Vietnam War Cameras

[CMoore]

Anybody ever talk to photographers that were there, or know much about the Maintenance/Lifespan of the gear these Guys/Gals carried.?
I was watching a movie about Taizo, and it made me wonder.
You know the stereotypical image of a war photographer.......some guys with 2-3 F Bodies hanging off his neck.
Like this frame from The Movie

I realize movies are not documentaries, but their gear must have suffered some random Loss, Breakage, Damage.?
Did they break the glass very often, or ruin film with water damage, or deal with jammed or broken mechanisms.?
Stuff like that.
I think i am "normally" careful with my cameras. I do set them down on concrete and dirt, subject them to a Little Bit of humidity and moisture, but Nothing like what we see a war photographer do in a movie.
Probably some guys burned through more stuff than others.
It just kind of made me wonder.......
Thank You

 

[shutterfinger]

but their gear must have suffered some random Loss, Breakage, Damage.?

Several years ago there was an article in Popular Photography about a photo journalist photographing a conflict in South America and his Nikon caught a bullet while he had the camera to his eye.

 

[GRHazelton]

Is that a black F 2?
I have a Nikon S 2 silver dial and several lenses, and a black F 2 w. the DP-1 finder and several lenses. Both work perfectly but look usesd but not abused. Each has a few scratches the S 2 has a few small dents; the F 2 shows some brassing and a few small dents. The F 2 might make a good weapon! It feels like the proverbial hockey puck. Probably could drive tacks with it.
Time for a WW II Jeep and fatigues....

 

[ambulatingreader]

I was an infantryman in Vietnam in 1968. Never had a photographer attached to our unit, but remember one of the guys had what was certainly a 35mm SLR film camera. He took numerous pictures. I had a Kodak Instamatic, and am still impressed by the quality of the shots

 

[MartinCrabtree]

I was an infantryman in Vietnam in 1968. Never had a photographer attached to our unit, but remember one of the guys had what was certainly a 35mm SLR film camera. He took numerous pictures. I had a Kodak Instamatic, and am still impressed by the quality of the shots

Could you be nudged into posting a few? Nothing ghastly just daily stuff.

 

[Helinophoto]

As far as I can find online, Nikon F seems to be the most widely used camera for photojournalists.

humidity would be a real camera-killer down there, so I suppose a rugged, fairly cheap camera system would be a better and more common choice than the m3 (which was also used, it's rugged, but it was also very expensive).

 

[E. von Hoegh]

Anybody ever talk to photographers that were there, or know much about the Maintenance/Lifespan of the gear these Guys/Gals carried.?
I was watching a movie about Taizo, and it made me wonder.
You know the stereotypical image of a war photographer.......some guys with 2-3 F Bodies hanging off his neck.
Like this frame from The Movie

I realize movies are not documentaries, but their gear must have suffered some random Loss, Breakage, Damage.?
Did they break the glass very often, or ruin film with water damage, or deal with jammed or broken mechanisms.?
Stuff like that.
I think i am "normally" careful with my cameras. I do set them down on concrete and dirt, subject them to a Little Bit of humidity and moisture, but Nothing like what we see a war photographer do in a movie.
Probably some guys burned through more stuff than others.
It just kind of made me wonder.......
Thank You

Well, firstly I'd like to point out that what you see in movies does not necessarily portray reality. Photographers - real ones - typically take very good care of their gear. I remember seeing a battlefield photo of a photographer climbing out of a foxhole after what appears to have been an artillery/mortar attack, he and his Nikon F were pretty liberally covered in mud.
As for putting a camera down on concrete or dirt, I woudn't do that with a wrench, leave alone a precision opto-mechanical device - unless someone was shooting at me.

 

[CMoore]

Well, firstly I'd like to point out that what you see in movies does not necessarily portray reality.
As for putting a camera down on concrete or dirt, I woudn't do that with a wrench, leave alone a precision opto-mechanical device - unless someone was shooting at me.

As i said in my OP......
1. I realize that movies are not documentaries.
2. You would not put a Camera (or a WRENCH) down on concrete or dirt.?
Setting on camera on those surfaces will not cause any problems that i am aware of. I do it all the time. I guess i could carry a special towel.
Try it sometime, your cameras will still work fine.
Professional photographers set their cameras onto all kinds of surfaces.
I am not suggesting to intentionally roll an SLR down a Dusty/Muddy hill.

 

[shutterfinger]

The Nikon F that stopped an AK47 bullet intended for the photojournalist using it.
https://petapixel.com/2012/11/03/wa...ects-on-a-career-filled-with-haunting-images/

 

[E. von Hoegh]

As i said in my OP......
1. I realize that movies are not documentaries.
2. You would not put a Camera (or a WRENCH) down on concrete or dirt.?
Setting on camera on those surfaces will not cause any problems that i am aware of. I do it all the time. I guess i could carry a special towel.
Try it sometime, your cameras will still work fine.
Professional photographers set their cameras onto all kinds of surfaces.
I am not suggesting to intentionally roll an SLR down a Dusty/Muddy hill.

1. Well you mentioned what you saw in movies, twice.
2. I take care of my tools. All of them.

 

[BradS]

My uncle was a photographer in Vietnam. He spent 6 months in country - apparently on the ground with the people. He never really talked about why he was there or for whom he was working but he was not in the military and his photos did not feature the military forces of either side.

He used two Nikon F bodies. One with a 35mm and the other a 105mm. He used a Mamiya standard 23 press camera for a while too. He gave me the Mamiya...and even though, according to him, it saw little use in Vietnam, it looked like it had fallen out the back of a truck. It did work though. One of the Nikons did not make it home from Vietnam, the other was well battered.

 

[chip j]

I read a story about Vietnam Nikon Fs being routinely washed in a sink to get the mud out of them.

 

[benjiboy]

An American friend of mine here in England who was an Associated Press photographer in Vietnam had a Nikon F photonic shot out of his hands, he showed me the camera a few years ago and although it has a huge score mark across the prism housing it still works. He said he was fortunate the round was a ricochet because if it had more velocity it would have probably blown his head off.

 

[AgX]

Thomas Billhardt explained that he always went to Vietnam with 6 Pentacon Sixes, and by the end of his 6weeks trips they all always had broken down. He had such issues at other places too. He experienced large shutter inconsistencies, which for a part he already was aware of during his jobs and compensated for at metering. Finally from his valuta earnings on the Vietnam photos he bought himself a Hasselblad and was relieved. He switched to 35mm format as late as 1989.
Though he was not at the very front line.
https://www.thomasbillhardt.com/wp-...1/Thomas-Billhard-at-work-WA0007-1024x870.jpg

 

[CMoore]

Wow.
That photo is a piece of history.

 

[Eric Rose]

I was an infantryman in Vietnam in 1968. Never had a photographer attached to our unit, but remember one of the guys had what was certainly a 35mm SLR film camera. He took numerous pictures. I had a Kodak Instamatic, and am still impressed by the quality of the shots

Post some of your favourite shots!

 

[John Koehrer]

I read a story about Vietnam Nikon Fs being routinely washed in a sink to get the mud out of them.

Must have read it in the interweb.

 

[chip j]

No, it was in the Aurora, Il. newspaper.

 

[summicron1]

I"ve seen several images of Nikon F cameras that got shot -- their owners were lucky.

It is interesting how crude, by modern standards, the gear the guys in Vietnam had was, and what amazing results they got, but then they were amazing photographers. A book of AP photos of the war that came out a couple of years ago included discussion about replacing the gear lost when one of their photographers was killed when his helicopter was shot down -- there were a 135 lens, a body, a normal and a wide angle, maybe a 35, I think, and that was pretty much it -- those guys shot with "f8 and be there" as their most valuable gear.

Tim Page had his life saved by his Leica when he had it up to his face when something exploded nearby, seriously wounding him. He should have died several times in that war, but is still around, still shooting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Page_(photographer)

 

[summicron1]

About 7 years ago -- sorry, details are lost to my alleged mind -- I was thumbing through Time Magazine and saw a picture shot in Afghanistan of some people involved in the war and was struck by how vignetted and sorta-soft the image was. This was at the height of the Holga fun, and I wondered if that was a Holga image, so I googled the photographer .. and sure enough, there he was, with both "normal" images and Holga images on his web site.

I sent him a note, saying that I was impressed, but said that if he wanted to protect himself from being shot he needed a camera a bit more substantial than a plastic-fantastic. He wrote back and said he agreed.

(later)

did a little googling, not sure if this is the same guy, may be. He goes into combat with TWO Holgas, along with a film and digital Leica (6 and 8.2) and a HUGE load of other stuff. If just the description of what he considers minimally required doesn't turn you off from combat photographer fantasies, nothing will:

https://gizmodo.com/5330715/ask-a-pro-how-to-shoot-and-not-get-shot-in-a-war-zone

 

[Sirius Glass]

I read a story about Vietnam Nikon Fs being routinely washed in a sink to get the mud out of them.

No, that was the AK-47. Which caused the engineering companies to revisit their designs. This is not an invitation for every Second Amendment nut to post about guns.

 

[mark]

My dad was there, he had a camera and there are several hundred slides/negatives somewhere in his house. They only saw the light of day once after he came home, that I know of. Other than that packed away. As I look back I am shocked that he viewed the slides with me when I was in my early teens.

 

[chip j]

No, that was the AK-47. Which caused the engineering companies to revisit their designs. This is not an invitation for every Second Amendment nut to post about guns.

NO, they were Nikon Fs, being serviced by a maintenance guy.

 

[Mr Bill]

I used to work with a guy who had done two tours as a US Marine Corps photographer, but he didn't generally talk much about it. I once mentioned that I didn't see much point to the 80mm lens for a Nikonos (underwater) camera, as being in water doesn't really lend itself well to long lenses (I had a Nikonos II, where the "normal" uw lens is 35mm, as I recall). He said that actually the Nikonos II with 80mm was a very useful combo for them in field use. They could pack it anywhere under any weather, and it gave some useful reach. It seems like they had an equipment pool, and you just check out whatever you might need at the time.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Horst Faas/Associated Press, was a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer documenting the Vietnam War.
And his vast collection of work is not for the squeamish: he photographed unspeakable horrors, as well as the more mundane images of the war.

http://avax.news/pictures/30657