Our little boy is 16 months old and constantly on the move. He loves the outdoors, and we visit our city parks nearly every day to let him explore, stimulate his mind, and practice using his body. He came to us unexpectedly six weeks early in the scariest months of the COVID-19 pandemic. We worried about him so much then, and still do.

At the park he runs and climbs and tests out the new legs, which are a little wobbly from time to time. But with each passing day, they get stronger and allow him to play and investigate the desires of his new body. In this moment, his mother shows him a brand new ability, one he’s likely never considered before: to leave the earth, to lift, to propel one’s self up and away from solid ground and into all that’s above. Though you can only see his expression from the side, you can tell he’s in awe. She moves with the grace of a dancer, a ballerina, coloring this new experience with beauty and grace.

If you’re so lucky, one of the best parts of co-parenting is witnessing your partner become so important to someone else, that special person bound to you both through miraculous nature and unfathomable luck. It takes work to be a great parent, to be present and attentive and without a phone in hand, but we’re really trying and giving it our best. And I think that’s something to be proud of.

The post Single Shot Stories No. 010 – Justin Kingery, a Jump in the Park appeared first on Casual Photophile.

So before we get started, let’s establish some ground rules. The electronic 35mm SLR category encompasses any 35mm SLR whose exposure capabilities are aided by electronics. This can range from something like the humble, aperture-priority-only Nikon EM to the autofocus-equipped, armed-with-every-mode-ever Minolta A7. That’s as varied as it gets.

It is this category’s extraordinary variety that makes this list so difficult, yet so exciting to organize. I ended up having to ask myself some rather serious questions about cameras and list-making in general. What really, and I mean really, makes a camera (or anything) great? Is it their stat sheet and groundbreaking tech, or is it the beauty of their execution of existing tech? Is it their sales figures or their historical importance? Is it what the camera is objectively, or is it how that camera made you feel?

Each camera on this list revealed to me a different answer to every one of those questions. To other shooters, other cameras may hold different answers still. This isn’t an objectively perfect Top 10 list, but these are my and I’m sticking with them. Do check my answers you’ll find links to reviews of each of these cameras in the paragraphs below each.

Let’s get into it.

Nikon F3

I should start this by saying that this list isn’t intended to be sequential. Every one of these cameras are about as good at helping you make images, are as interesting, and are as worthy of your love and attention as each other. But heaven help you if you thought that I wasn’t going to put the Nikon F3 first, even symbolically.

Sure, the F3 is hyped up by literally everybody (including myself). Sure, it’s not as capable as any pro-spec autofocus SLR. Sure, it’s nearly functionally similar to nearly any bare-bones electronic SLR. And yes, the LCD display sucks and the AE lock button sometimes aggravates my carpal tunnel. I know – it’s not perfect.

But look at it, just for a second. Look upon its Italian, Giorgetto Giugiaro-designed body, with its sharp, defined lines terminating in a soft curve accented by the now-iconic Nikon red stripe. Look into the viewfinder and enjoy brightness and eye-relief beyond compare. Marvel at the accuracy and utility of its uncommon 80/20 center-weighted meter, and watch in awe as it works in immaculate concert with its aperture-priority mode. And press the shutter button and listen to its crisp chirp, feel the smooth ratchet of its perfectly-engineered, ball-bearing mounted, self lubricating advance lever, and frame the next shot with joy and inspiration in your heart. It’s not perfect, but God, it’s close.

Now, I’m only being slightly facetious. The Nikon F3 really is a beautiful, historically important, and still-relevant machine that has occupied its lofty place in camera history from the day it was released in March 1980. It was Nikon’s last professional manual focus camera, and may still even be its greatest. It enjoyed an incredible twenty year production run from 1980-2000 and remains an incredible camera even in the 2020’s, owing to its sleek lines, spartan charm, and easy usability. I recommend it to those shooters who are loyal to 35mm, the SLR genre, and good design as a whole. Even after all the hype, the Nikon F3 is still one of the best there ever was.

[Get a Nikon F3 on eBay here]

Nikon FA

I know what you’re thinking. This is a top 10 list for all electronically-controlled SLR’s, and we’re giving Nikon two spots? Is that really what we’re doing?

Yes. That is, in fact, what we’re doing.

That’s because our next camera is Nikon’s most advanced manual focus camera ever, and a camera that is likely more influential than any in their entire roster – the Nikon FA, otherwise known as the Technocamera.

The FA makes this list for two reasons – its influence, and its still-astonishing usability. For one, the FA’s emphasis on technology over pure pro-spec performance should sound familiar – it is one of the familiar plays of the “advanced amateur” camera and one that carries on to this day. Sure, the Minolta X-series and Canon A-series did this first, but the FA is arguably the genre’s greatest exponent. It blew all those other electronic manual focus cameras out of the water with its pioneering technology, matrix metering, which was the first to utilize a computer to analyze a given scene to produce a meter reading. Any doubters to the FA’s influence need not look further than their own digital camera – matrix metering (or evaluative metering) is likely the default metering mode.

Perhaps the greatest attribute of the FA is that it utilized its incredibly complicated technology just to make everything easier for any level of shooter. Shooting an FA is simplicity in manual focus form – just focus, shoot, and you’ll get a perfect image. I recommend it highly for anybody looking for just one SLR body to grow with (provided, of course, that you find one that works).

[Get a Nikon FA on eBay here]

Olympus OM-4Ti

But that’s enough of looking at this list through Nikon multi-coated glasses. If you’re tired of hearing me squawk about how cool Nikon is, how about this – there’s a camera that might be better than the both the FA and the F3, and it’s not a Nikon. It’s the Olympus OM4-Ti.

Those who remember 1983’s Olympus OM4 remember a camera that may have been the most advanced, and smallest, professional-level SLR of its day. It crammed all of Olympus’ most advanced technologies into a shock and weather-resistant chassis the size of a Leica-M camera. It featured the world’s first multi-spot meter (which could take a spot reading from eight different segments of the frame), as well as their famous off-the-film-plane style of metering, which ensured an incredible amount of metering accuracy. Whereas the FA took care of everything for the user, the OM4 gave the user ultimate control over the exposure, and to a degree arguably finer than even the Nikon F3. And similar to the F3, the OM-4 enjoyed an incredibly long production life spanning from 1987 to 2002 in its now-famous Ti form.

If we’re talking absolute endgame cameras, never mind the greatest electronic 35mm SLR’s of all time, the Olympus OM-4 ranks near the top. This is the camera that best represents Olympus’ philosophy of quality, compact design, and technological ingenuity. I heartily recommend the OM4-Ti, the titanium-clad version of this camera, as they are the easiest to find in stellar condition.

[Get an Olympus OM4 on eBay here]

Minolta XD (XD-7, XD-11)

Even though this is a list of The Greatest, I despise the GOAT (greatest of all time) debate, in any form. If I have to hear Stephen A. Smith get into a shouting match with some other weird talking head about lEbRoN jAmEs I may just lose it. Aside from the tendency of GOAT arguments to devolve into obnoxious rants made to harvest hate clicks and provoke engagement-at-all-costs, it’s that the argument often fails to take into account the limitations of the knowledge and the changing values of the time of any athlete, artist, or whoever. Bjorn Borg never had the chance to play with a graphite tennis racquet, polyester strings, and years of sports science research; Rafa Nadal never had to play with a wooden racquet, natural gut strings, and in a time where smoke breaks were a thing.

Considering this, a camera like the Minolta XD becomes even more remarkable in hindsight. Released in the olden days of 1977, the Minolta XD became the very first multimode SLR at a time when such things did not exist. I can’t stress that enough – nobody had even seen a camera that could perform both aperture and shutter priority duties with a flick of a switch until this camera came along. Just like we wouldn’t have had Kobe Bryant or LeBron James without Michael Jordan, we wouldn’t have the FA, the OM4-Ti, the Canon A-1, or practically any multi-mode camera in history without the Minolta XD. It’s that important.

Now before anybody hurls a tomato at me and accuses me of picking cameras purely on historical relevance, I will remind you that this is the Minolta freakin’ XD we’re talking about. This is, to this day, one of the finest shooting manual focus SLR’s ever made. It was perhaps the best child of the union between Minolta and Leitz (yes, that Leitz), and features the best combination of the former’s technological wizardry and the latter’s elegance in design. While not as well equipped as the later Nikon FA or Olympus OM4-Ti, the Minolta XD still holds a distinct edge in shooting layout and build quality. Its Acute Matte focusing screen is the same found in Hasselblad cameras, its controls are snappy and smooth, and if obtained in the black trim, you get a black chrome Leitz-approved finish. It is also, in my opinion, the most elegantly designed of the compact manual focus SLRs on this list. It may not be the greatest of all time, but its greatness transcends that tired moniker.

[Get a Minolta XD on eBay here]

Canon A-1

While the Minolta XD came sprinting out of the gates first in the photographic technological arms race of the late 70’s, there was a rival following close behind. It was clad in all black enamel, cut a Darth Vader-esque figure, and packed one key technology that the XD was too timid to give an official name to – programmed auto-exposure. It’s Canon’s finest creation from their manual focus FD mount days, the Canon A-1.

More than most other cameras of its ilk, the Canon A-1 is emblematic of the hyper-technological advanced amateur segment. It’s covered in the technology of the day, most importantly becoming the first camera to feature shutter priority, aperture priority, manual override, AND programmed autoexposure in one body (note: the rival Minolta XD does technically have a program mode, but it’s not as explicitly stated as it is on the A-1). The feature list goes on longer than Too $hort’s music career, and includes an exposure lock, an exposure compensation dial, an extended range of manually selectable shutter speeds from 2 to 30 seconds, a viewfinder shutter, double exposure capability, and discrete dials for each shooting mode. Yes, this may contribute to a cluttered control interface, but it’s a small price to pay when the entire photographic world is just a switch away.

I can practically hear the furious keystrokes of Canon AE-1 owners in the comment section. Why the A-1 over the obviously more important AE-1? It’s simple – it’s a better camera. The A-1 does everything the AE-1 and AE-1 Program can do. It also does more, does it better, and most importantly, does it cheaper.

[Get a Canon A1 on eBay here]

Canon AE-1

But even all that said, I can’t in good conscience leave the Canon AE-1 out. It’s the VW Bug, the Coca-Cola, the Fender Stratocaster of electronic SLR’s. It’s also the reason the consumer-focused electronic SLR segment even exists.

Just like we did with the Minolta XD, we have to consider what the photographic world was like before the AE-1. Before it, the amateur SLR market consisted of bulky bare bones cameras that were often simplified versions of their professional counterparts. Although these were often very good cameras in their own right, they painted the entire SLR format as something reserved only for professionals, while amateurs were largely better off with fixed lens rangefinders or viewfinder cameras.

The introduction of the automated Canon AE-1 in 1976 completely shattered the popular preconception of what an SLR should be. It was small, lightweight, and due to its groundbreaking microprocessor-powered shutter priority mode, incredibly easy to shoot – in short, the opposite of what an SLR was. It sold like no other SLR before it, eventually selling 5.7 million units worldwide. The AE-1 proved so popular that it opened up an entirely new consumer-focused amateur SLR segment in the market, and paved the way for every automated SLR to come afterwards.

Though I will always pick the more fully featured A-1 over the AE-1 and the later AE-1 Program from a shooter’s perspective (and have actually spoken ill of said cameras in an infamous article), I will admit there is a certain charm to shooting an AE-1. It’s practically a rite of passage as a beginner; millions of shooters experienced SLR photography for the first time through its viewfinder. It isn’t the best camera on this list, but it’s certainly the most important, and is still a fine shooter for any class of photographer.

[Get a Canon AE1 on eBay here]

Pentax LX

James once called the Pentax LX “The Best Professional 35mm Camera.” I remember holding my Nikon F3 kind of like how this lady holds Kevin Hart. I later realized I didn’t do this out of skepticism; I did it because it was probably true.

Fitting for the Pentax design ethos, the Pentax LX is maybe the most unassuming of the pro-spec electronic SLRs of the day (this is, of course, the same company that gave us the Wonder Bread of cameras, the Pentax K1000). But similarly befitting of Pentax, it is the near flawless execution of the LX’s build and the thoughtfulness of its design that gives it its power.

In abbreviated terms (for the long form review, click here) the Pentax LX is what you’d get if you shrunk a Nikon F3, a Canon F-1 New, or a Minolta XK down to the size of an Olympus OM-series camera while somehow sacrificing none of those camera’s features. It features nine interchangeable viewfinders, ten different focusing screens, motor drive capabilities, and a TTL OTF metering system which controls a stellar aperture priority mode. While managing this, the LX still managed to surpass its competitors by adding a mechanical backup across five different shutter speeds, and by being uncommonly well sealed against the elements, making it shock and water resistant to a degree those other cameras would envy. No other pro-spec SLR, manual focus or autofocus, can lay claim to this kind of a spec sheet.

Best of all, it’s an incredibly user-friendly camera. Its small size and thoughtful control layout makes it perhaps the most ergonomically friendly camera to shoot on this list. And if you can find one, prepare to enjoy the best Pentax SLR body ever made.

[Get a Pentax LX on eBay here]

Leica R5

A few months ago, the Casual Photophile writers’ chat had a small debate about what their subjective perfect camera would be. I chimed in with, “Black Minolta XD with an exposure lock would be pretty near-perfect” James quickly reminded me that that camera already exists, only that it isn’t a Minolta XD. It’s the Leica R5.

The Leica R5 is often reductively considered a German Minolta XD on the juice, which is true to some degree. The R5 itself is based on the R4, Leica’s version of the Minolta XD, which was itself born out of a particularly interesting collaboration between Leica and Minolta, which you can read about here. The R4 took the XD and added an incredible metering system which, in aperture priority mode, can utilize both spot and center weighted metering, and officially added both an AE lock (in selective spot metering mode) and a program mode (!!). The R5 expounded on this by adding a wider shutter speed range (15s – 1/2000th of a second), TTL flash metering, and an even fancier program mode with a shift capability.\

Where the XD excelled in innovation and layout, the R5 excels in sheer build quality, shooting experience, and lens roster, and that’s saying something considering what I just wrote about the XD a few paragraphs before this. The R5 equipped with a 50mm Summicron is pure luxury in electronic 35mm SLR form, with every action streamlined, smooth, and of the very highest quality. You can’t expect less from a company like Leica.

[Get a Leica R5 on eBay here]

Contax RTS III

The camera which takes the penultimate spot on this list is, admittedly, my pick of the bunch. As much as I love my old faithful Nikon F3 and all of my Nikkor lenses, I have to give it up for the last great SLR of the manual focus age (barring the Nikon FM3a), the Contax RTS III.

The Contax RTS III is the platonic ideal of the manual focus electronic 35mm SLR segment. Released in 1990, it was one of the last of its kind due the mass shift towards autofocus SLRs. With the manual focus SLR’s last gasp, Contax perfected the form, bestowing their already beautiful RTS series of cameras with every piece of tech they could muster. The camera featured an incredible 32 – 1/8000th of a second shutter, an integrated motor drive that maxed out at 5 FPS, and a freakin’ vacuum film pressure plate for maximum film flatness (seriously, who does that??). Combine this with access to the entire roster of Zeiss C/Y mount lenses and it’s hard to think of a pound-for-pound more impressive SLR system.

Historically, the Contax RTS III can be seen as a swan song for the thirty odd years manual focus SLRs ruled the world. It combines the ease-of-use, flexibility, and raw capability of the later autofocus SLR’s with the elegant, concise control layout of old school manual focus cameras, and wraps it all up in the impeccable lines Contax is known for. For the manual focus faithful as well as Zeiss fanatics, it is the ultimate electronic SLR.

[Get a Contax RTS III on eBay here]

Canon EOS-1v

Seasoned readers of the site will likely have noticed our omission of autofocus 35mm SLR’s, a class of cameras objectively more capable than any on this list. This is intentional – I believe judging cameras purely on raw capability is just as shallow as judging athletes purely on final trophy count. Ichiro Suzuki, who maybe the greatest hitter to ever play baseball, never won a World Series and yet occupies a space among the legends. In the same way, I don’t think that cameras can simply be reduced to their picture-taking ability – there’s something more to them that we love.

With all that in mind, it might be surprising to pick the Canon EOS-1v as the representative for the roided-up autofocus SLR segment. It is not the statistical leader of the segment (that would be the Minolta A9), nor is it a personal favorite (that would be the Nikon F6). I do, however, think the EOS-1v is the epitome of the genre, has the best professional pedigree, and represents a culmination of technology in film photography as well as an important link to the digital future. The feature list is mind-boggling, so I’ll just list some of the greatest hits: 45-point autofocus, a shutter speed range from 30 seconds to 1/8000th of a second, 21-zone evaluative (matrix) metering, an 8.5% partial meter, 2.4% spot meter capable of multi-spot metering , and a centerweighted meter, and a 3 FPS motor drive, among other features. It was rugged and reliable, ergonomically near-perfect and distinctly modern in its design (it’s basically a 35mm Canon EOS-1D), and subsequently a favorite of professional photographers in the twilight of the film era.

The EOS-1v makes this list not only because of its capabilities, but because it is a camera that represents the link between the film and digital eras. The proof lies in two things – its design and its lens mount. The design of the EOS-1v foregrounded every modern Canon DSLR, and can be seen almost unchanged in cameras like the 5D Mk II and 1D. For my Nikonians out there, I’m sorry to say that history shows that Canon’s EF mount surpassed the F mount in the transition from film to digital. The EOS system became the de facto professional standard, with the “L” series of lenses becoming legendary in the modern era. Professionals who have already built up a formidable arsenal of EOS lenses can use Canon EOS-1v as a virtual 1:1 film version of Canon’s DSLR offerings, making it the most sensible choice for working professionals still interested in shooting 35mm. If it is pure performance you’re after, this is the camera to get.

[Get a Canon EOS 1v on eBay here]

Well, that’s the list. If you have another favorite mechanical SLR, let us know about it in the comments below.

You can find many classic SLR cameras in our shop, F Stop Cameras

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[Some of the links in this article will direct users to our affiliates at B&H Photo, Amazon, and eBay. By purchasing anything using these links, Casual Photophile may receive a small commission at no additional charge to you. This helps Casual Photophile produce the content we produce. Many thanks for your support.]

The post The Ten Best Electronic 35mm SLR’s Ever Made appeared first on Casual Photophile.

There’s a spot in DUMBO that’s become an iconic location to capture the Manhattan Bridge. I’ve lived in New York for the entirety of my adult life, and until just recently I’d never been there. If nothing else, I can now say that photography gets me out of the house to enjoy the occasional car fire.

I was meeting a photography friend, Ariel, and his wife Lia for the first time in DUMBO. They arrived just as golden hour was beginning, cameras in hand. Thirty or so other photographers, some with accompanying models, were there taking photos on this lovely summer evening. The street is mostly not passable to traffic due to pedestrian traffic, but there was an ice cream truck, and locals’ cars were parked along the street.

DUMBO has become a cool and expensive place to be in recent years, and those waterfront condos are all quite pricey. In front of one of these buildings on the blocks, as soon as Ariel and Lia arrive, a gray BMW M5 (E39) started smoking. At first it was a little, and then it was a lot.

This was shortly before the 20th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks, and as someone who grew up close enough to where it happened that kids at my school lost parents, I’m probably still traumatized. I assume the smoking M5 is about to explode. I basically shout at Ariel to run, as I turn tail and flee.

Anyway, it didn’t explode, it just burst into flames. Must have been some kind of electrical problem. The owner eventually showed up and was quite shocked- it was a nice older BMW until, you know, it spontaneously combusted. But right after the fire kicks into high gear, the hipsters and Instagram models had mostly scattered, and I’m there with some of the finest photographic tools available in my hand- a Leica SL2 with a Summilux-SL 50mm F/1.4, in beautiful light, free to capture the response unfold as I please.

I got some banger shots of the car burning, the terrified crowd, and firefighters responding, and the owner’s face. One of my great sadnesses is that there’s not a real venue for people to see photos like this- how much editing is really worth it to make these documentary photos of a singular event shine, then they’ll just be seen on a phone by a few hundred of my followers? It depends how much time I can find before the next singular event happens. New York is paradise for street photographers, because the chaos never ends.

But to encapsulate the surreality of the situation in my Single Shot Story, I chose this murky- you may say corrupted- version of the iconic view. You know something’s wrong right away, but you’re not sure what.

I’m glad that the owner cheaped out on his stereo install or whatever and lost his car on the altar of my creative journey. Nothing lasts and we must embrace the fluency of the ephemeral. Sorry about your car, bro, that sucks.

BONUS SHOTS!

[Chris Lonardo is a photographer in New York City. Many thanks to Chris for his contribution to Single Shot Stories! ]

Add Your Story to Single Shot Stories!

We’d love to feature you and your photography on the site and to share it with our many readers! Please pick your favorite photo with a story, and tell it to us. Everyone is welcome to submit a photo. Submissions are limited to one per photographer in a three-month period, and must meet the following criteria:

1. Along with the image sent to us via email, include in the same email the camera, lens and film (if applicable) which were used to take the photo, and location where the photo was made.
2. Include a story of no more than 500 words about the image. The content is completely open so long as it discusses the submitted photo.
3. The photo should be 2,000 pixels on the long end. 

To submit your Single Shot Story for publication here on CP, send all of the above information and the photo in an email to casualphotophilearticles@gmail.com

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The post Single Shot Stories No. 007 – Chris Lonardo, Car Fire in Dumbo appeared first on Casual Photophile.

Here’s everything that I learned shooting my vacation on film.

Expired Film is Terrible

Here I am, complaining about expired film. This is nothing new. I complained about it here, in a hyperbolic fever dream of pain and suffering. In another fun article I satirically skewered expired film with my rapier wit (and only one guy in the comments missed that the entire article was a self-deprecating joke). Even when expired film didn’t totally ruin every photo I made, as when I shot it for this article penned last summer, I made sure to whine and cry about shooting the stuff.

Every time I shoot expired film I think I’ve learned my lesson. Why, then, did I think it would be a good idea to bring nothing but expired film on the first vacation that my family and I would take in over two years? Oh, that’s right, because I’m very stupid.

And so it was last month that my few brain cells and I packed my carry-on bag with ten rolls of various types of expired film just prior to boarding a plane to Florida. Slide film, C41 color, black-and-white; I brought it all and shot it all during my time away with the family. Just yesterday my scans arrived from the lab by e-mail, and you’ll never guess what happened next!

You probably guessed.

I was disappointed.

The lab technician’s notes said it all – “You were working with some old film here, so expect the usual; low contrast, tons of grain, color shifts and bad exposures.” I opened the folders and, sure enough, found low contrast, tons of grain, color shifts and bad exposures.

Over the next five hours I did everything that I could to salvage the best of the shots in Lightroom, and some of the photos have ended up… fine. I might even like some of them – wow! But getting these shots to where they are now took major adjustments. And there’s no escaping the truth that the shots that I like would’ve been liked a lot more had they been shot on new film or with a digital camera. They’d be crisp and sharp and pop with vibrancy and beautiful colors and tonality and show ultra-fine grain and – oh, can you imagine? Well, you’ll have to imagine. Because the shots I got, ain’t it.

Expired film can, of course, be a beautiful medium. But its unpredictability and unreliability, its extremely low hit rate, and its high cost (why are people selling expired film for more than fresh film?) make it a no-go for me in any but the most frivolous situations. I should’ve learned my lesson years ago, and maybe I have by now – expired film sometimes, but never when the photo matters.

One Lens Only, Please

From one hard lesson to one which I’ve finally internalized after seven years of shooting cameras professionally. I only need one lens.

Over the past seven years I’ve packed my bag for trips like this one with way too many cameras and lenses. I’d bring the wide-angle prime for that perfect landscape photo. The standard fast fifty for when the light gets low and I need that bokeh. I’d pack the telephoto zoom to take a specific shot of a specific lion on the Animal Kingdom safari, knowing well that the lazy king of the jungle would be sleeping under a shade rock just out of sight every time our ridiculous safari truck rambled on by. I recall one year I even brought a tilt-shift lens, which sat unused in the air-conditioned hotel room for the entirety of the trip.

Well, this time I brought one lens. Just one. For ten days away from home. And I couldn’t be happier with that choice.

Less to pack. Less to carry. Less to worry about. And as long as I chose the right lens, the right focal length, I’d miss nothing by bringing just one chunk of glass on a family trip away.

It took me a while to find my single favorite lens from within my favorite focal length. But now that I have, there’s no going back. I’ll never travel without it. But more importantly, I’ll probably never travel with anything else.

Slide Film is Best Film

Experience has taught me, as mentioned, that expired film is bad. And in my experience, the worst of the bad is expired slide film. I don’t think I’ve ever made a single good photo from a roll of expired slide film (and I’ve tried many times). Which is why, when I was shooting the single roll of slide film which I brought with me on this particular vacation, I actively thought with every shot “Ahh, another terrible photo.”

The phrase became my mantra, repeated with a psychotic, unhinged smile. Click! “Another terrible photo…” Click! “Another terrible photo…”

Well, time has once again proven that I’m a moron. The best photos from my ten rolls of expired film all came from that single roll of expired slide film – a roll of Kodak Ektachrome E100VS (Vivid Saturation) which expired in 2014. Who could have guessed?

I can’t explain it. But I do know this – slide film is great! Even the shots from this long-dead film are great! Which leads me to think that, had this been fresh, new slide film, the shots would be damn-near stunning, even with a ham-fisted, brainless sack of oatmeal like me holding the camera.

Next vacation I’ll consider bringing nothing but new slide film and see how we do. The operative word in that sentence being “new.”

One Camera Only, Please

There’s nothing better for creating great photos than to have a perfect understanding of the camera in your hands. I don’t care what camera it is, if you don’t know how to use it fast and without conscious thought your photos will be bad (or at least not as good as they could be).

I’ve written before about how to cheat at film photography. And the biggest cheat is to use a camera that gets out of your way and lets you focus on making the photo. That’s what I did on this vacation (for the most part). I brought my favorite camera, the one that I use when I want to make a good photo, the one that feels just perfect in my hands and does everything I need.

There were no instances during the trip in which I was looking down at the camera in my hands wondering how to make it do this, or that. I never accidentally shot in the wrong mode, never accidentally forgot to set the ISO, never picked the wrong shutter speed or aperture, and never took a photo with the lens cap still on (because lens caps are for nerds and I didn’t use one – also, it’s an SLR).

The camera just worked, which in turn allowed me to just work. And more importantly, it allowed me to take pictures fast so that I could get back to having fun with my kids. When picking your next camera, eschew complication and style and instead use the camera that just works (for you)!

The Last Lesson

2020 was not a great year. Despite a positive attitude and a generally forward-marching personal philosophy, I suffered major setbacks. I won’t complain or repeat what I’ve already written about previously, and I acknowledge that plenty of people have had a harder time recently than I have. But I’d be lying if I pretended that the past year wasn’t a killer.

Political upheaval in the country where I live, natural disasters, societal unrest, doom and death and end of days, a chilled bag of misery intravenously drip-fed into us by a destructive industrial news complex where numbers mean everything, conflict means clicks, and bad news sells big ads. And all of the turmoil somehow harder to take during an isolating pandemic which replaced friends and family with the cold unfeeling screens of our computers and phones.

Worse than anything, for me and my wife, was a jarring personal loss.

It’s easy to lose sight of what matters in life, with the crowding crush of the world relentlessly pressing in from all sides upon our own tiny lives. And when the strength to push back leaves us, when we’re tired and sad and depleted, it sometimes feels like there’s nothing we can do except to be crushed under it. We suffocate. Or we find some strength and push back.

This vacation, one where I took 360-odd photos, 70 of which might be decent, has helped me push back on the saddest year of my life. The trip was magic, the photography (a hobby which I’ve not engaged with in any real capacity in over a year) was fresh and useful. And looking through these photos for the first time last night reminded me of a lesson I’ve known for years, but had nearly forgotten. The last lesson learned shooting my vacation on film; photography is good, and family is everything.

The post What I Learned Shooting My Vacation on Film appeared first on Casual Photophile.

As my pinkie slips under the camera’s body and my other fingers desperately clutch at the cold, ridged bump referred to on most cameras as a grip (in this case I intentionally avoid referring to it as such), I get flashbacks. I’m reminded of the endless list of criteria I compiled years ago before deciding on my first proper digital camera. I won’t bore you with the details, but this much can be said- the Leica TL that I’m currently holding would not have stood a chance. It does look good though. Really good. And it does things to me no camera has ever done before. It makes me feel special, yes, but more importantly it’s the only camera that makes me want to shoot in automatic exposure mode.

If you were to detach the lens and just walk around with the body in one hand, people would assume it’s a chunky iPhone. The construction from a single block of aluminum and the glass surface on the back expanding over the actual touchscreen make it just as much of a sleek accessory as it is a very capable camera. It is elegant and refined, but to me this beauty comes with a certain amount of metaphorical and literal pain. The Leica TL doesn’t have a viewfinder and it’s really uncomfortable to hold.

It is about as small as most other APS-C cameras with an interchangeable lens mount and weights roughly the same as Sony’s a6 series bodies, but the extraordinary shape makes the TL much more awkward to hold. The front grip is smaller and there’s absolutely nothing to rest your palm on. Because the back screen is all touch-controlled and very responsive, there’s a high chance you end up entering and exiting the camera menu or changing the display info repeatedly when holding the camera only with your right hand. The designers at Leica definitely expect you to clutch onto the camera body with both hands as if you were holding the holy grail. If you do so, the Leica TL actually feels alright, but having your left index finger beneath the body to support it like you would with a Leica rangefinder makes little to no sense because the TL doesn’t have a viewfinder. Holding it like an M camera will fool you into thinking you can lift it up to your eye and look through the viewfinder (a thing which it doesn’t have) but I nevertheless tried countless times. This aluminum brick is more of a casual shooting device than a serious tool. Having to hold it like a serious tool therefore feels odd to me.

Once you’ve learned to not touch the screen when you don’t intend to, you’ll learn to appreciate how big and bright it is. Thanks to the easy touch and focus functionality and the option to have the camera take an image as soon as you’ve set the focus point, the Leica TL is quick and discreet. It’s an innovative Leica offering lots of unusual features without compromising on its most striking quality: elegance. The pop-up flash is well hidden without being flimsy when extended, the strap lug system is ingenious, and so is the battery removal process which is identical to the one found on Hasselblad’s X1D series.

But while the hardware is well put together I have a serious issue with the software on this camera. I understand that hiding the camera settings makes the screen less cluttered, but why would you then show them to me when I half press the shutter button and am about to finalize my framing? This is annoying because the settings are displayed on a half-transparent black border along the top of the screen which covers up part of the image I’m about to make. The TL’s screen is very minimalist except when it really needs to be.

So is the Leica TL just looks? Honestly, yes. Because not only does the body look gorgeous – so do the photographs. The Leica TL has a CMOS sensor that produces beautiful JPEGs which I don’t have to retouch at all. It can also capture DNGs if you want a little more wiggle room, but only in combination with JPEGs. There’s no way of capturing only raw files, which I first thought would greatly annoy me. But then the TL put a spell on me. A spell that not only made me accept lousy six-and-a-half megabyte JPEGs but also kept me trusting the camera’s algorithm to the point where I didn’t even bother switching to manual mode, opting instead to keep it on full auto-pilot.

I don’t check for the SD card anymore either since the 32 gigabytes of internal memory are plenty to house all of my photographs from a day out. At the end of the day I just plug the camera into my computer via USB or send the files directly to my phone using the super intuitive FOTOS app. The TL is essentially my most expensive, most capable point-and-shoot.

An important requirement I usually have for point-and-shoots is a somewhat decent autofocus system. The TL does deliver in this regard. Having used Olympus’ OM-D cameras for many years before making the switch to Sony I’m well accustomed to the contrast detection autofocus system. It’s not the quickest and tends to hunt quite a bit before locking onto the subject, but when it finally does, it is accurate. That’s especially important considering the high quality glass Leica offers for its APS-C lineup. I only have the 23mm f2 lens as of now, but I am already considering the 18mm f2.8 having seen how good its slightly bigger and longer sibling performs. Of course, you can fully expect sharp images with any Leica lens, but it amazes me just how good these somewhat tiny files (at least by today’s standards) look coming straight out of camera. The TL makes a clear case for the irrelevance of file size.

The post The Leica TL (I Trust You, Baby) appeared first on Casual Photophile.

The trend continued in later brochures and manuals, which used computer-aided graphics and illustrations. In the 1980s, particularly, drawings of this kind were used to showcase astonishing new technologies like autofocus and advanced metering modes which would be otherwise challenging to visualize, or to showcase the cutting edge micro-computers, circuit boards, and ribbon cables which made these new features possible. Take for example the brochure for Minolta’s Maxxum 7000, shown below.

Polaroid, another tech giant of the 1970s and ’80s, similarly emphasized the inner workings of their amazing machines in ads and promo material for the press and for dealers. One of the photographic artifacts in my office is a holographic display promoting Polaroid’s then-new Sonar autofocusing system, which mesmerizes with its faux-3D resistors and PCBs (and other things that I don’t recognize).

In addition to showing off the insides of their creations via print materials, some camera companies went one step further and created physical displays known as “cutaways.” These were actual production cameras which had been specially modified with segments of their bodies cut away to reveal the mechanical workings beneath. Leica created cutaway versions of many of their most popular cameras. These cameras were usually shipped to Leica dealers and camera shops, which would use the cutaway models to show prospective buyers exactly what was under the skin of their (potential) new camera.

These cutaway cameras are sought by collectors today, and they sell for a pretty penny indeed (see this Leica M2 listed for $7,000). I’ll use this exorbitant price to shamelessly plug a much cheaper option – my Leica M3 Exploded View print, which you can buy in my shop here.

As the camera world shifted away from all-metal cameras to an epoch coated in plastic, so too did the cutaway camera shift. No longer were cutaway cameras simply band-sawed in half, or made with holidays in the casting. Instead, camera companies began creating “see-through” cameras. These new versions of the cutaway camera were identical in construction to their production model counterparts, however their external casings were made with transparent plastic. The effect is pretty mesmerizing, especially when we see the cameras in action, their mechanical components whirring to life, their electronic components illuminating.

Unfortunately for those of us who are simpletons and begin drooling over the idea of having and using a see-through special edition of our favorite model, sadly this isn’t necessarily possible. Since the cameras are see-through, any film which we run through the camera will naturally be exposed to all sorts of unintended light. These are not, as the old description goes, “light-tight boxes.”

Always keen to show off their technology, Polaroid made quite a few see-through cameras. The cream of the crop, for me, is the gorgeous, translucent-shelled Spectra camera called “Onyx.” This is quite possibly my favorite Polaroid model. It is simply gorgeous. And it makes me so unhappy that Spectra film is no longer being produced. Interestingly, only the top plate of the Onyx Spectra is see-through, which means that the camera can actually be used like a normal camera without ruining the film.

Many manufacturers jumped onto the see-through camera bandwagon. I’ve at times owned see-through cameras from Minolta, Canon, and Pentax, and I’m sure that other companies made examples as well. But since these see-through cameras were often manufactured to be display pieces or sent as advertising materials to dealers and press, it can be nearly impossible (these days) to create a comprehensive list or to accurately represent production numbers. It is perhaps this mysteriousness which helps to create a market in which these see-through plastic cameras, like their mechanical cutaway counterparts of previous eras, are so sought by collectors.

Do you own a see-through camera? Share it with us in the comments below.

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