In my essay A Matter of Character (http://www.luminous-landscape.com/reviews/cameras/a_matter_of_character.shtml) I've asked that if you'd like to propose any camera or system (now or from the past) that you think has "character", why not post a comment here?
Remember though – this is all about "opinion" There's no right or wrong. Keep it civil please.
Michael
Camera heaven would be a 500 series with a full-frame sensor. That I could afford to buy. I don't ask for much.
;-)
Rob C
Only two of the cameras that I have owned and used over the years have had real character; a Voigtlander Vitessa L and a Pentax Spotmatic. I can't really define why, in either case. None of the digital beauties come close.
My wife's TR3 that had a hole in the floor on the passenger side and side curtains had character, as did my MGB. Can't explain that either.
I had the budget for either and ended up with the X-E1, strictly for reasons of character. Having been a Pentax and (coincidentally, I didn’t arrange for the merger) Ricoh guy, obviously I’m a sucker for character. Never had a Fuji before, aside from a lamentable point-and-shoot way back around Y2K.
I’ve never worked with a rangefinder-style EVF like the X-E1 has before, and I’m very taken with it. The readout is crisp and excellent and it’s got the enlarge-to-help-manual-focus button, which is very seductive. I wonder how the X-Pro optical viewfinder will work with the upcoming long tele-zoom?
Recently, on the Big Island of Hawaii, I went on a long and quite arduous multi-hour hike across rough lava to where the live lava was, to poke a stick in it (pix & story at http://goo.gl/GL9dl ). I took only the X-E1 and the 35mmF1.4 prime, totally appreciated the featherweightness of that combo, and the pix came out pretty good.
I've asked that if you'd like to propose any camera or system (now or from the past) that you think has "character", why not post a comment here?
Box Brownie.
Got me hooked before I was knee high to a grasshopper and I've been addicted ever since.
Character? Mamiya RB67, Nikon F2 - any camera that doesn't require batteries.
Exata Varex IIb camera body. Mine came with Zeiss Jena 50mm f2,8 lens. The selftimer and 130 degree left hand film rewind lever gears when activated sounds very subtle mechanically - like when winding a precision pocket watch. The shape of camera body is somewhat triangular and the shutter button can only be operated using left hand as it is located on front left hand side when in use, however very practical when shooting as i am right handed. Has built in film cutter!
and since I like taking at least 24 little pictures every second, my favourite camera of all time was the Bolex: Sweet Swiss clockwork precision.
...I covered a lot of Vietnam moratorium stuff with the Arri back in the day and it might have been that grip arrangement that gave the security in a riot of feeling that you were in some way armed with a weapon of defense.
I hear you Chris, and I probably agree about the clockwork aspect. Mind you, the Bell & Howell 70DR had a clockwork mechanism that was part of agricultural machinery, but it too had a charm. I covered a lot of Vietnam moratorium stuff with the Arri back in the day and it might have been that grip arrangement that gave the security in a riot of feeling that you were in some way armed with a weapon of defense.
Crikey, it was the 60s — how long ago was that!
(http://www.moviecamera.it/immagini/foto%20cine/Paillard%20Bolex%20H16.JPG)
The Bolex pic almost brought a tear to my eye. Regrettably never owned one, but used to covet them. Only a Questar telescope provoked similar lust.
Michael
I agree with the F2; had the F, F2 Photomic, the F4S and then sold the latter to go backwards to a simple F3. The best, IMO? the F2 because it had more comfortable rounded edges and corners. The FM and FM2 were okay for higher synch, the only use I gave them, but not in the same league at all. I, too, detest battery dependence. But today and digital - what choice can one possibly have?
Rob C
I think film cameras (movie and stills) have more character than digital cameras.
and since I like taking at least 24 little pictures every second, my favourite camera of all time was the Bolex: Sweet Swiss clockwork precision.
(http://www.moviecamera.it/immagini/foto%20cine/Paillard%20Bolex%20H16.JPG)
My first professional outing was to shoot 4 different vehicles converging simultaneously at the centre of a 4-way split screen.
Equipped with a matte box (http://www.bolexcollector.com/accessories/filter60.html) with a three-quarter frame matte - plus a few mm for borders, I carefully rewound the film to the same start point for each of the four exposures. When the workprint came in from the lab, I couldn't believe that it actually worked. From that moment on I loved the Bolex :-*
(I still have the Gossen LunaSix Pro meter I used then...alas the camera was never mine)
Chris,
... began a long and torrid affair with the Arriflex 16 ST...
Walter
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For that reason, I'll add to your list the rackover Mitchell and the Arri IIC. Beasts, both. Seminal cameras. Real characters.
For still cameras, I must add the Pentax 6X7. Nobody who's tripped the shutter on that giant SLR can forget the experience.
[
For that reason, I'll add to your list the rackover Mitchell and the Arri IIC. Beasts, both. Seminal cameras. Real characters.
"So yeah, digital cameras don't have it and never can - at least, not to an older generation."
So is that part of the issue of character. What we started with defines what character is, for us, in a camera. Or something like that anyway. And does that then change the way we use the camera?
Dave S
So yeah, digital cameras don't have it and never can - at least, not to an older generation.
Whoa there, that's one hell of a generalisation.+1
I think that if you believe a camera body has "character" you probably should check in at Nikonians, where people appear to have bought Nikon D800's to test them rather than to make pictures with them. They carefully calibrate autofocus for each of their lenses, making adjustments of a millimeter or two -- an adjustment that changes in a zoom lens as you zoom.
I do think that a violin has character. But each violin is different and has a different voice -- which is why a Stradivarius will cost you more than two million bucks. There's no other voice with that character. The same thing isn't true of cameras. One Nikon D4 will make the same pictures as another Nikon D4. On the other hand, one 24-70 won't necessarily give you exactly the same result as another 24-70. So I believe a lens might be said to have character.
I started with a Russian brick called a Zenith B, I'm not sure it had character but it had attitude.
I loved my old Canon A1 more than my Pentax MX or my Nikon FE.
I had a little Ricoh 500 something that I enjoyed using.
My Broni ETR-S never really had character or any of the Hassleblads I used.
My Cambo was just industrial but the MPP had something about it.The Canon DSLRs are like plastic handled axes, work well but nothing you could love.
When my G10 broke down I bought a Fuji X10 to replace it as a pocket notepad. I liked the look of it and went against all the online grumbling.
I have to say it's put a lot of the fun back into photography for me. It's a long way from being my best camera but using it puts a smile on my face.
But, Rob, thats exactly what you did!
;)
They sure did: avoirdupois!
Rob C
(http://www.wayland.me.uk/assets/images/1_smiley_biggrin.gif) You're not kidding, it's certainly a lump to carry around.
Did you ever come across an English photographer called Rob Talbot? He had some success with picture books, one of which I bought, English Landscapes,SBN 0297 83475 4, and then (he) vanished off the radar - at least, I can't find him.
Looking at a lot of television documentaries about Britain, I conclude that the ideal way to enjoy it is by air on a good summer's day. Those endlessly repeated journeys by Portillo on his railway rides illustrate this well: from ground level there's not always a heap to see, but from the air, even an ordinary old railroad track has glamour!
Rob C
I still use the 5D. Often with a small or wide prime. Its a nice camera.
It has character.
and while I am on flights of fancy, check out Chris Hadfield's latest moonrise photo (https://twitter.com/Cmdr_Hadfield/status/325026285313208320/photo/1) (a very sweet tweet)
Sigma Dp1 - 3 Merrill. The first cameras since I digital time really impressing me. Enough quirks to be characterful :) but the quality of the files reminds me good old analog large format. I like them. On my flickr page I´ve some recent photos of my Merrills.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/arcaswissi (http://www.flickr.com/photos/arcaswissi)
The attached photo of Dp3m
I decided I would become a photographer at 40. Apart from an M4, which I used for holiday slides, my only camera was a 1926 KODAK Panoram, a camera the size of a shoe box, with a scanning lens, fixed speed (1/30th) and a fixed aperture (f22). Roll film for it was no longer made , so I began by cutting down 11x14 sheet film into strips of 10 3/4 by 3 3/4 inches. I had to load the camera in a changing bag, one at a time. If you used the camera on a tripod, which I did, the little prism viewer on the top (which gave you a sense of the vertical "cut" ) was useless The ends of the scan could be accurately figured out from incised lines on top of the camera. Eventually Kodak made me a special order, with my own yellow boxes. I should say the man who sold me the camera -- for $275 -- had persuaded some one who knew how grind lenses to take a Berlin Dagor, reduce the diameter of the elements, and re-assemble them in the Kodak barrel. I worked with this primitive machine for about ten years. I did a book on Italian gardens, one on the Roman Campagna, and one on strange French gardens just before the revolution. I submitted contact prints from the Kodak to the Guggenheim Foundation, and they gave me a fellowship. and there are prints from the Panoram in a bunch of museums, including MOMA. I had repair guys in Rome, London and NY who could repair the camera. On a good day I could take about ten pictures. It concentrated the mind, and, yes, it had character.
I don't care about your camera, but I love your photograph.
Rob C
For me it's a Rolleiflex TLR - hands down !
My first SLR had character - a Practica.Yes, my first SLR was a Practica too. It did have character, but it's wasn't the sort appealing character that Michael was referring to in the OP!
Character is whatever you remember about the camera when you're done shooting for the day.
Character is whatever you remember about the camera when you're done shooting for the day.For me, character is what make me want to pick a particular camera and shoot with it. It's the factor that makes the hardware less intrusive to what I'm looking at and trying to capture.
My first SLR had character - a Practica (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praktica). Solid East German engineering to raise hard currency through sales to the capitalists. It went well with my Duffle coat and compensated for my failure to convincingly grow my hair long. My first digital camera had character - a Nikon Coolpix 950 (https://www.google.com.au/search?q=nikon+coolpix+950&hl=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=cQV_UbkYiPGIB-3YgZgI&ved=0CFIQsAQ&biw=1920&bih=1113), with the rotating lens and sensor unit, an excellent design which I was sorry to see Nikon abandon. I dropped it into an estuary while climbing out of a kayak. My current Sigma DP2 Merrill has character. The idiot savant of contemporary cameras, challenged in daily life but very good at its speciality.
I think what I liked about the OM1 was the analogue exposure metre , the needle moving gave a feel for the exposure effect of the change in aperture etc.I was thinking about this when I posted above.
I have been waiting for a full frame compact that did the basics well.I had and loved Rollei 35Bs too.
In 1964 it was the Yashica D twin lens reflex. As a young trainee, I would have preferred the Rolleiflex T f2.8 that my boss used but my budget didn't come close.
Audiophiles don't listen to music, only gramophones.
The settings I have settled on, after a bit of trial and error, are as follows; Centre weighted AE, auto ISO A3200 and exposure mode on manual. This gives me full control of shutter speed and aperture and the camera takes care of exposure via ISO.Interesting setting. I will give it a try on a similar camera. It seems to take a bit of a leap of faith to trust ISO 3200, but I guess that just shows my age.
Ooooh, I'll have to poach that one. Goes hand in hand with my comment about cameras and pianos. "I a guy buys a piano, he owns a piano. If a guy buys a camera,he's a photographer."
Sorry Rob. It was 50 years ago. Probably an F not T. I'm sure f2.8 is right though.
Never heard of that, I had a T and it was a 3.5/75 Tessar... not a great model of the Rollei, but better than nothing, and second-hand (at least), all I could afford at the time.
Rob C
Sorry Rob. It was 50 years ago. Probably an F not T. I'm sure f2.8 is right though.