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.