how does branding change the way gear is perceived ...

Sirius Glass · Dec 29, 2017

NJH said:
LOL. On an only very slightly more serious note Lee's point is to some degree behind Voltaire's famous quote on the existence of God, and Nietzsche's equally famous 'God is Dead' and his long exploration of the human condition. Its not a comfortable thought but it seems we have a need to believe in something, to believe in things even if perhaps we know they are not real but because the mere function of believing creates value and 'avoids' existential crisis. I am sure that nobody believes buying a Leica will make them in to HCB but maybe, just maybe a small piece of magic may rub off that brass top plate!

I no not what others may believe but I believe in film!

E. von Hoegh · Dec 29, 2017

jnanian said:
that stuff sounds extremely sensitive, like a truck of TNT from that movie "Le salaire de la peur" i hope you have a bomb disarming robot nearby ..

No robots. However, the Saratoga fault isn't very far away, so maybe I should keep things segregated except when I'm actually using them.

removed account4 · Dec 29, 2017

segregated and in separate cupboards !

Patrick Robert James · Dec 29, 2017

E. von Hoegh said:
Me too. The Pentax SP 1000 is one of my all time favorite cameras, great lines visually and simple, basic, functional. The lenses are great too, as good as any and better than many. Another one I like is the H1a, another minimalist gem. They're also a pleasure to use.
The only reason I do not have old mechanical Minoltae is that I simply do not need another system. But, if an Srt with a 35mm lens came along cheap....

I used to never like the screwmount Pentax bodies, only because it seemed like I never came across one that didn't have a battery door corroded shut. These days though I am eyeing them up. I already have a ton of cameras though, so I need another system like I need another hole in the head.

I've been looking for a Minolta manual body since I stumbled over a Vivitar 28mm f/2 in a Minolta mount. Seems like a neat lens. I'll probably end up just getting an adapter and putting it on the Leica though. I need another system like I need another hole in the head.

E. von Hoegh · Dec 30, 2017

Patrick Robert James said:
I used to never like the screwmount Pentax bodies, only because it seemed like I never came across one that didn't have a battery door corroded shut. These days though I am eyeing them up. I already have a ton of cameras though, so I need another system like I need another hole in the head.

I've been looking for a Minolta manual body since I stumbled over a Vivitar 28mm f/2 in a Minolta mount. Seems like a neat lens. I'll probably end up just getting an adapter and putting it on the Leica though. I need another system like I need another hole in the head.

My Spotmatic F came with that problem, I got it open with ammonia and the contact at the bottom was green dust. I replaced the contact with one of stainless steel, cleaned up the rest, did a CLA on the shutter & transport and the thing runs great, the meter is accurate with 675 air cells.
If you block all but one of the airholes on a zinc-air cell, cell life becomes comparable to AgO cells - one z-a lasted 27 months in a Nikkormat.

Pioneer · Dec 31, 2017

Same here. Cleaned things up with ammonia and repaired the contacts and wires. Bought a new threaded insert that doubles as an adaptor that allows me to use SR76 cells.

The bottom looks a bit strange being a touch pitted and discolored around the opening and then a new insert in the hole but, what the hey, it all works.

railwayman3 · Jan 2, 2018

I can think back to about the 1970's. when I became interested in photography through the school Camera Club, and can remember the brands and names (at least in the UK) which were respected and coveted in amateur circles....Leica and Rollei were dream cameras and rarely seen, Nikon, Pentax and Olympus were starting to gain users, Edixa and Exakta were less often seen (our old botany master used an Exakta while laying on theschool playing fields photographing toadstools). Praktika were a cheaper option but liked by many. Film was, of course, Kodak and Ilford; Agfa was a bit of a newcomer (and, believe it or not, there was still some anti-German feeling among some older people, likewise Fuji as with many Japanese products, particularly cars, was still "Jap****. Sorry but that's how it was!)

Just wondering how many of these brands still exist, manufacture all their own products and don't licence out their names,.

blockend · Jan 2, 2018

railwayman3 said:
Just wondering how many of these brands still exist, manufacture all their own products and don't licence out their names,.

Leica exist as a buyout, no connection to the family I believe. Pentax, Nikon and Olympus still going, the first now niche, the second covering all options, Olympus doing the small format thing they did with the Pen's back in the 60s. Edixa didn't survive the 60s under the Japanese onslaught, Exakta went long before the wall came down.

When I started out Zenits were popular but looked down upon, mostly unfairly, and a Canon FTb was as aspirational as cameras got. It was only later I knew people with Nikon and Leica. Retinas were still in evidence, and lots of Ilford Sportsman type cameras for general hobbyists who weren't big on photography for its own sake, but knew their way round apertures and shutter speeds. Most cameras seen in the wild had a fixed lens or one that was rarely if ever removed. Light meters, carried in a leather pouch on the camera strap also popular.

Film-wise 125 ASA was deemed ample and HP4/Tri-X a little exotic. People mostly shot in broad daylight. As you say it was Kodak or Ilford, although I liked Agfa slide film. Within a short time interchangeable lens SLRs were commonplace for, almost, everyone.
All observations specific to time, place and economic group.

Sirius Glass · Jan 2, 2018

My first serious camera was a gifted Voightlander Vito IIb. Then before my sophomore year I worked in Italy for the summer, so I bought a used Minolta SR7. After that I stayed with Minolta upgrading the body every few years and buying the Minolta MC and MD Rokkor lenses. My girlfriend won a Tamron AF 28mm to 300mm zoom lens and I bought a Nikon N75 to use with it in 2003. Later I bought a Nikon F100 for black & white photography. I inherited a Mamiya C330 with the 65mm, 80mm, and 250mm lens with every accessory known to man but after a number of rolls of film I decided it was not the right camera for me. With APUG cheering me on I stepped into the Hasselblad world. Then APUG got me into 4"x5" sheet film with a Pacemaker Speed Graphic and a Graflex Model D. That is my story and I am sticking to it.

There is nothing wrong with the other cameras, this is just the path I have taken.

Theo Sulphate · Jan 2, 2018

During the early 1970's I knew only one person who had an SLR: a medical student who used a Yashica. My cousin got a Yashica Lynx one Christmas and I thought it was spectacular. Most people I knew used 127 rollfilm cameras and 126 Instamatics, as did I until I bought my Pentax.

guangong · Jan 11, 2018

Looking back to the early 1960s, the only cameras that I remember folks I knew using were Leica and Canon rangefinders, Nikon F, Rolleiflex TLR and Hasselblad. Now that I think about it, I don’t remember anyone I knew using a Nikon or Contax rangefinder. Eventually the M3 and Nikon F seemed to blow everything else out of the water. Oh yes, one of my friends had an Alpa. Most of these people were artists, scholars or journalists, so probably not very representative of average owner.

E. von Hoegh · Jan 11, 2018

Once upon a time, there were "makes" meaning for instance Bentley automobiles, or motorcars, depending on which side of the Atlantic. Bentley was taken over by Rolls-Royce in 1931 and was henceforth a brand, not a make. Or Contax, first a directional signal system made by Zeiss, for automobiles. Then the model names for three prewar rf cameras and the associated system, also the two postwar iterations. It (Contax) became a brand in the '70s with the "Contax" slrs made by Yashica and sporting Zeiss glass, then a line of rf and af cameras.
"Branding" has become a pernicious and recalcitrant disease afflicting the undiscerning and ill informed consumer, who is unable to distinguish sh!t from Shinola, which was once a brand of shoe polish but is now a company in Detroit... a tool used by indiscriminate self serving marketeers to guide the unknowing.

Sirius Glass · Jan 11, 2018

My first slr was the Minolta SR7. After that I upgraded the camera body so I could continue using the lenses rather then selling and replacing them. Not exactly rocket science.

how does branding change the way gear is perceived ...

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