Your depiction of two cameras stacked on top of each other suggests you don't feel TLRs are a sound contemporary design. I'd suggest all cameras that take a roll of silver gelatin film are defunct, so we're splitting hairs about discontinued technology.Just a quick note, to think about: who said where that TLRs are bad cameras?
So no wonder that you fail to see a case (being made) for that.
Street photography with an old Rolleiflex
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Stacking two cameras on top of each other is indeed not something that could be called "a sound contemporary design". I have not only suggested that, but explicitedly said it (and explained why) quite a few times.
Now it's up to you to explain how that makes TLR cameras - though archaic - bad cameras?
(Some are though. Lubitels are the worst kind of camera you can ever come across. Seagulls are not a lot better.)
Don't knock Lubitels and Seagulls! They make excellent door stops, bookends and boat anchors!
I like her pictures, and I like using TLRs. I don't care how good or bad they are. They work well for some things, don't work well for some others, and I like using them. They are definitely outdated and surpassed, and so are rangefinders. But I think both are still useful and worth using. We all ought to know that most of a good shot is the responsibility of the shooter and printer. Cameras matter, but not this much.....
I will say not a single bad word against Lubitel door stops, i promise.
Those cameras however...
Even Vivian could not have done what she did with one of those.
The question is, who to believe? A clearly brilliant photographer who used a TLR masterfully and, so far as we know, was satisfied enough with what she found to buy a few Rolleis over the years - or someone sounding off about the camera design on an internet forum?
Photos will always trump opinions.
Today's Vivian is shooting a 5D, getting content that is just as good, and displaying skill just as well. Vivian's pictures are not evidence that a TLR is not an outmoded tool. They are evidence that she knew what she was doing as an artist, and used the quality tool best suited for her at the time.
You still don't get it.
Whether a camera design is or is not outdated has nothing to do with whether you can use it to good effect or not.
The idea behind the TLR design had its reasons for being. It circumvented problems, that at one time existed. Those problems no longer exist (haven't for about half a century now) so there's no reason for a solution.
A person who i'll not name and shame here said there's nothing archaic about TLRs. Well, there is. The entire TLR-concept is archaic. (That person doesn't like anyone disagreeing with him though. He even (the irony...) complains about trolls...)
That, by the way, is knowledge. Not an opinion.
You evidently have no knowledge, which makes your opinion so [bleep].
Now you too would perhaps be so kind to explain why archaic design cameras could not be used to produce great photography.
You must know, since it is the begin all end all of your opinionated post and crappy logic argumentation.
I half agree with that sentiment. A documentary street photographer might choose a 5D today where his/her predecessors in the 50s picked a Leica but I'm not convinced Maier was that kind of shooter. She looks more like a Diane Arbus, another TLR user whose work is less decisive moment and more baroque portraiture.
I wouldn't say 6 x 6 lends itself to the landscape of the street whether it's a Rollei or a Hasselblad. Something else is going on in VMs work that seems unusually well suited to ground glass composition.
I did not mean 5D specifically. I just used it as an example of a nice-quality contemporary camera...one that someone like a Vivian today would be sold if they walked into a photography shop.
I don't agree with the importance of "ground glass composition" in the content of her work (and I think you mean waist-level viewing, as a ground glass is used for focusing even when a prism is used). Sure, it can make a difference in how you approach things and what you shoot. But it doesn't give you an eye where there was just a hole in your head before. FWIW, have you seen the new 60D with its flip out screen? Waist level viewing in a digital SLR. Let's see how much it changes the quality of people's work.......
I don't agree with the importance of "ground glass composition" in the content of her work (and I think you mean waist-level viewing, as a ground glass is used for focusing even when a prism is used). Sure, it can make a difference in how you approach things and what you shoot. But it doesn't give you an eye where there was just a hole in your head before. FWIW, have you seen the new 60D with its flip out screen? Waist level viewing in a digital SLR. Let's see how much it changes the quality of people's work.......
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You still don't get it.
Whether a camera design is or is not outdated has nothing to do with whether you can use it to good effect or not.
The idea behind the TLR design had its reasons for being. It circumvented problems, that at one time existed. Those problems no longer exist (haven't for about half a century now) so there's no reason for a solution.
A person who i'll not name and shame here said there's nothing archaic about TLRs. Well, there is. The entire TLR-concept is archaic. (That person doesn't like anyone disagreeing with him though. He even (the irony...) complains about trolls...)
That, by the way, is knowledge. Not an opinion.
You evidently have no knowledge, which makes your opinion so [bleep].
Now you too would perhaps be so kind to explain why archaic design cameras could not be used to produce great photography.
You must know, since it is the begin all end all of your opinionated post and crappy logic argumentation.
All film cameras are archaic as has been stated by myself and others repeatedly. The last generation of medium format cameras were rangefinders, a reworking of 1950s design on an 1890s roll film format. There has been no development in roll film camera technology for years, so comparing relative arcana is like bragging about the merits of the Saturn V rocket over the Mk IV, or which steam train accelerates through the 100mph barrier quickest.
In that context a double lens camera that trades mirror slap and large lenses for a modicum of parallax and different focal lengths, when both share the antiquity of paper backed film you lick to seal, seems to be stretching a TLRs shortcomings into trolling or self parody.
I can only repeat that I am not a TLR user, mainly because I prefer the even more cumbersome 6 x 9 Press rangefinder format, but if I were going to opt for a more lightweight street shooting camera, a Rollei would be given consideration.
Clarity of view doesn't have much to do with the quality of the final image, IMO. 5 x 4 view camera images are upside down and need a magnifier and a black bag over your head to focus sharply, but few accuse Ansel Adams of not getting the composition right. I forget which 35mm master said early Leica shots were so great because the viewfinders were so lousy but you can appreciate the point that only the most dynamic photographs revealed themselves through the spyhole.
The question is would Vivian Maier's work have been better if she'd had an 18 megapixel SLR? It's impossible to say but I rather think not because her work is still aesthetically better than 99.99% of work produced on current technology. As someone up-thread said, she'd have been great whatever camera she used, which is something for all photographers to dwell on.
No. That is not the question at all!
It was certainly my question!
The question I am talking about was raised by me: How does the fact that Vivian used a TLR to create her wonderful work mean that TLRs are not outmoded today? Additionally, how did waist-level viewing truly affect her work? You seem to be saying that both of these things made a big difference. I say they did not.
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So now the relative merits are measured by the fact that digital replaced film???
I know many TLR users here like to brag that "there is nothing archaic" about their TLRs.
Tough luck. But by all means: brag away. If you need that to feel happy using TLRs...
Doesn't change the fact that the TLR design was a solution to a problem that stopped being in the middle of the last century.
The last generation of medium format cameras are SLRs, by the way.
The current generation of those cameras that replace the "archaic" film cameras are too.
But don't let that bother you.
Indeed...
They are outmoded, no question. Only the latest versions of roll film cameras like maybe the Voigtlander could be said to have the slightest claim as street photography tools, and only then if you're prepared to overlook the time spent changing film after 10/12 shots and the outsized body and the fabric bellows and the rest of the paraphernalia of 120.
So I would say we're discussing the sweet spot in some pretty lumpy and non-user friendly gear. And that, I would respectfully suggest, is about opinion not fact as all MF cameras are capable of producing great shots if you work round the fact they'll never be convenient in the sense that a digital compact is convenient. One guy does street work in New York on a hand-held 10 x 8 Deardorff - anything is possible.
Off the top of my head I can think of two VM shots without looking that benefited from a waist level camera position. That's not exclusive to TLR cameras of course.
It doesn't. Apart from putting in some exposure technology Hasselblad design is early post war. They're nice cameras, as are RBs and my own favourite 120 SLR, the early Bronicas but the last MF camera to be brought out AFAIK was a rangefinder.
There was no further development on a box with a viewfinder, a mirror and a lens and in all likelihood, never will be now.
The last MF camera to be brought out was a SLR. And a rangefinder. Maybe something else too. What was the last camera, Blockend? And what does it say about whether or not a design is archaic?
The SLR is not yet outdated, Blockend.
It still does what it was intended to do, and (!) there was (nor is) nothing it left to be desired.
What would you like to develop further about it?
The SLR is not yet outdated, Blockend.
It still does what it was intended to do, and (!) there was (nor is) nothing it left to be desired.
What would you like to develop further about it?
You appear to be having an argument in your own head. Agfa got out of film, Fuji and Kodak are pulling lines month on month. Film is a medium for those who love the medium, artists, cranks, recidivists and dreamers of all kinds. In that reality, what in God's name does the fact that a camera has separate viewing and taking lens have to do with anything?
To make a medium format SLR camera as remotely as convenient as, say, a Mamiya 7 for street photography you'd have to attach a grip, a prism and it would still stick out a foot from your eye and weigh more. It's all mad old gear and it all works as intended and this thread has been derailed from the undoubted brilliance of Vivian Maier's work by a pi**ing contest about which defunct camera is least old fashioned.
You (literally) lost the thread.
Someone said there was nothing archaic about TLRs.
Ask him.
Why do you think that whether or not film makers are pulling out of anything has anything to do with anything discussed in this thread?
What did you say about "in your own head"? Lost touch completely, you have.
OP
OP
It reminds me of Webster's dictionary company. They see it as their job to track usage of language and keep the dictionary up to date according to if a word is used or not. If some new word is invented by some section of society they watch the usage for a few years and see if it becomes accepted and used in publications. If it does then it is considered a real word in the English language. Usage determines if something is viable. Clearly the Rolleiflex is still in use in certain sections of society. They are still made and they are bought and sold daily on the used market. There is still an industry for servicing them. So it is not accurate to say it is out dated because at this date it is still in use. To call it out of use you must qualify the use. The Rolleiflex is out dated and archaic as a Newspaper reporters camera. It is out dated as a wedding photographers camera. It is out dated as a studio camera. But it is relatively in heavy use in an art and amateur's camera. It is very popular especially in Asia. Right here in my town nearly every photographer I know occasionally uses his Rollei. The design is not what determines the viability as much as the usage is. It is an old design but the fact that the camera is still well used today merely says it was a great design.
Dennis
Dennis
All film users are at the whim of corporate sentimentality, artisan manufacture and importers of cult materials. There's no imperative to make film or film cameras at all, visual simulacra would continue to be created through the digital lens if silver supplies dried up tomorrow. So we're talking about enthusiasts for the film process and the elements of society who can still be bothered with the fuss. Photography by film has joined other craft skills, like etching, shoeing horses and thatching roofs - invaluable to those involved but having next to nothing to do with the necessities of life today.
The grumpy side of this debate appears to hinge (sic) on whether a camera has a moving mirror inside or not. If it has it's contemporary, if not it's old fashioned. In an age when you can shoot broadcast 1080 on a camera not much bigger than a credit card the ergonomics of medium format are all out of the dark ages. All of them. Most 120 cameras since the 1960s have been more at home on a studio tripod than a neck strap, they grew interchangeable backs, metered prisms, a plethora of lenses, grips and a pile of accessories for the commercial sector of their day and did nothing for street photography, the only MF camera developed specifically for portraiture en plein air was the Mamiya and other rangefinders. It did so in spite of the antiquated format and at a time when what was actually required was a redesigned larger film carriage system for a new generation of professional cameras.
That system never arrived and almost certainly never will. In that context a Rolleiflex is no more old school than any other post war 120 system lump and more useful on the street than most.
Insert whatever emoticon says that.
The grumpy side of this debate appears to hinge (sic) on whether a camera has a moving mirror inside or not. If it has it's contemporary, if not it's old fashioned. In an age when you can shoot broadcast 1080 on a camera not much bigger than a credit card the ergonomics of medium format are all out of the dark ages. All of them. Most 120 cameras since the 1960s have been more at home on a studio tripod than a neck strap, they grew interchangeable backs, metered prisms, a plethora of lenses, grips and a pile of accessories for the commercial sector of their day and did nothing for street photography, the only MF camera developed specifically for portraiture en plein air was the Mamiya and other rangefinders. It did so in spite of the antiquated format and at a time when what was actually required was a redesigned larger film carriage system for a new generation of professional cameras.
That system never arrived and almost certainly never will. In that context a Rolleiflex is no more old school than any other post war 120 system lump and more useful on the street than most.
Insert whatever emoticon says that.
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