Eupope VS Orient
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Because we don’t write Eupope.
Other than Hasselblad, I think it is just the opposite: professional systems from Japan had higher quality and had system compatibility extending over decades. I'm thinking of Nikon, Canon, Mamiya, and Fuji.
I don't see Leica as a pro system. A good argument could be made for Exakta for the 1950's.
Excluding large format, I assume.
I don't see Leica as a pro system. A good argument could be made for Exakta for the 1950's.
Excluding large format, I assume.
MattKing
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So that they could lose market share, fall out of favour with professional photographers and become increasingly irrelevant except for with dentists and cult followers.
Or if you prefer, they weren't.
Yes. Let's consider these:
For European lenses I have Carl Zeiss lenses (Hasselblad and Contax), plus Leica M and R. For Japanese lenses I have Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus, and Minolta, to name a few. When you look at the finished print, or slide, of a *real scene* you can't discern any meaningful difference among these lenses. I challenge anyone to look at 16x20 prints from these lenses and pick out any significant differences. If the scene is a photographic test chart using Tech Pan with Technidol and enlarging to 16x20, you'll probably see a difference. But I don't know anyone who hangs test charts on their wall.
Lens compatibility: Hasselblad and Leica have compatibility going back to the mid-1950's, yes, but only because the lenses are all-manual for aperture and focus. Yes, Canon pissed off their customers in 1987. Even so, if you had an F-1, AE-1, etc., you could still use existing FD lenses. Those lenses didn't dissolve when the EOS cameras and EF lenses were introduced. By the way, you can use the very first Canon EOS 650 of 1987 with any EF lens introduced today and it works! You can use any contemporary EOS camera (Canon 1DX) with the very first EF lens of 1987.
Reliability: I'd say the Nikon F, F2, FM; Canon F-1, FTb; and Pentax Spotmatic, to name a few, are designed to last a lifetime and will match any European camera for reliability. Sure, the newer models for amateurs are electronic, but if you keep the mechanical ones for a lifetime, then so what.
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In the eighties I worked in a huge establishment, we had somewhere around 14 photographers on the payroll, then there were the blow ins. We used Hasselblad (about 8 bodies) and RB67 and RZ67 bodies (about 15 bodies). Lenses were wide, standard and short long focal length for every body. We had a range of quite wide and longer focal length lenses that were hanging around for all to use as needed for both brands. We also had a single motorised as anything, Rollie; this was almost exclusively used for live model shoots. Our bread and butter was product photography, models that walked and talked were a problem; they slowed one down considerably.
Everything was shot on E6 film and processed in the in-house darkroom, where I came into the equation. We would at times, have 4 rolls of 120 slide film coming out of the processor every 3'30", grabbed, then hung in front of a vertical lightbox for identification. They were sleeved as they were hanging in front of the light box. Mostly we could see from about 8-10 metres away whether the film was from a Hasselblad or Mamiya simply by looking at the contrast. Mamiya films were of a higher contrast than Hasselblad and we all could pick them.
The difference between 4 colour ink press printing between either, was not an issue, but there is a difference in the lenses and how they transmit the light onto the film.
Mick.
Everything was shot on E6 film and processed in the in-house darkroom, where I came into the equation. We would at times, have 4 rolls of 120 slide film coming out of the processor every 3'30", grabbed, then hung in front of a vertical lightbox for identification. They were sleeved as they were hanging in front of the light box. Mostly we could see from about 8-10 metres away whether the film was from a Hasselblad or Mamiya simply by looking at the contrast. Mamiya films were of a higher contrast than Hasselblad and we all could pick them.
The difference between 4 colour ink press printing between either, was not an issue, but there is a difference in the lenses and how they transmit the light onto the film.
Mick.
Well that's pretty good. So the images from the Hasselblads and Mamiyas were of the same product, same studio room, with the same lighting and exposure?
Funnily enough, the answer is yes; sometimes.
White fluffy towels with a white background are extremely difficult to photograph and transpose the image on positive film into 4 colour printing. The answer was to shoot things together with two cameras and two lenses set slightly differently.
Lenses were calibrated in 1/10 stop marks, or settings. Each lens had a master readout for correction for correct f/stop and we would often use black fill to lower contrast. In general Hasselblad lenses worked better, but sometimes the advertising executive always liked to see snap on the light box. We showed the advertising executive the snappy (Mamiya) shots but sent the not so snappy Hasselblad film for 4 colour separations so the printer could get the required detail on paper. Toilet paper centres we taped onto 1º light meters to eliminate as far as possible flare to get closer to correct readings. Lighting was usually adjusted so that there was about 4 stops from highlight to shadow; thereby allowing an almost perfect ability to transpose the image to 4 colour ink printed paper.
To save time and money, we shot with both systems literally side by side but with one camera ever so slightly rearward to the other to offset the minimal . At the end we would take a Polaroid of the set-up in case product needed to be re-shot by the next shift photographer.
We had studio people almost running an assembly line of product onto the shooting platform, lists with all products numbered so everyone knew which page on which flyer or magazine the end product would be printed into; huge business.
The attention to detail was almost endless, but it produced results and most importantly, ultimately saved time and money.
Mick.
It’s all in your mind. As proof, I offer this. You listed the two regions as European and Oriental, instead of European and Asian, Oriental and Occidental, or even German and Japanese. So clearly you hold a bias in mind that effects your view of the cameras from these regions.
Quite an elaborate and meticulous process. I can't imagine the cost the client had to pay for the final images. I imagine that's all digital now.
Actually, we were close to being the cheapest large scale set-up in the country. Once you have a system in place and you adhere very close to it, you can do some real fast spot on work. Once a lens was calibrated for correct f/stops, once the spot meter was calibrated to the film and the photographer was on the money, things start to get running smoothly, which saves time, materials and money. Every now and then, it did stuff up though.
The E6 and C41 baths were fired up around 0500h, temperature was up there by 0600 when the first control strips went through. Checking for deviations then correcting each bath, then another set of control strips through and hopefully things were online around 0900. More often than not, we were online closer to 1000h and loading 120 films inside the dip-N-dunk machine which was a hot and sweaty job in total darkness. In the early stage of the day when there was a backlog, there were sometimes two people squeezed in loading a rack of four films each. That way we got the backload of film on and roaring through within 15-20 minutes.
Pacing the amount of film going through the processors also helped to control the chemistry. We usually put a control strip through every 30-40 minutes. A tight bath is a definite requirement, some serious amounts of film were going through and switching from 4 rolls of 120 to one test 8x10" sheet of E6 then a slew of 4x5" film then back to 120 as there was invariably a back up; was always followed through fifteen minutes or so later with a control strip to check the bath.
C41 was a bit of a problem, everything was normally done with E6 but we had many photographers shooting on location with C41 because of iffy lighting and or colour temperature issues. Sometimes we would get a slew of C41 through the bath, then nothing for a couple of hours then a shed load of C41 film which was Kodak Color Print Film. This film is exposed under the enlarger with original C41 colour negative film and processed in C41 with the end result being a colour corrected and correct density 4x5" (usually) colour positive film as the end result. These films were then used for magazine or advertising brochure reproduction and went through as though they were original E6 film. Keeping the C41 bath running correctly all day and night was always a problem, feast or famine and you have a sick bath.
Mick.
Thank you for this detailed tour through a world I can only imagine. I'm sure I'm not the only one who enjoyed reading it.
I don't suppose the different aspect ratio was a clue ...
As funny as it sounds, the different ratio didn't come into the equation. From a distance you cannot see differing frame lengths, instead, you looked at contrast between the four rolls hanging.
Mick.
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