Old Cameras in Old Movies

Helge · Jul 20, 2020

btaylor said:
Well, I cannot resist Audrey Hepburn. But the age difference between her and Fred is a little creepy!

How about it’s our time that is “creepy”?

And how about not using the word “creepy” for anything and everything we don’t understand or agree with, and want to have a shorthand for publicly auto shaming, making yourself sound like a stupid teenage girl, trying to gain cheap social currency?

Mens and woman’s lives are very different in arc and temperament.
Of course that is a result of, or congruent with how we have evolved to take mates.

Relationships of all different age combinations have been quite natural and happy for 99,9999 percent of the time we have been humans.
It’s how our brains work and how it’s meant to be.
No reason to have that change now, because of a momentary fad or hiccup in public perception for a few decades.
Since when has the bovine masses been the arbiter of good and right anyway?

Happily most couples couldn’t care less, if there is love and chemistry.

Helge · Jul 20, 2020

Kodachromeguy said:
I just saw another good example this evening: Funny Face (1957) starring Fred Astaire and Audrey Hepburn. The opening credits have a Rolleiflex right next to a light box. Fred Astaire plays the part of a photographer who works for a fashion magazine. The ladies from the magazine crash into a bookstore in Greenwich Village and use it as a set for some photography. He is wearing three Rolleiflexes. In the public relations photo below, he added a Leica and a Norwood Director light meter.

View attachment 250764

Richard Avedon was on the set as a technical consultant. Here he is with an 8x10" camera? Even larger?
View attachment 250765

There is also a dark room large enough to dance in!

View attachment 250766

This is pretty good if you like musicals. The plot is a bit thin (OK, very thin), but it features some interesting dancing and music from Gershwin's 1927 Funny Face. And who can resist Audrey Hepburn?

I cannot watch that movie, solely because he treats those Rolleiflexes as though they are a cheap plastic pearl necklace.
I shutter at the thought of a scene of him laying down on stone steps in a church, crushing and scratching the poor flexes underneath him.
Wonder how they looked after filming, and how many they went through?

AgX · Jul 20, 2020

Well, I have seen some press photographers' 35mm cameras that looked just like that. As they were just tools. And Rolleiflexes were such press tools too, at least over here. Likely those battered by use ones all have been dumped and whe only see those holidays-only samples from amateurs...

btaylor · Jul 20, 2020

Helge said:
How about it’s our time that is “creepy”?

And how about not using the word “creepy” for anything and everything we don’t understand or agree with, and want to have a shorthand for publicly auto shaming, making yourself sound like a stupid teenage girl, trying to gain cheap social currency?

Huh! I have never been called that before, there is a first time for everything I guess. What bothered me in the film was Fred was 58 and Ms Hepburn was 29 years his junior and the film did not acknowledge the May-December aspect of that relationship. Sorry I thought I was injecting a little humor stating the obvious extreme age difference which is unacknowledged in the film - I find it a flaw.

But seriously Helge what consenting adults do is their business as far as I am concerned. Love will find a way!

Dennis-B · Jul 21, 2020

AgX said:
Well, I have seen some press photographers' 35mm cameras that looked just like that. As they were just tools. And Rolleiflexes were such press tools too, at least over here. Likely those battered by use ones all have been dumped and whe only see those holidays-only samples from amateurs...

I worked for the Courier Journal in the mid-1960's, while going to college. I was interested in photography, so I'd frequent the photography department in order to find a "good used" Speed Graphic. They usually sold them off as they converted to Nikons. To say these Speed Graphics had been "rode hard and put away wet" was an understatement. Rangefinders were way out of sync; bellows were taped; cracked ground glass backs taped; you name it. After a while, the new Nikon F's were worn out from use (maybe abuse?). From then, on, I avoided "pro" gear.

AgX · Jul 21, 2020

But this expectation of being battered is not applied on the Rolleiflexes. Likely as in the USA Graflexes survived the 30s and lived far into the Nikon age. In contrast to Europe and especially Germany. However I myself have not yet come across a battered Rolleiflex either. But I hardly come them across anyway and I am not a Rolleiflex expert at all.

abruzzi · Jul 21, 2020

btaylor said:
What bothered me in the film was Fred was 58 and Ms Hepburn was 29 years his junior and the film did not acknowledge the May-December aspect of that relationship. Sorry I thought I was injecting a little humor stating the obvious extreme age difference which is unacknowledged in the film - I find it a flaw.

For a little more humor, there is a formula for that: https://xkcd.com/314/

flavio81 · Jul 23, 2020

abruzzi said:
I think there is also a Nikkormat in FMJ. when rafterman is photgraphing Joker with the prostitute, and the camera gets stolen:

I remember this scene.

Moral: never flirt with prostitutes when carrying a Nikkormat.

ME LOVE YOU LONG TIME!

flavio81 · Jul 23, 2020

cooltouch said:
Not an old movie, but an old camera. Last night, I watched the 2017 movie, curiously named Bokeh in which a Rolleiflex 3.5 -- probably an automat -- had a starring role. I write "curiously" because I couldn't find one thing in the movie that was representative of the word 'bokeh.' The movie was totally uninspiring, but at least the Rolleiflex was used throughout.

Didn't you watch the scene where the couple, Jenai and Riley, start an endless debate about "tessar vs heliar", "gauss versus sonnar" and "5-blades versus 9-blades"?!

flavio81 · Jul 23, 2020

Theo Sulphate said:
The color in that film is very appealing to me. I wonder which film was used?

Is the film actually "Дорога к звёздам" ("Road to the stars")? Even so, I cannot find any details about the film stock.

Probably "Sovcolor", which is derived from the original Agfa. Anyway there were only two main color film factories: Svema and Tasma.

flavio81 · Jul 23, 2020

cooltouch said:
Damn. I miss Kodachrome.

Resist the temptation of creating a thread about it. You can do it. We can do it.

With our collective will power, we can stay free of "bring back Kodachrome" threads.

AgX · Jul 24, 2020

flavio81 said:
Probably "Sovcolor", which is derived from the original Agfa. Anyway there were only two main color film factories: Svema and Tasma.

Sowcolor or Sovcolor is no product name but a term used once at soviet movies made on Agfa films.

Helios 1984 · Aug 4, 2020

Crocodile Dundee II - Nikon FM2 I believe

Helios 1984 · Aug 16, 2020

The Shawshank Redemption
That's from the scene when they find Andy's rock hammer.

Kodachromeguy · Aug 16, 2020

Here is the utterly gorgeous Rita Hayworth in Cover Girl being measured with an early type of light meter and then being photographed with an 8x10? or 11x14 camera?

Kodachromeguy · Aug 16, 2020

Well, here are a couple more examples. In High Society, the always gorgeous Grace Kelly knocks down the the Spy Magazine photographer's Nikon camera, thereby destroying a roll of film by exposing it (highly unlikely, but that's OK for the movie audience). The grumpy fellow is the guy she is supposed to marry, but first a short fling with Frank Sinatra. Then we have a publicity photograph of Grace Kelley pointing a Hasselblad camera at Frank Sinatra.

cooltouch · Aug 17, 2020

Not an olld movie, but one chock full of old video and film clips, so it sorta counts. I don't know if it is available elsewhere, but on Hulu you can watch The Beatles: 8 Days a Week -- The Touring Years. This movie has lots of clips I've never seen before. In many of the clips you'll see reporters using cameras that pros used back in the early 60s, plus there were a few clips showing Ringo with his black Asahi and John and George occasionally using Nikons -- Nikkormats, I think.

AgX · Sep 24, 2020

Lomo LCA

used by film director

"Motivsuche" East-Germany 1990

unidentified lightmeter

Donald Qualls · Sep 24, 2020

AgX said:
unidentified lightmeter

That's a Sekonic Studio Master or one of the variant names for the same meter. They were very common in cine use. Selenium cell incident meter with grids, dome, flat diffuser, and even a reflected light attachment (for emergencies). I've got one in fully working condition, missing the flat diffuser but with three or four grids (for different film speeds).

George Mann · Sep 25, 2020

flavio81 said:
With our collective will power, we can stay free of "bring back Kodachrome" threads.

In your wildest dreams!

KinoGrafx · Sep 25, 2020

AgX said:
But this expectation of being battered is not applied on the Rolleiflexes. Likely as in the USA Graflexes survived the 30s and lived far into the Nikon age. In contrast to Europe and especially Germany. However I myself have not yet come across a battered Rolleiflex either. But I hardly come them across anyway and I am not a Rolleiflex expert at all.

I shot for a mid sized daily in the early 1990’s and acquired an mx/evs because my boss was about to throw it out with a box of trash during a photo dept remodel. It looked like the photogs who came before me dragged that thing behind their cars between assignments. But it still sort of worked, and after an extensive repair (from advance camera in beaverton, or) it works like new and even looks a little less abused.

AgX · Nov 10, 2020

Yashica Lynx 14

used by a press photographer

"Kommissar X jagt die roten Tiger" crime-movie , West-Germany, Italy, Pakistan , 1971

BobD · Nov 10, 2020

Richard Denning with Graflex in "The Black Scorpion" (1957)

Donald Qualls · Nov 10, 2020

@BobD Notice the frosted appliance bulb in place of the correct #2 screw base flashbulb?

BobD · Nov 10, 2020

Donald Qualls said:
@BobD Notice the frosted appliance bulb in place of the correct #2 screw base flashbulb?

The reflector is also painted flat so as not to reflect the lights.

Old Cameras in Old Movies

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