Archive for the ‘My Life in Cameras’ Category
My life in cameras no. 28
Russian FED cameras have one of the most interesting origin stories in all camera history. For a start, they were named after one of the most evil men of the Leninist period of the early 1920s, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, known as “Bloody Felix”. He was the founder of the Cheka, the sinister secret police organisation which was the […]
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Tags: Anton Makarenko, Bloody Felix, FED 2 camera, FED 2 series, FED cameras, Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, forerunner of the KGB, founder of the Cheka, labour commune Ukraine, St Kilda cemetry
My life in cameras no.24
. The Bronica SQ-B was a medium format SLR introduced in 1996. It was a lower cost version of the highly regarded SQ-A, with many of the advanced features removed. I haven’t noticed any of that; the simplicity is its best feature. It’s a strong and reliable camera that is a great pleasure to use. […]
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Tags: Bronica & Hasselblad, Bronica SQ-B, Bronica SQ-B medium format SLR
My life in cameras no.23
. The Fujifilm X100 is the classiest camera I’ve ever owned. The Age newspaper voted it their camera of the year: “Fujifilm launched the X100 in the first half of the year to general astonishment. The concept of a fixed-lens, fixed focal length, retro-styled digital camera with dual optical/electronic viewfinder and an APS sensor as […]
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Tags: Fujifilm X100, photos of Venice, Terry Lane The Age Green Guide, Venice walls, X100 camera
My Life in Cameras no.20
20. CANON G10 The Canon G10, and it’s later versions the G11 and G12, are for people who like the ways cameras used to operate – as machines. The steel body and external dials give you a feeling of control. It’s chunky and heavy in the hand, not a dainty camera as so many are. […]
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Tags: Canon G10
My Life in Cameras no.9
9. PENTAX SV I acquired a Pentax SV in 1971 when I foolishly swapped a nearly new Mamiya C33 for this 10 year old camera. I was jipped! But it got me through a couple of weddings and a year of study at Prahran Tech. This camera needed an externally-fitted light meter, that contraption you […]
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Tags: Asahi Pentax cameras, Labassa, Lyndy Farrell, Pentax, Pentax 1962, Pentax history, Pentax Pentaprism, Pentax SLR, Pentax SV, Prahran Tech
My Life in Cameras no.11
11. MAMIYA C33 The Mamiya twin lens reflex cameras were a breakthrough in their day. Rugged, reliable and straightforward, they were a ‘systems’ camera coming with interchangeable lenses and various accessories when the Rolleiflex and Yashica TLRs were fixed. Every function was external and visible making them practical, working machines. This is the antithesis of […]
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Tags: Diane Arbus in Central Park, Diane Arbus Mamiya, Frederick Sommer, Garry Winogrand photograph of Diane Arbus, Japanese camera design, Mamiya C33, twin lens reflex
My Life in Cameras no.15
15. BANNER The Banner is a strange device. A clone of the classic Diana camera of the 1960s and 70s, it was produced by the Great Wall Plastic Co. of Hong Kong to be sold as toys, promotional giveaways, fairground prizes etc. Diana is the generic name of the cheap cameras produced mostly on the same […]
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Tags: Banner camera, Banner toy camera, Banner with a strange device, Diana Banner camera, Diana camera, Great Wall Plastic Co, Lomo Diana, Lomography Diana, plastic toy camera, toy cameras
My Life in Cameras no.17
17. HOLGA The Holga was created in 1981 by a Mr.T.M.Lee as a cheap family camera for the Chinese market, a sort of modern Box Brownie. It wasn’t exactly a “toy” camera as it’s sometimes labelled now. When 35mm caught on there and the market dried up, it started to catch on among experimental users […]
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Tags: Bauhaus-Archiv photo, Chinese Box Brownie, Chinese cameras, Flatiron building photograph, Greg Wayn, Holga camera, International Centre of Photography, Lomo, low fidelity aesthetic, Modernismus, photo of Seagram building, photographs of modern architecture, plastic lens, T.M.Lee, The Modern Idea, Vertigo
My Life in Cameras no.9
9. ZENIT B The Zenit B was a Russian single-lens-reflex camera made between 1968 and 1973. Heavy, clunky, not a pleasure to use, it was years behind its East German competitor. the Praktica, which itself was years behind its Japanese competitors. It had no built-in lightmeter nor an automatic diaphragm. This meant you had to […]
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Tags: Antifascist Central School, Communist camera, Jerusalem 1975, Jerusalem street photographs, KMZ optics company, Russian cameras, Russian SLR camera, Zenit B
My Life in Cameras no.10
10. PENTAX MX The MX was one of the best products of the SLR era: compact, ergonomic and straightforward. This is a mechanical, fully manual camera which is the logical form for an analogue SLR. If you’re using such a sophisticated tool, why would you want it to be automated, surely the whole point is […]
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Tags: Flinders Street photo, Melbourne photography school, Pentax MX, Pentax SLR, photography 1980, Photography Studies College, PSC, South Melbourne Football Club 1981
My Life in Cameras, no.13
13. PACEMAKER SPEED GRAPHIC I bought this camera in 1983 for $200 and I’ve loved it ever since. It’s a 5×4 press camera, 1955. f4.7, 135mm Optar lens. Shutters speeds T, B, 1, 2, 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 400. Apertures to f32. Leaf shutter plus focal plane shutter. Rangefinder focus. Rear ground glass […]
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Tags: 5x4 camera, American cameras, Folmer & Schwing, Folmer & Schwing Manufacturing Company, Graflex, old press camera, Pacemaker Speed Graphic, Speed Graphic, Weegee camera, Weegee Speed Graphic, Weegee The Naked City
My Life in Cameras, no.22
22. ERCONA II Looking back at all the cameras I’ve had, I counted twenty two that have meant something to me, or that I used in some significant way. Photographers love cameras, I mean they’re in love with them, it’s a feeling that non-photographers don’t understand. So I decided to research these twenty two, to […]
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Tags: 6x9 camera, 6x9 format, apug, East German cameras, Ercona II camera, Glenlyon, Glenlyon Reserve, Greg Wayn, Ikonta 6x9, Novonar lens, postwar camera, Treuhandanstalt, Zeiss Ikon Dresden
