A real camera.

[manfromh]

Im guessing your co-worker grew up with film. To her film is real. To kids growing up today, digital will be real.

 

[arigram]

Maybe from the perspective of the Other Side, but still:

 

[Marc Leest]

A real camera makes photographs, other capturing devices make images.

-m-

 

[Soeren]

Maybe real camera=SLR or better?

Whats vrong with Rangefinders?
And how would you define "better than SLR"?
Kind regards

 

[benjiboy]

Indeed; why does digital photography feel that it needs to reinvent the wheel?

What really drives me to distraction is when manufacturers market their FB ink jet papers as looking like, Record Rapid! We've had RR its now gone. Has digital photography not got an original concept? Why does it feel the need to copy darkroom based photography?

Digital photography needs to "re-invent the wheel" to ensure the industry's continued existence and has played a master-stroke of marketing by selling millions more cameras to people who already have them, and by allying the cameras to the computer industry giving them the same level of planned obsolescence .

 

[matthewbetcher]

I thought a "real" camera had lots of tricky dials and levers and such on it.

i would actually say the fewer the dials and levers and such, the more "real" the camera!

... now a 20x24 wood and leather beast with a brass barrel lens - THAT's a real camera !!

 

[TheDreadPirateRobins]

i would actually say the fewer the dials and levers and such, the more "real" the camera!

... now a 20x24 wood and leather beast with a brass barrel lens - THAT's a real camera !!

In the case of a 20x24 wood and leather beast with a brass barrel lens, YOU are the set of dials and levers.

 

[Aurum]

A real camera has a shutter that makes a sound from mechanical moving parts, not a recording of a shutter sound or a beep

 

[matthewbetcher]

In the case of a 20x24 wood and leather beast with a brass barrel lens, YOU are the set of dials and levers.

very true indeed! makes me want to get my hands on one that much more...

 

[michaelbsc]

Thats not a real camera! A real camera is one that takes film and is made of metal!

I got stopped by a very young airport screener last year after she pulled a Yashica Electro-35 out of my briefcase. She asked what it was, and refused to believe it was a camera. She had never seen a "camera" without a screen on the back. When the supervisor got there we both had a good laugh.

Next story, from *TONIGHT* no less. I grew up in a very tiny Southern town, and I tried out a new lens from fleabay last weekend while I was visiting my Dad. Earlier today I email my brother a few scans of of the best ones of the one street that runs through town. Tonight he replied asking what camera I was using because it sure took good pictures! Clearly it had nothing to do with the photographer.

MB

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

A real camera has a shutter that makes a sound from mechanical moving parts, not a recording of a shutter sound or a beep

TV shows and movies often show a photographer releasing the shutter on his 8x10 and the sound track has the sound of a Nikon motor drive firing away. Ditto with digital cameras.

 

[Markok765]

TV shows and movies often show a photographer releasing the shutter on his 8x10 and the sound track has the sound of a Nikon motor drive firing away. Ditto with digital cameras.

Weird. I have seen a F100 on CSI, but no cameras with motor drive sounds.

 

[TheDreadPirateRobins]

TV shows and movies often show a photographer releasing the shutter on his 8x10 and the sound track has the sound of a Nikon motor drive firing away. Ditto with digital cameras.

Don't tell me - that's the "terrorist" collecting reconnaissance on his intended target - you know, the sort of Jerry Bruckheimer plot crap that some people seem to have in mind when they hassle photographers.

 

[gr82bart]

What makes a film camera more real, even to a non-photographer?

I've overheard people refer to traditional prints as "real photographs" too.

Regards, Art.

 

[Mark Antony]

Indeed; why does digital photography feel that it needs to reinvent the wheel?

What really drives me to distraction is when manufacturers market their FB ink jet papers as looking like, Record Rapid! We've had RR its now gone. Has digital photography not got an original concept? Why does it feel the need to copy darkroom based photography?

Trevor I hear you!

The chant of 'looks just like Record Rapid' that when you open the box and see the high gloss, super white base, you just know you're being caught by that marketing machine.

Seems every week we have a new very expensive 'looks like Silver FB' paper, costing 3 times as much as real photo paper, sometimes they even put the word 'silver' into the product name!!

Mark

 

[Trevor Crone]

Seems every week we have a new very expensive 'looks like Silver FB' paper, costing 3 times as much as real photo paper, sometimes they even put the word 'silver' into the product name!!

Mark

Mark, not only silver but platinum as well!

 

[naeroscatu]

Yesterday I went to the bi-annual camera show in Toronto. Hundreds of film camera bodies, lenses, parts and accessories spread over approx 50 square meters. Old books and even prints were available. You could touch cameras, try them, talk to people and ask questions. There was a very fine smell in the air of leather, lubricating oil and mold. I’ve had a very real and organic experience. Hmm, what is the smell of digital?

 

[JBrunner]

Hmm, what is the smell of digital?

Money.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Money.

Either that, or of burning electrical circuits

 

[Jose A Martinez]

I pass this afternoon the checking point at Mexico City's airport in my way to Oaxaca. I carried with me to Leicas in a small bag, was all the equipment I could take for this trip. The guy at the Xray machine ask to a fellow worker in the line to hand inspect this bag, the inspector told the machine one that he "believed" it's a "photographic" device, and the head inspector prompt him: "You believe or it's a camera, you have to be sure!!"

This is not the first time I've been through this event, happened to me in Madrid last February, in Houston last June, in Oaxaca two weeks ago. I'm starting to think that metal bodied cameras are kind of strange. The people at the airports and the Xray machines don't believe that a camera had metal parts.

 

[ricksplace]

What is the smell of digital?

Plastic.

 

[clayne]

To me, a real camera is one that just plain and simply doesn't get in the way. It reliably does what you tell it to do, doesn't make decisions for you, and above all, provides nothing but honesty.

 

[Removed Account]

Either that, or of burning electrical circuits

That's when they get wet

 

[2F/2F]

I think it is only because they are used to putting the word "digital" in front of the word "camera"; that the word "real" in this case is really meant to mean something more along the lines of "plain-ol'", as in camera, sans digital.

Also, I think a lot of people, regardless of technical knowledge, can distinguish a point and shoot from a manual camera., and that is likely what she meant. A real camera to most people is a camera with twisty turny things and numbers, often kinda big, silver, with a pointy top.

I jokingly used the phrase when speaking to a guy shooting with a Leica at a local nighttime music fest. Everyone was crowded up front with their low-end DSLRs on green box mode being obnoxious with their pop-up flashes. I was shooting up in the "photo pit" with an FTb and 50mm 1.4 and no flash, being obnoxious by leaning in to get close. He was back in the crowd with a 90mm on his M8 and no flash, being obnoxious by spending my year's salary on something and not knowing what the hell to do with it. I joked "never mind" when I saw it was an M8 and not an M7. He was good natured about it. Nice camera, and nice of him to not use flash, but there was no way he got anything decent from back there, BTW. I had to get close to get a clear view, and had to shoot wide open, underexpose my ISO 1000 film by 4 stops and develop with D19 to get anything. His "real camera" didn't get him crap...and I have hand made prints already delivered to the band. Real camera, maybe, but no real pix.

So, a real camera is a camera that is operated by a real photographer to result in real pictures!

Prior to shooting the show, I had dropped my FTb off the stage onto the asphalt. It landed on its back, got a dent, and worked perfectly when I picked it up. I figured it was done for the night (and probably for good), my lens was cracked, and that the film door had popped off and killed my pix. Nope! I would not expect that of his M8. I must put in a good word for my 10D though. I drop it and smack it all the time, and it still works.

Also, the drummer from my band got several better pix than I did using his cell phone. Now THAT is a REAL camera: one that gets REAL pictures!

 

[DougGrosjean]

Earlier in the thread, somebody was dividing the cameras into complex electronic cameras, vs. simple fully manual cameras.

I would humbly submit that there are various criteria that add up to a "real" camera: who's using it, how they're using it, the results.... But that one criteria that's a pretty heavy hitter is if the software to run it is in your head, or in the camera.

If in your head, the camera is somehow more of a "real" camera. If software is in the camera, then it's more like a bicycle with training wheels, ie, not quite a "real" bicycle...

FWIW, I'm also happy to use a camera with software in it, when needed to catch moving objects. But for most of my shots, the electronic complexity (with software in the camera) isn't needed.