all good.
Mike
Books o' the Week
Nikon fan are ya? Nikon: A Celebration by British automotive writer and Nikon collector Brian Long covers the history of the company from its beginnings to the end of the film era. A U.S. parallel with more concentration on opinions about the equipment is B. Moose Peterson's Nikon System Handbook. The 6th Edition covered film equipment up to 2000. <—These are portals to Amazon.com thru TOP; you can also search for Nikon books from The Book Depository, which offers free shipping worldwide.
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