This camera setup came in today:
I can't tell you how much it aches my soul that a Canon AE-1 with a Canon 65-200mm zoom lens is now worthy only of being donated to a thrift store. I don't know if it works, as the AE-1s required a battery to run them. Unlike, say, the FTs, (I had one, back in the day) that only needed a battery for the light meter.
I've been active in photography from the prosumer level to professional press photography. The difference between film photography and digital is akin to the difference between shooting with a muzzleloader and shooting a minigun with government-furnished ammo. You'd set things up, take the shot, and unless you had access to a darkroom, it could be days or weeks until you knew whether or not you got the shot. And if you were a not-wealthy amateur, using good film like Kodachrome was expensive. so you made sure that you got the shot that you wanted.
But digital? Once you've bought the camera and the SD card, there's no additional cost differential between shooting one photo and a thousand. Oh, if you have a camera that uses replaceable batteries (I like my A1000 because it uses two AAs), you might go through a few sets. But that cost is negligible.
Yes, I can be a bit of an old-school girl. I fly a `40s airplane. Today, I carried a S&W M&P that dates back to the Roaring 20s. But I abandoned film without a qualm.
8 comments:
Good grief...I had an AE-1 back in the 80’s and 90’s. Wonderful camera, had a 28-40mm, a 45mm and an 85-200mm, as I remember it. Never acquired the skill to use it properly, “sold” it to a young photography student, who hopefully did it justice.
Have used Canons since the FT ...... I remember the saying that "the cheapest thing in your gadget bag is film."
The other rumor from the day was that Kodak subsidized the manufacture and marketing of motor drives.
Is the lens obsolete? Is it not compatible wth the modern digital SLR's?
My old Pentax K-1000 had a battery for the light meter (only). Damned battery lasted forever.
Man, I loved that camera. Took some great pictures with it. But the new Sony digital is *so* convenient. Makes me a bit ashamed of myself.
I have a Canon 5DS R, 50 megapixels
http://tinyurl.com/sdean-supersharp
I've been photographing for 58 years (Nikon SP, F & Nikkormat, Olympus OM-1) and have never had a camera that came close to its ability to bring back people photography at the drop of a hat. Particularly appreciative of its low-light sensitivity (haven't used flash since the late '60's) and the image-stabilization, which allows be to use a 70-300 zoom at a 1/15 of a second as a low-light portrait lense. And folks, the autofocus effing works.
But my love, could I afford the film and processing, is my 8x10 large format. With a Schneider Symmar 300mm normal lense, Angulon 180mm and Super Angulon 120mm wide angles and a gorgeous Nikkor telephoto with interchangeable rear elements: 600/800/1200mm on a Sinar F. With Fujichrome, $25/shot for a sheet of film and development. Then $250 for digital scanning and another $800 for a 4'x5' wet darkroom print.
Like this:
http://imagovitae.org/images/COLandscapeGallery1K_GIFs/FinalJPEG/5B_Stewart-Dean_May-11_%235-Final-1KDove.jpg
Oh, this all brings back memories. When I was a high school kid, my father, knowing I was interested in photography, and knowing little about the direction of my interests, bought me a Leica IIIF while he and my mom were on vacation in Europe. This was a rangefinder camera, not a SLR, which is what I wanted, but it was a better camera than I could afford on my own when I was an adolescent.. Then, in college, I started taking jobs on small town newspapers. The photographers yelled at me when I tried to give them 35mm film. "What the hell am I supposed to do with this? I don't even hav e a developing tank for it!"
So I went to a huge camera store and swapped my Leica IIIF for a Speed Graphic, a big, clunky, heavy thing with a bellows and a giant flashgun that let you take pix on 4X5 film stuck into frames. You turned in your frame — or whatever the hell it was called — to the newspaper darkroom. They printed the picture while the negative was still wet, and an hour later they went to press with it.
My father, who loved tiny things — Omega watches the thickness of a quarter, the tiny camera that made almost no noise when the shutter was released, small allowances — went ballistic that I had turned in a gem of a camera for the photographer's equivalent of a pickup truck. He didn't speak to me for a month.
He died in 1967. Wherever he is now, I'll bet he's still pissed off about the camera.
Yours crankily,
The New York Crank
When I was a kid, I wanted a good camera. My dad told me that he knew a guy who ran a camera store and that he could get me a Canon FT for $130.
I did whatever I could to get that money. Babysat for bratty kids that I would have rather drowned. Did yardwork. Shoveled sidewalks. Finally, I gave Dad the money and, a couple of weeks later, I had the camera. I used it afloat and ashore. I contributed to a warship's cruisebook. I shot publicity photos for my high school theatre company. I freelanced for my local paper.
I used it for almost 20 years, when the shutter broke. The repair cost was equivalent to a new camera. The telephoto that I had was not compatible with any current Canon, so I got a Nikon FM2. I still have that camera, but it's been mostly idle for a dozen years (batteries out).
Kodak prepaid processing mailers and Mystic Photo Lab were my friends. :)
Over a dozen years after Dad passed away, I was helping my mom downsize for a move. I went through some papers in an old fireproof box and found the camera store receipt for that Canon. It cost $260, including tax. In all the decades since I had gotten the camera, Dad never once mentioned that he had paid half the cost of it.
Aawww...
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