In it for the long haul

[Brian Legge]

After seeing a few posts about 'the camera was serviced, it should be good another 20 years, it will outlast me'...

For those of us who would like to have another 60+ years of film use, what would be good long term investments? Obviously the first hurdle will be film availability. As that is a constant for darn near everything, lets ignore it.

By that time, the repair people who built todays cameras will be long gone. Maybe we see a new generation of repair specialists emerge but that seems like a risk. The ability to maintain your own gear seems valuable; as does simpler gear that is easier to maintain.

Anything extremely complex or exotic will continue to be more so. That gear will be even harder to keep running.

Given all of that, for those of you who have watched the industry evolve for decades, what would you suggestion to the next generation of film users?

 

[thegman]

Like you say, something simple, but I would not worry about it too much. You could get a Leica M3 or something, look after it and service it for 40 years, then a grandchild throws it out a window to see if it can fly. I would imagine most well made cameras will have an accident before they simply wear out. And if indeed your camera has an accident in 40 years, and replacement film cameras simply are not available, I'd imagine film will have followed the same path. However from my own point of view, film and film cameras seem pretty healthy right now. I can walk into shops near me and look at Leica, Zeiss and Bessa film cameras, walk into the dedicated Lomography shop for my toy camera fix, and get my film processed on the high street.

 

[Brian Legge]

'I'm not a collector, this is just redundancy'

 

[36cm2]

I guess you'd want to focus on durability and get fully manual cameras with durability and few moving parts. Others will likely have more ideas on what's built like a tank, but the first thing that comes to mind in would be one of the Linhof Technicas. Metal box construction. View camera simple. Lenses as complicated (modern shutters) or not (shutterless lenses). And probably the most flexible tripod-bound photographic option.
In medium format, maybe a Rolleiflex (again simple construction). In 35mm, I guess one of the early all manual/all metal Nikons.

Leo

 

[hpulley]

The shutter seems to be the weak point of most. The problem with an SLR is that the shutter is basically the camera, if it goes then most of the time you need a replacement shutter assembly. With leaf shutters it is in the lens but then the camera body literally is nothing more to hold the film. But as long as the shutter is somewhat open, you could use slow film and "black hat" the exposures if you needed to with a simple view camera approach.

As for film, might there be a day where old DIY emulsions will be available? We'll need silver nitrate for collodion?

 

[Jeff Kubach]

I guess you'd want to focus on durability and get fully manual cameras with durability and few moving parts. Others will likely have more ideas on what's built like a tank, but the first thing that comes to mind in would be one of the Linhof Technicas. Metal box construction. View camera simple. Lenses as complicated (modern shutters) or not (shutterless lenses). And probably the most flexible tripod-bound photographic option.
In medium format, maybe a Rolleiflex (again simple construction). In 35mm, I guess one of the early all manual/all metal Nikons.

Leo

Maybe even the old Canon F-1.

Jeff

 

[ic-racer]

When all the complicated 35mm cameras are broken you will just have to move on to large format Large format cameras and lenses will be around for a long-long time. Especially modern ones made of titanium, aluminum, carbon fiber and ABS.

 

[flatulent1]

I have a pair of olde folders that will require the most basic of maintenance in the years to come. And for all their simplicity they take marvelous photos. When my EOS have all died, when my Nikons no longer function, when my Mamiyas are sitting on a shelf mocking me because I can no longer get parts for them, those folders will still work. Those are my future. But as I'll likely be dead in 30 years, I expect many of my cameras will actually outlive me.

 

[ntenny]

For those of us who would like to have another 60+ years of film use, what would be good long term investments?

A tolerant spouse!

-NT

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

Definitely view cameras of any sort. Then the only variable is film availability. And if that dries up, so long as they don't make possession of the components of wet plate collodion illegal, you can still keep using the view camera. And so long as you can still get silver nitrate, you can even keep using the view camera with making your own paper negatives.

 

[Brian Legge]

Well I've got the key part - the tolerant spouse - and she is encouraging me to pick up a view camera and put together a dark room. It sounds like I'm in decent shape.

I need to pick up some old cheap folders and work on my shutter repair abilities. I'm still in a bit of pain over seeing the Mamiya TLR winding mechanism and how it looks designed to grind itself to failure. Hopefully most shutters are better designed. My repair rate on them right now though is about 50% which isn't as good as I'd like.

Interesting takes all. I appreciate your thoughts.

 

[michaelbsc]

In 35mm, I guess one of the early all manual/all metal Nikons.

Leo

Maybe even the old Canon F-1.

Jeff

Nah. Yashica FX-3 (or FX-7) and Carl Zeiss glass for the 35mm front. I am also not a collector, but am interested in redundancy, so I have several of these for when my complicated electronic Contax bodies finally go Kaput.


I think LF is the final solution.


A few bars of .999 silver and nitric acid will let you make silver nitrate. Nitric acid can be made from sulfuric acid and nitrates using a retort assembly. Tricky to be sure, but possible. Do not be sloppy when handling this stuff. It can kill or injure you very badly.

I know these things because one of my long term goals is to go to a civil war reenactment as a photographer with period correct materials. It is astonishing the sophistication of our photographic ancestors. (And for period correctness, I'll ignore dissolving old silver dollars and just use a bullion bar. It's cheaper.)

 

[flatulent1]

'I'm not a collector, this is just redundancy'

An excellent idea, by the way. I have three T90's; when one breaks and I can no longer get it repaired I'll move on to the next. Same concept with the multiple EOS RT and 630's I have scattered about.

Got my second M645 Pro body this summer, contemplating a third, to say nothing of my foolish accumulation of backs and inserts, more than I could possibly need in this lifetime.

 

[michaelbsc]

An excellent idea, by the way. I have three T90's; when one breaks and I can no longer get it repaired I'll move on to the next. Same concept with the multiple EOS RT and 630's I have scattered about.

Got my second M645 Pro body this summer, contemplating a third, to say nothing of my foolish accumulation of backs and inserts, more than I could possibly need in this lifetime.

My fear is that the camera bodies will outlive major film production. I really expect film to become expensive in the next 10 years, but I really hate to say that. I know those of us here are all into film, but if you look into the postings here, and decided that everyone who posts regularly was buying a thousand rolls per year, that's not enough.

I, for one, cannot possibly go through a thousand rolls of film in a year. So we have to expand the base.

Look to other advocacy groups for inspiration. I know the pink ribbon for breast cancer awareness has exploded. Granted, I don't think film is going to grow like that. But if the film manufacturers aren't going to help us (Kodak? You listening?) then we have to do it ourselves.

For myself, I'm also learning all I can about making my own emulsions.

 

[hpulley]

Keeping old cameras around but not using them means they may break through drying of lubricants, stress on spring parts, etc. If you have three T-90s you probably want to run some film through all of them rather than using one until it breaks before going to the next one.

As for film, I fear it going away too. That will make all my 35mm gear into paperweights but I hope that time is far off. Could you squirrel away a lifetime of film? Make your own developer and fixer? I suppose but it sounds like a lot of work.

 

[michaelbsc]

Keeping old cameras around but not using them means they may break through drying of lubricants, stress on spring parts, etc. ... you probably want to run some film through all of them rather than using one until it breaks before going to the next one.

Good advice.

As for film, I fear it going away too. That will make all my 35mm gear into paperweights but I hope that time is far off. Could you squirrel away a lifetime of film? Make your own developer and fixer? I suppose but it sounds like a lot of work.

Yes, I think it's easy to squirrel away a lifetime of film. In my mind shooting the image and developing it on the film is only about 20% of the process. 80% is in the darkroom or in the finishing.

If you are willing to stick to B&W, then a decent size freezer will hold a whole lot of film and mixing the chemicals is pretty easy. If you want color - E6 or C41, then the freezer will still hold a whole bunch, but mixing the chemicals at home will be harder although not impossible.

Worth it? I can't say for others, but let's ask if making your own furniture is worth it? I have a friend who does that, and he does great work, and he cannot possibly recover his time at a living wage or the cost of his equipment filling up his garage if he tried to sell the stuff. Is hunting worth it? The cost per gram of protein from game meat is astronomical compared to farm raised meats, but I know a whole lot of people who hunt. (Same with fishing.) Is practicing your billiards game worth it? I don't know a single soul who supports themselves as a professional player, but I know guys who own some expensive que sticks. (Same with bowling, although I do know one guy who did support himself on the bowling circuit in his younger days.) Think about quilting, ceramics, golf, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da.

So, in my mind, yes it is worth it. It's not financially self sustaining, but it's what I do for a hobby.

 

[tim k]

A good wood camera, some slow film, a chunk of glass, and a hat for the shutter. What could go wrong?

 

[hpulley]

Good old black hat trick...

 

[michaelbsc]

Good old black hat trick...

I already own a few felt fedoras. (Alas no red one.)