A question on 35mm SLR users.

rthollenbeck · Feb 10, 2017

Alan Gales said:
I agree.

I bought my Contax 139 back in the early 80's. It was the worlds first Quartz timed camera. It had a built in light meter, Aperture Priority, TTL flash, electronic cable release, etcetera. I'd be at weddings and watch the photographers with their medium format cameras. I noticed that they didn't have those fancy features that my camera had but their pictures turned out great.

Of of course I agree with you Allen that great pic could be had with the pro cameras.
But
When you start talking about flash there are features that are compete game changers. Hassy has pc sync at all speeds with the leaf shutter. OTF flash can be a great feature. When AF took over system flashes bacame important accessories.
Even Pros regard these features as important. I guess all I'm saying is that depending on your intended use these technologies shouldn't be made light of. Then again for my intended use, newer isn't necessarily better.

Alan Gales · Feb 11, 2017

rthollenbeck said:
Of of course I agree with you Allen that great pic could be had with the pro cameras.
But
When you start talking about flash there are features that are compete game changers. Hassy has pc sync at all speeds with the leaf shutter. OTF flash can be a great feature. When AF took over system flashes bacame important accessories.
Even Pros regard these features as important. I guess all I'm saying is that depending on your intended use these technologies shouldn't be made light of. Then again for my intended use, newer isn't necessarily better.

I'm sorry. I'm not trying to make light on the newer technologies. I was just remembering the times and how I felt my camera was so advanced but the pros were using cameras without my camera's new features and still managing to make better images than I was.

Alan Gales · Feb 11, 2017

rthollenbeck said:
Then again for my intended use, newer isn't necessarily better.

Yeah, I hear that. Of all my lenses my favorite is a World War ll era 14" Kodak Commercial Ektar.

wiltw · Feb 11, 2017

GRHazelton said:
When I did graduate work in 1970 for my MLS at Rutgers in New Brunswick the cost was $256.00 per semester, tuition and fees. And this was for non-residents as well as residents. Wowzer! IIRC the cost at Columbia was around $2000.

I went to the University of San Francisco, a private institution. In my freshman year I paid $1250 for two semesters of tuition. When I graduated, my first job annual salary was 10X what I paid as a freshman for tuition. A starting freshman today pays $44,494 per year in tuition; I cannot imagine that student earning 10X freshman year tuition as their annual salary at their first job after graduation.

USC tuition in 1973 was $2640, according to a class action lawsuit that was filed. Today tuition is $50,277!
A $269 SLR was only 10.2% of tuition at USC back then, and if you scaled the expense proportionally it would be $5128!

Theo Sulphate · Feb 11, 2017

Sirius Glass said:
In the 1960's and 1970's, Alpas.

Alpa cameras may have exuded Swiss precision in the 1950's, but by the late 1960's and early 1970's they became increasingly awkward and cumbersome as they unsuccessfully tried to upgrade their cameras to match the functionality of Japanese cameras.

I handled an early model and it was quite nice. A later one was just weird, such as having vertical rangefinder windows which you're sure to obscure while holding the camera. It was the photographic equivalent of the Winchester House ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House ).

blockend · Feb 11, 2017

Theo Sulphate said:
Alpa cameras may have exuded Swiss precision in the 1950's, but by the late 1960's and early 1970's they became increasingly awkward and cumbersome as they unsuccessfully tried to upgrade their cameras to match the functionality of Japanese cameras.

I handled an early model and it was quite nice. A later one was just weird, such as having vertical rangefinder windows which you're sure to obscure while holding the camera. It was the photographic equivalent of the Winchester House ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winchester_Mystery_House ).

Alpas were bragging rights cameras, not professional tools. A pro wanted something he could hire lenses for in the local city, and have his camera fixed by the local pro shop. I didn't know any professionals, even in London, who used an Alpa as their primary 35mm tool. I imagine them to be cameras for the kind of people who say "what's the most expensive car/boat/camera I can buy" to elevate themselves above the rest of humanity, at least in their own eyes. I'll bet 99% were sold to well heeled amateurs.

Chan Tran · Feb 11, 2017

wiltw said:
I went to the University of San Francisco, a private instituation. In my freshman year I paid $1250 for two semesters of tuition. When I graduated, my first job annual salary was 10X what I paid as a freshman for tuition. A starting freshman today pays $44,494 per year in tuition; I cannot imagine that student earning 10X freshman year tuition as their annual salary at their first job after graduation.

USC tuition in 1973 was $2640, according to a class action lawsuit that was filed. Today tuition is $50,277!
A $269 SLR was only 10.2% of tuition at USC back then, and if you scaled the expense proportionally it would be $5128!

So the college tuition increase as much faster rate than inflation and can't be used to compared how much the camera cost.

Paul Howell · Feb 11, 2017

blockend said:
Alpas were bragging rights cameras, not professional tools. A pro wanted something he could hire lenses for in the local city, and have his camera fixed by the local pro shop. I didn't know any professionals, even in London, who used an Alpa as their primary 35mm tool. I imagine them to be cameras for the kind of people who say "what's the most expensive car/boat/camera I can buy" to elevate themselves above the rest of humanity, at least in their own eyes. I'll bet 99% were sold to well heeled amateurs.

I dont know the percentage but as I recall Alpas were popular with scientists for field use. I was loaned a 11E for a couple of weeks, very different from Nikon or Konica, the lens are outstanding. The example I was loaned belonged to a biologist at U of Alabama , when he passed the wife of a friend of mine inherited his estate. I know that there were pro who used Alpas, just call his name but a guy made a large percentage of his living shooting NASA launches used Alpa and the very strange mechanical winder and a Zoomar zoom reflex lens.

wiltw · Feb 11, 2017

Chan Tran said:
So the college tuition increase as much faster rate than inflation and can't be used to compared how much the camera cost.

That was my point! My earlier comparison of average mid-range SLR vs. a week's pay (or even gallons of gas) was a reasonable one; the discussions of UCLA or Rutgers tuition were not good measures.

Sirius Glass · Feb 11, 2017

I never said that the engineers who wanted Alpas where practical. One in particular insisted that black & white film as it was was "true" and therefore he would never use filters.

cooltouch · Feb 13, 2017

I think you can get a pretty good notion of what amateur photographers were interested in back in the 60s and 70s by reading the magazines that were aimed at them. Here in the US, that would be predominantly Popular Photography and Modern Photography. These magazines were catering to the broadest spectrum of the public who were into cameras and by the early 70s that would have mostly been 35mm slrs, I would think.

AgX · Feb 13, 2017

But the OP's question was going beyond the amateur reading such magazine. He asked about any non-professional using a camera.
That is why I referred above to publications aimed at dealers.

A question on 35mm SLR users.

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