But in a press conference in 2010, mayor Menino mumbled his plan to revitalize the area. New transportation infrastructure was added (the Silver Line of the MBTA would provide public transport) and the scenic Boston Harborwalk was extended to run along the north side of the Seaport. 1,000 acres of the waterfront was redeveloped as an “Innovation District,” a regional hub for burgeoning industries such as clean tech, bio-chem, and health care IT.

It worked. In 2014, the area was described as “the hottest, fastest-growing real estate market in the country.” By 2017, the Seaport District boasted 78 restaurants, 8 hotels, and more than 1,100 housing units.

Yesterday, I revisited the Seaport, this time with my wife and kids. The transformation was stunning.

Everything was new. The streets weren’t just clean, but freshly paved with geometrically pleasing block work like I’d not seen since I visited Tokyo. Sleek, glass towers rose into fluffy clouds where abandoned cranes once listed against an overcast sky. The sounds of summer were carried along on a sweet breeze. Young sun worshipers lifted their faces under an azure sky. Live music carried with it the scent of outdoor dining. Families loving life and each other. We even saw (I kid you not) a marriage proposal. Moments after the heartwarming clapping trickled away, a Lamborghini’s motor roared through the canyons of glittering mirrors.

“Holy shit.” I said the swear quietly, so the kids wouldn’t hear. “This place has changed.”

My wife had never visited the Seaport during its squalid era. She asked what I meant. I explained, prefacing with the caveat that I’m kind of an idiot and don’t know much about anything.

“I remember this place being a total dump.” I said. “The last time I was here I watched a cop get mugged by six rats in a trench coat. The air smelled like dead fish and a bucket of nails. Now look at it.” I pointed to the three Lexuses parked alongside a perfectly manicured public garden, upon the lawn of which lounged a few dozen smartly-dressed young people drinking bubbly liquid out of crystal flutes. Everyone was smiling and gorgeous, with taut skin and perfect teeth. “Nothing but yuppie scum!”

She logged her disapproval of my prejudice against yuppie scum with a sideways glance. For the record, I don’t truly dislike anyone, not even yuppie scum. While I freely admit that conspicuously wealthy people irk me, I don’t really mean to pick on them. I just find immense pleasure in the phrase yuppie scum.

We walked on, stopping momentarily at the foot of a residential tower, all glass and Mithril silver like something from Tolkien’s elves. In the windows of the foyer floated framed monitors displaying listings for the apartments within, their amenities and pricing. $1.2 million, $2.6 million, $4.0 million. I gawped at the listing for one particularly luxurious rental unit and its price, a staggering $17,000 per month.

Per month!

After some time, I closed my mouth, blinked, turned to my family, and said the only words that came to mind. “Anyone want ice cream?”

At least my camera looked the part. Or it might have in 2002. Because I was using the Contax TVS Digital, a luxurious, expensive, stylish point-and-shoot digital camera capable of recording images at a stunning resolution of five point two megapixels.

We published an article last year about the growing popularity of Digicams, digital point-and-shoot cameras from the late ’90s and early ’00s. About a year later, The New York Times copied us and published a similar (though worse) article. It’s always nice to see a small publication find their voice.

I reviewed the Contax TVS Digital even before that, way back in 2019, and even then I predicted that we’d see a massive surge in the popularity of early digital point-and-shoots. Hey, maybe I do know something after all?

And so, today’s literary stroll will not be a camera review. I won’t list the specs, nor compare the titanium shelled Contax TVS Digital to its contemporary models. And readers searching for the history of Contax and the details of the Kyocera years will need to look elsewhere. I won’t even allow myself a sentence about the Contax T series‘ proclivity toward sapphire shutter release buttons, though it kills me to hold back.

I won’t mention how thrilled I was to discover that the Contax TVS Digital has an in-camera black-and-white shooting mode, nor how amazing it is at creating surprisingly striking images with deep shadows and well-retained highlights. I won’t compare it to Fujifilm’s film simulation modes. I won’t bring up the frustrations of the camera’s incredibly slow startup, nor its interminable read/write times as it saves and displays shot photos.

No, I won’t talk about the camera. Even though I want to, because I love its sing-song warble when I turn it on, I love the Game Boy quality sound effects that squeal from its insides when it locks focus and the delightfully fake shutter release sound it makes when I press the shutter release button, which – did you know? – is a synthetic sapphire?

I’ll hold back my gushing and simply share the photos, and bring you along as my beautiful wife and my lovely children enjoyed a stroll through Boston’s North End, down toward the waterfront, over the bridge, and into the new, revitalized seaport, where we wove through and amongst the filthy rich and the young and the beautiful, and where we stood in line for half an hour for the privilege of buying Japanese ice cream served in a warm, fish-shaped waffle, and where we held hands along the pristine harbor front walkways, and where we poked into a store that sells cupcakes made exclusively for dogs.

If that’s not gentrification, I don’t know what is.

But I do know that days like yesterday are why I love cameras and photography. I went to a place to see new things. I saw them, and I shot them with a neat camera. I shared the day with my family, made a few decent photos. In a perfect world we should all be so lucky.

[The gallery in this article contains images from the Seaport, as well as shots from Boston’s North End and other places where we spent our day, all made with the Contax TVS Digital in its black-and-white photo mode.]

Contax TVS Digital for sale | eBay

Get the best deals for contax tvs digital at eBay.com. We have a great online selection at the lowest prices with Fast & Free shipping on many items!

Join the 5 megapixel club – get your own Contax TVS Digital here

Buy a camera from our shop at F Stop Cameras

Follow Casual Photophile on Youtube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

[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 Shooting Boston’s Seaport District with a Contax TVS Digital appeared first on Casual Photophile.

The Contax S2 is a nearly perfect expression of the form. It has a titanium skin. It has a superb mechanical shutter. It’s fully manual with convenient light meter assistance. It works without batteries. And it’s able to mount a suite of excellent Carl Zeiss lenses (or alternatively affordable versions from Yashica).

I spent a couple of weeks shooting the Contax S2 earlier in the summer. By the end of my time with it I was convinced that the S2 belongs in the same conversations with those other, much better-known all-mechanical all-manual masterpieces. Though it’s not the sort of camera that I would personally want, I recognize it as the equal of the best mechanical manual SLRs that I’ve used and reviewed.

Specifications of the Contax S2

• Camera Type : 35mm Film, Single Lens Reflex
• Lens Mount : Contax/Yashica Mount
• Shutter : Manual mechanical focal plane shutter, vertically traveling, metal
• Shutter Speeds : 1/4000th second to 1 second; Bulb mode for long exposures
• Exposure Modes : Manual with light meter assistance
• Light Meter : Spot meter EV4 to EV20 (ISO 100 f/1.4) via Silicon photo diode cell
• Film Speed Range : ISO 12 to 6400
• Viewfinder : Fixed eye-level pentaprism, 0.82x magnification and 95% image area (with 50mm lens); Interchangeable focusing screens
• Viewfinder Information : LEDs for light meter reading, flash indicator, over- and under-exposure warning and shutter speed display
• Focusing : Manual focus only
• Film Transport : Manual film advance and rewind, automatic film frame counter
• Power Supply : 2x 1.5v LR44 battery
• Dimensions / Weight : 134 x 89 x 50mm / 560 grams
• Other Features : Self timer; Shutter release cable socket; Shutter release lock; VF diopter adjustment

What is the Contax S2

For those who detest spec sheets and would rather have the essence of the camera presented in a few easily digestible paragraphs, allow me.

The Contax S2 was designed to be a refined 35mm film SLR camera, presented in a premium package. It was manufactured by Kyocera in Japan (Kyocera had acquired Yashica in 1983, another Japanese camera company that had been licensing the Contax name from Zeiss since 1973). First sold in 1992, it offered photographers of its day a no-frills (yet high quality) all-mechanical, all-manual camera on which to mount Zeiss’ world-renowned manual focus lenses.

The S2 was a basic camera. A big, bright viewfinder, an obvious control layout, a robust and durable body with titanium top and bottom plates, and nothing unnecessary to the creation of exposed frames of film, it was a true photographers’ tool.

Its most interesting feature was its light meter, which was unusual in that it was a spot meter. Spot meters take their light readings from one specific point within the image area. This allows for very accurate metering (of a very specific area of the image), and in an experienced photographer’s hands, the spot meter is a precision tool. In an amateur’s hands, however, the spot meter can pose a problem.

In photos in which there are very dark and very light areas, say when shooting a subject with the sun positioned behind them, a spot meter might expose for the shadows on the subject and create a photo that is totally over-whelmed by the backlit sun and background. Or, the opposite might happen. If the spot meter registers the extreme light in the background, it might cause drastic under-exposure of the subject in the foreground.

Metering for the bright sky caused a total loss of detail in the shadows of the tree’s branches.

Had I metered for the dark shadows or the bright splotches of sunlight in this shot, the flowers in the center of the frame would’ve been either too light or too dark. Here the spot meter, centered on the flowers themselves, created a good reading.

The center-weighted meters or averaging meters that most camera manufacturers preferred to put into their cameras are more user-friendly and, on the whole, will make more accurate shots for the average photographer. This is because they take a broader sample of the light in a larger portion of the image area and average the reading so that most highlights and shadows will be properly exposed.

Many other 35mm SLRs offered spot meters as well, but most of them include the spot meter as a secondary system to complement their primary metering mode. Cameras like the Leica R6.2 and models within Olympus’ OM line do this beautifully. The Contax S2, on the other hand, offered a spot meter and nothing else.

Perhaps acknowledging the learning curve demanded by their chosen metering system, just two years after the S2 debuted Contax released an updated model, the Contax S2b. The S2b replaced the S2’s spot meter with the more familiar center-weighted meter. This is the version that I’d buy, were I making the decision between the two cameras (though it costs about $300 more than the original). The S2b was sold concurrently with the S2 until the year 2000, when both models were discontinued.

Practical Use

The Contax S2 is a deceptive camera. It’s fancy, with its titanium skin and its refined controls and its professional persona, but it’s also one of the most basic film cameras available today. Like a Minolta SRT or a Pentax K1000, it offers nothing more than is necessary to shoot a photo. It is the quintessential “light tight box” and very little more. Admittedly, this is an over-simplification – the Contax’s shutter, topping out at 1/4000th of a second, is more advanced than most basic cameras, and its light meter (as mentioned) is highly specialized.

But the camera’s overall simplicity means that people who know what they’re doing with a camera will pick up the S2 and instantly know what to do. We look at the manually adjustable ISO dial and understand that we need to set our ISO, and that we can also easily shoot with makeshift exposure compensation or shoot under- or over-exposed to push/pull process in development. We see the shutter speed dial, with its color coded denotation at 1/250th of a second, and understand that that’s our flash sync speed. We look through the viewfinder and see the split-image focusing patch with micro-prism surround and instantly know how to focus. We see the light meter readout LEDs and dial our exposures to suit. And we see the depth-of-field preview plunger and, uh, know that we’ll never touch it.

I used the Contax S2 during two day trips earlier in the summer. The first trip was a scenic drive to Maine’s rocky coast, the second a summer day in Boston’s North End. In both instances I loaded the camera with Rollei Retro 80s, a fine grained, low sensitivity panchromatic black and white film.

Slow films tend to be trickier to use than mid-speed films, and low ISO films tend to require more precise exposure, so I figured that this film would be a good test of the camera’s spot metering system. And it was. In numerous instances I recognized that the meter was being a bit too precious, and adjusted my shutter speed accordingly. In most cases, I got it right. In other shots I made mistakes (or the meter did) and the photos were under- or over-exposed. In these instances I know that a more advanced camera would have done the job – something like a Minolta a7, or a Canon EOS in any model.

Canon AE-1 - Camera Review

The Canon SLR that truly put the company in the spotlight, the Canon AE1 was the first "real" camera fora whole generation of film photographers. Here's how it stacks up today.

Still, the Contax S2 was fun to use. When I reviewed the Canon AE-1 way back in 2014 I called that camera “the quintessential ‘old camera'” and I say the same about the Contax S2. At least in ergonomics and style, it looks, feels, and behaves like an old camera. It fits well in the hands, balances nicely, and exudes that quality of old timey workmanship that we camera nerds love.

The metal body is cool to the touch, reminding us always that we’re holding something made out of titanium, the material with the highest strength-to-density ratio of any metallic element. The controls are finely finished, with deep knurling and large diameter knobs. The leather body covering is soft and supple, and while it’s a bit too cute for my taste (I prefer the more industrial and textured grip materials of other cameras), I can see some photographers loving the luxurious feel.

The lenses that I used during my time with the Contax S2 were two that I’ve previously used extensively; the Carl Zeiss 50mm F/1.4 Planar and the Carl Zeiss Tessar 45mm F/2.8 Pancake. Both of these lenses are amazing. They’re superbly built and create excellent and very characteristic images. The 50mm creates amazing bokeh. The 45mm combines with the camera to create a truly tiny 35mm SLR machine, perfect for travel and for day trips. But we won’t discuss the lenses further. Today’s article is about the camera, and since this camera is an interchangeable lens camera, the image quality that I got from these lenses is not very important for the purposes of today’s writing.

I will, at least, be sure to mention that any buyer who uses the S2 will be satisfied with the lenses that are available for the Contax/Yashica system cameras. Under the Zeiss umbrella we find prime lenses from 15mm to 1000mm focal lengths, and within the Yashica range (the more affordable lens lineup for this mount) we find a similar range of prime lenses, as well as a full suite of zoom lenses.

Strength as Weakness

The Contax S2 isn’t perfect. While its flaws are few and unlikely to chill the blood of photographers lusting for the S2, other would-be buyers might balk.

To start, it’s expensive. Over the past six month period, the average selling price for a used Contax S2 on eBay (at time of writing) was $447 (body only). Buyers looking for an unblemished example should expect to pay ten percent more. While this price isn’t unreasonable for a specialized and extremely fine film camera, some photographers would argue otherwise (and they’d have a strong argument).

Consider that the Contax S2, while desirable and fancy, is a fundamentally simple camera. By the specs, it doesn’t really offer much more than what a buyer would get for a $50 Minolta SRT. An Olympus OM1 body costs approximately $75.

Next, the light meter of the S2 could be a strike against it. The S2 has a spot meter, as opposed to the more forgiving center-weighted meters or average meters found in similar cameras. While a spot meter is desirable for some photographers, it’s more likely to shove a stick in the spokes of the average amateur photographer shooting film today. Even I, an extremely talented and nearly perfect photographer who never makes mistakes, was occasionally joked upon by the S2’s precise (stupid) meter.

And then there’s the lenses. While the Contax S2 can mount some truly amazing lenses, they don’t come cheap. The Zeiss range of Contax/Yashica Mount lenses often cost as much as the camera. Some speciality lenses for the S2 actually cost double what the camera does. While this is pretty typical in photography, and has been for decades, it’s less typical in the budget-friendly film camera space. We can opt for the less expensive Yashica lenses in C/Y Mount, but who wants to shoot a Contax and forego the luxurious Zeiss branding? That’s another conundrum that pales the glimmer of the S2 (just a bit).

Lastly, the Contax S2 is an all-mechanical all-manual camera. No aperture-priority, no shutter-priority, no auto mode, no auto-focus, no automatic film advance or rewind. It’s got nothing. And while much of this review has lauded the camera’s lack of frills as a benefit, it could easily be argued that it’s a liability. A fully-equipped SLR from the era of auto-everything costs $40 and will take as-good or better pictures (and here’s the important part) with a higher hit rate.

I’ve approached the Contax S2 through the prism of a photographer who likes manual cameras. I’ve suspended my personal preference to do so. I personally dislike shooting in manual mode. I find it to be pointless. I’d rather pick a camera that meters perfectly in aperture-priority mode, and then simply let the camera do the math of exposure while I concentrate on composition, depth-of-field, focus, and living the moment that I’m photographing. If you’re like me, you probably won’t prefer the $400 Contax S2 over a $100 Minolta X700.

We Should All Be Shooting Dorky AF SLRs and Here's Why

Save money, save time, and improve your photography shooting one of these unpopular, ugly and amazingly capable autofocus film SLR cameras.

While my wife and I were sitting in the grass on the Greenway, with my kids running through the splash pad area, this friendly golden retriever kept darting up to us in between fetch sessions. Here it’s testing the minimum focus distance of the Zeiss 45mm.

I’ve sub-headed this section of the review intentionally – Strengths as Weakness. The Contax has weaknesses, as do all cameras. But each of these flaws could be countered if we simply adopt the opposite view, and neither perspective would be wrong.

It’s an expensive camera. A bad thing when we buy. But it’s an expensive camera. A good thing when we sell!

Its light meter is too specialized. Bad when we’re not paying attention. But the same meter allows precision in the right hands. Good!

The lenses are pricey. Bad, again, when we buy. But good when we sell, and even better when we can further adapt them to our digital camera!

It lacks advanced shooting modes and electronics. Bad. But it won’t die in the field or complicate the day’s shooting, or overrule our own artistic vision, and it’ll be infinitely repairable. See? All of that is good.

Inevitably, the strength and weakness of the Contax S2 will be judged by the individual photo geek. Choose your side.

Final Thoughts

The Contax S2 is a great camera. It deserves to be among the legendary cameras that are frequently discussed whenever and wherever people gush about all-mechanical, all-manual, no frills classic cameras like the FM3a and the Leica R6. Solid, reliable, and focused, it’s a camera for people who want to make photographs as much with their mind as with their eyes.

While I personally would prefer a more automated machine, as I’ve mentioned in many of my articles covering these sorts of bare-bones classic cameras, I can totally understand why the Contax S2 (and cameras like it) are the be-all, end-all for a whole subset of film photographers today.

Browse for your own Contax S2 on eBay here

Search for a camera at F Stop Cameras here

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube

[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 Contax S2 Review – A No Frills Titanium 35mm SLR appeared first on Casual Photophile.

In fact I had owned a silver Contax T some time before this fateful trade, but that one had come to me beaten up, and I eventually sold it to a local shop in Hanoi, Vietnam where I’ve lived part time for the past four years. After 2 rolls, the T started taking audibly long shots in bright daylight with 400 ISO film. After the roll came back with some overexposed motion blur shots, I knew that there was an issue and brought it back to the shop.

They offered to let me trade the T for another camera, and I reluctantly chose the Contax TVS.

I had also previously owned a TVS – or more accurately, a TVS II. I loved the photos I made with it, and the camera seemed solid, but the manual twist out zoom lens felt a bit loose, as if it would break at any moment and leave me holding a champagne brick. So I sold that one, too.

But my newest TVS (the original one, this time) felt great. No loose bits, and it seemed to work right. A quick comparison between the two models follows.

The original TVS has a tab to extend and zoom the lens – love it. It lacks the built-in lens cover of the second camera, and mine came with the expensive-to-lose lens cap (which I did promptly lose at the airport). The TVS II has the ability to remember your flash choice while the original has its flash set to Auto initially. I forgot to turn it off and blasted a couple on an escalator, but usually I can remember to choose the setting when turning on the TVS. Besides that, they’re very similar things.

Rather than repeat information shared in James’ post on the TVS, I want to share some surprises about my experience bringing the TVS as my only film camera to Bangkok for an unwanted work-cation/visa run.

I was saddened at giving up the rare and desirable Contax T for the TVS, which is, as James’ article explained, the best value in Contax compacts – which also means that maybe it’s a little less prestigious to own. And mine has the databack. How uncool.

Prestige aside, there I was, a Contax TVS and a few rolls of film in Bangkok.

As mentioned before, this model has a tab to extend the lens while simultaneously turning on the camera. I like how this feels and it’s buttery smooth on my model. Shooting mostly outdoors, I turned off the flash except for a few times where it was needed for daylight fill. Over the past year, I’ve come to discover how much I’ve over-valued my input in choosing manual settings on cameras with great light meters/automatic EV. For this trip I wanted to be in the action, to experience the sights while quickly taking snapshots – only briefly pausing to compose a shot when possible. I left the TVS on P, or Program mode, and let it choose the Aperture and Shutter values. I was very pleased with the results, and as most shots were street photos, getting the subject in focus was a priority to subject isolation.

I wandered, often lost, through the back roads along Sukhumvit and other busy streets. When I could frame a shot, I did. But many times I didn’t raise the camera above my waist – I just took the shot blind.

The Contax T versus the Contax TVS

And what about trading the prime 38mm f/2.8 lens of the Contax T for the TVS’s 28-56mm f/3.5-5.6 zoom tab contraption?

It proved way more useful to have a range of focal lengths than the extra f-stop (or three, when zoomed since the TVS has a max aperture of only 5.6 when zoomed in). There were many shots that the subject wouldn’t have filled the frame or would’ve needed too much cropping without zoom. And the auto-focus hit almost every time. A put down of the manual-focus T, not hardly. But for general photos, the TVS is very sharp. Squinting in on scans at max zoom or for those with an enlarger, maybe shots from the prime-lensed T is sharper, but the TVS is fantastic too. It’s a Zeiss after all. And I shot with 400 ISO film in mostly well-lit situations, so the larger maximum aperture wasn’t that necessary.

And what about the TVS being more bulky, or less portable?

Yes, and no. Pop the flash on the Contax T and now it’s less portable/pocke-table. Also, not having a drawbridge door (no offense T and Minox lovers!) to fold out was great. I just moved the tab to extend the lens and bam! Photo Time.

Another great feature of the TVS and TVS II is that if you half-press the shutter button while looking at the film counter window, it shows the focal length the lens is set to. Want to shoot with a Zeiss 35mm at f/5.6? Go ahead! 28mm at f/3.5? Feel free! Tighter framing at 56mm f/5.6? Sure.

This review may sound like a battle between the Contax T and the TVS. Sort of. I may be biased after my beautiful black Contax T went wonky on me, trying to feel better about the TVS – with databack. ugh. Turns out, the TVS with databack has a better grip than the TVS without. It only adds 2mm of thickness, and is less prone to those ugly scratches on the titanium champagne back.

I digress.

Final Thoughts

After owning the Contax G1 with the 28mm, 45mm, and 90mm lenses, the Contax T, and the fantastic Minolta TC-1, I can say that I’ve finally found the camera that works for me. I’m a street and landscape photographer that likes portability due to a nomadic lifestyle. I want something (jacket) pocket-able that can do most of what I need (aperture setting, auto, flash, ev compensation) and the Contax TVS nailed it for me in Bangkok. I was shocked at how many photos came out decent, were perfectly focused and exposed, and were very sharp.

I can’t wait to see what images come through this lens on the next adventure. While I love the Contax T, Lomo LC-W, and Rollei 35 that were lost in rediscovering the TVS, I’m not too sad about it.

Buy your own Contax TVS on eBay here

Get a film camera from our store at F Stop Cameras

Follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube

[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 Contax TVS on the Streets of Bangkok appeared first on Casual Photophile.

I noticed in Esquire the other day a very excellent piece written by Maaza Mengiste. The article, a lovely bio / interview / story focusing on the childhood, method, philosophy, casual drug use, and everything else of actor Oscar Isaac. I loved Isaac in Ex Machina, and as Poe Dameron in Star Wars Episode VII (specifically), and I guess everything else that I’ve ever seen him in. I’m also pretty jealous of him for his hair. It’s pretty great hair.

The excellent Esquire article is accompanied by equally fantastic photography by Guy Aroch. I’d never heard of Guy Aroch before this piece. Probably because I’m just a dork sitting in my basement office typing articles about liking cameras and being okay at photography. But he takes great photos and I’m now a fan, for what that’s worth (literally nothing to Guy Aroch).

I noticed a few things about Aroch’s photography in this article. I won’t list them all. But some things that I did notice were, first, that Guy Aroch owns a Contax T2; that Guy Aroch made some of the photos in this article with (I’m guessing) the same Contax T2; that Guy Aroch had Oscar Isaac hold his T2 for a few moments to take photos of him holding it; and finally, that Oscar Isaac thinks the Contax T2’s self-timer button is the shutter release button. And isn’t it weird that they clone-stamped the Contax branding off of the camera? That’s funny.

I love all of this. If only because it gives the “STOP HYPING FILM CAMERAS” crowd a target that’s not me and my writers.

See you the next time I write a real article!

CASUAL PHOTOPHILE is on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, and Youtube

[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 Behold Oscar Isaac Holding a Contax T2 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

Follow Casual Photophile on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram

[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.

Robert Capa’s star-studded, swashbuckling life sometimes overshadows his contributions to photojournalism. For ease of transportation, the brilliant (and, like this author, chronically asthmatic) Oskar Barnack developed the compact 35mm camera as an antithesis to the tripod-borne large format beasts of the time. Capa was among the first to take Barnack’s invention into the field and press it into professional service. “If your pictures aren’t good enough, you’re not close enough.” A clichéd axiom today? Maybe. But we shouldn’t fail to recognize Capa as a pioneer of run-and-gun shooting, a necessary skill when the photographer is quite literally working in front of a hostile muzzle.

Romantic adventurism aside, Robert Capa’s approach to the technicalities of photography are less often discussed, by himself or otherwise. Perhaps he was a mirror image of Spanish playboy Alfonso de Portago, Ferrari’s dashing racing prodigy who, by his own admission, knew little about the cars he drove and cared even less. It could indeed be argued that the rakish Capa treated his cameras as he did his lovers; a new model seemingly came and went with every conflict that he covered.

But there might be more behind that fly-by-night facade. One only has to study his kit to understand that Capa, like (or unlike) many of us, was a pragmatist when it came to his gear.

Spain and the Screw Mount Leica

1931. A young Jew named Endre Friedmann fled his native Hungary, a nation increasingly choked by creeping fascism, and landed in another country on the cusp of similar disaster. It was within the darkroom of the Berlin photo agency Dephot that Friedmann found his purpose.

His eye for composition became evident even as a lowly assistant, and eventually Dephot boss Simon Guttmann rolled the dice that would set a great career into motion. He dispatched Friedmann to Copenhagen, where the exiled Leon Trotsky was due to speak. Guttmann sent the 19 year-old on his way with one thing: a Leica II screw-mount rangefinder.

The camera that Endre Friedmann brought to Copenhagen was only the first major update of Barnack’s original fixed-lens Leica A, but its basic design would remain largely unchanged for decades to come. The Leica II was a black-enameled gem and a true pocket camera. Hold one in your hand today, and it becomes apparent why it proved a game-changer for potentially dangerous situations unfriendly to the journalist. Friedmann came away from Copenhagen with a set of photos that affirmed his talent despite his inexperience. The most iconic one is a surreptitious low-angle shot of Trotsky orating at the podium, his hands locked like talons in front of his face to make a point.

Friedmann soon made some major changes to his life. He fell in love with Gerda Taro, a fiery German-born Jew who shared both Friedmann’s talent for photography as well as his need to flee the nascent Third Reich for Paris. With Taro’s encouragement — some might say tutelage, for her own skills were already formidable — he studied photography more seriously and fashioned a new identity to improve his marketability. Endre Friedmann became Robert Capa, and Robert Capa was intent on photographing war-torn Spain.

One thing remained unchanged: the kit. Both Capa and Taro brought screw-mount Leicas with them to cover the Spanish Civil War. Based on an extant photo of Taro shooting with a chrome-plated Leica, the couple likely carried either the Leica III or the improved IIIa, released in 1935 with the addition of a 1/1000th top shutter speed. Taro’s photos from this period, which were also made on a Rolleiflex, easily rival Capa’s in their artistry and intensity. (Needless to say, her trailblazing career merits its own writeup.)

The Leica’s light weight and small form factor resulted in combat photography as it had never been seen before. Robert Capa and Gerda Taro used them to full effect, producing photos of shell-shocked casualties, civilians scrambling through towns reduced to rubble, and portraits of men and women fighting for various militias — the CNT, the POUM, the PSUC, et. al. — that formed a muddled alphabet soup of ideologies and motives.

The most famous photo, of course, is Capa’s “Falling Soldier.” A picture which shows a Loyalist militiaman seemingly captured on celluloid at the moment of death. There are probably as many conflicting accounts and theories surrounding the photo’s authenticity as there were acronyms for Spain’s combatants. While the controversy surrounding “The Falling Soldier” is beyond the scope of this article, one thing is undeniable: the image ushered forth a new era of combat photography and made Capa famous.

SPAIN. Cerro Muriano, Cordoba front. September 5th, 1936. Republican militiaman (Federico BORRELL GARCIA) at the moment of death. (“The Falling Soldier”).

But by the time Robert Capa finally left Spain, only one death was on his mind: Gerda Taro’s. While covering the end of a failed Loyalist offensive in 1937, she was killed in a freak accident after a tank collided with her amidst the chaotic withdrawal.

Capa had intended to marry Gerda. Her death would leave a permanent scar. On his next assignment, the Leicas they used together were replaced.

The Contax in Combat

The next time Capa ventured into the battlefield, it was in the Far East with a Zeiss-made Contax II. While a romantic might ascribe his abandonment of the Leica to its painful association with Gerda, from a purely technical standpoint it represents a logical upgrade to keep up with the progress of technology. Leica screw-mount cameras remained perfectly viable tools, and the line would continue until the IIIf and short-lived IIIg were finally supplanted entirely by the fabled M series in the 1950’s. But even as early as 1936, other companies were already moving in on Leica’s blind spots.

The III series from A to G invariably featured separate windows for the viewfinder and coupled rangefinder: to compose a picture, the photographer had to first look through the narrow rangefinder window to focus, then move the eye over to the viewfinder window to compose. Though successive iterations of the III would bring the two windows closer together, the combined rangefinder-viewfinder window introduced by the Contax II was more ideal. Further boasting a removable back and bayonet lens mount, the Contax’s improvements made it hard for a working photographer to resist.

Sure enough, during Capa’s coverage of the Chinese war of resistance against Japan, he can be seen debuting his new Contax kit while perched atop a knocked-out Japanese tank. It was with this camera that he made some of his most poignant photos, including a portrait of a Chinese boy soldier that would grace the cover of Life Magazine in 1938, a shot of tense citizens watching a dogfight play out above their city, and a touching winter scene of carefree children playing in the snow amid a surreal lull in the violence. And while color film was still dismissed by most professionals at the time, Capa enthusiastically experimented with Kodachrome in China.

CHINA. Hankou. March, 1938. Children playing in the snow.

Several Zeiss bodies would accompany Capa for the rest of his career. Their most famous moment would be on June 6th, 1944. As he plunged into the surf behind Allied troops assaulting the “Easy Red” sector of Omaha Beach, Capa brought two Contax IIs fitted with 50mm glass. As he describes in his autobiography Slightly Out of Focus, “The slant of the beach gave us some protection, so long as we lay flat… I took out my second Contax camera and began to shoot without raising my head.” He later recalls frantically attempting to reload his Contax soaking wet on “the ugliest beach in the world”, eventually retreating to a landing craft out of panic. (It should be noted that as he did elsewhere in life, Capa presented alternate or fictionalized retellings of events for dramatic effect in Slightly Out of Focus.)

By now the disaster that befell Capa’s D-Day negatives in Life Magazine’s darkroom has taken on mythical status, a horror story for lab technicians to tell around the campfire. As with “The Falling Soldier”, the contradictory accounts and urban legends surrounding what really happened are myriad (the accusatory finger has even been pointed toward a young Larry Burrows, then working in the darkroom as an assistant.) Until recently, various versions of the accepted narrative had been that between two and four rolls of film from the pair of Contaxes arrived at the Life offices in London. So sensational were they that the lab technicians were ordered to process them as quickly as possible; in their haste, they left the film in the dryers for too long or at too high a temperature, destroying all but the “Magnificent Eleven.”

Yet as he neared his 100th birthday, Life editor John G. Morris himself admitted the possibility that no other frames from Omaha Beach had existed in the first place. “I now believe that it’s quite possible that Bob just bundled all his 35 together and just shipped it off back to London, knowing that on one of those rolls there would be the [Omaha Beach] pictures he actually shot that morning.”

Debate continues to rage online over the veracity of Capa’s accounts and the official line taken by his publishers. Some fans and mainstream outlets still parrot the dramatic traditional narratives despite their often significant embellishments and inaccuracies, while zealous internet sleuths on the other side seem curiously invested in their attempts to discredit Capa’s work and cast doubt on his personal character.

As is often the case with events that occurred decades ago in a chaotic time, the truth probably lies hidden somewhere in between. Whatever it may be, the number of civilians in the immediate vicinity of Omaha Beach during the first waves could likely be counted on one hand — and Robert Capa took the closest pictures.

Capa retained his Contax IIs for the entirety of World War II. He also appears to have variously carried a borrowed Graflex Speed Graphic, a Rolleiflex Automat Model RF, and an earlier Rolleiflex Old Standard. Based on his body of work, Capa employed the Rollei TLRs in calmer situations that allowed for precise composition and portraiture. Some of his most impressive photos involve no action whatsoever, like his stark portraits of German prisoners-of-war.

But perhaps his most arresting photos of all — ones with authentic immediacy no one can dispute — are a sequence taken on a Leipzig balcony showing the moments leading up to Private Raymond J. Bowman’s death at the hands of a German sniper. The symbolism of Bowman’s demise just weeks before the end of the war in Europe became his namesake: “The Last Man to Die.”

The End: A Nikon in Indochina

Though Capa’s interwar years are often overlooked, they produced breathtaking color work, intimate portraits of artists from Matisse to Picasso, a misadventure in the Soviet Union with John Steinbeck, and behind-the-scenes candids on Hollywood sets.

The latter period was marked by Capa’s brief but doomed affair with the actress Ingrid Bergman. They fell deeply in love, but Capa eventually found himself reluctant to pursue the relationship further and commit to Bergman’s suggestions of marriage. The prospect of following her around from soundstage to soundstage chafed against his urge to remain untethered. It was inevitable that he would find himself on the battlefield once again. After his coverage of the 1948 Arab-Israeli War, fate presented another opportunity. It would prove to be his last.

By 1954, France was clinging to its last colonial possessions in Indochina and rapidly losing ground to the Viet Minh. At the eleventh hour, Life asked Capa to fill in for another photographer who had been on the ground covering the fighting.

Gone were the Rolleis, but one final addition was made to Capa’s loadout: a Nikon S to complement his ever-loyal Contax. It may seem an odd choice at first glance. The S arguably didn’t offer a radically different or improved shooting experience over the Contax, as both cameras were aesthetically and functionally quite similar. It’s reasonable to wonder why Capa eschewed the Leica M3, which debuted that same year with such improvements as a rapid advance lever and larger viewfinder.

Simple experimentation may be the answer. The 1950s brought with them a strong Japanese challenge to the long-dominant German and American camera industries. Old hands like David Douglas Duncan were already mounting Nikkor glass to their Leica screw-mount bodies. It’s also probably no coincidence that when Capa received the cable to divert to Indochina, he was touring in Japan. (Incidentally, the colleague he replaced had initially been tasked with undoing the “diplomatic damage” caused earlier by Duncan’s frank assessment of French performance.)

On May 25th, 1954, Robert Capa accompanied French troops into the countryside of Thai Binh province with two other correspondents. His Contax was loaded with black-and-white film, the Nikon with color. Around 2:50 PM, a restless Capa left his companions behind to scout up the road in search of action. He joined another group of French soldiers patrolling a large field, tagging along behind them and taking the last photos of his life.

Then he stepped on a Viet Minh land mine buried in the dirt. The Nikon was thrown clear in the ensuing blast, while the Contax remained clutched in his left hand. The rolls of film inside had survived. Their creator had not.

Robert Capa’s legacy has inspired countless debates and dilemmas — on the role of the photographer as a passive observer or active participant in the often tragic events being documented; on the nature of the adrenaline rush that comes from combat and the void left behind in peacetime; on the blurred lines that exist between art, photojournalism, and propaganda.

But for the readers of this site, Capa’s career offers an interesting look at how one professional used his equipment and responded to the considerable technical advancements that occurred throughout his lifetime — innovations that we now take for granted. When a teenage Endre Friedmann was cutting his teeth in the darkroom, Barnack’s seminal 35mm masterpiece was still taking form. When Robert Capa met his untimely end in Vietnam, the age of the Leica Ms and SLRs that we continue to passionately discuss to this day had just begun.

We’ve all probably gone through similar mental exercises before: If Robert Capa had sidestepped that land mine and continued his work, how would he have photographed the watershed moments of the 60s and 70s? What would have been in his camera bag?

Perhaps these hypotheticals are a moot point. Like his kindred spirit Alfonso de Portago, whose own life would be cut short three years later in a hairpin turn at the Mille Miglia, Robert Capa died as he lived: fast. But he carried with him a breadth of experience and achievement that most men would take two lifetimes to dream up.

Follow Casual Photophile on Facebook and Instagram

[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 Close Focus: The Life, Work, and Cameras of Robert Capa appeared first on Casual Photophile.