What happened to all the non photographers film cameras?

[btaylor]

Why always dentists? What is the deep seeded hate of dentist on this website? I never knew a dentist that was also a photographer, let alone one that owned a Hasselblad.

That’s funny! There was a kid in my high school photo class that used a Hasselblad. I was very envious (as was everyone else). It was on loan from his granddad- who was... in fact, a dentist.
So all these years I thought that stereotype was true! I am not envious of the dentist and his (or her) digital Leica SL, as I have my very own Hasselblad.

 

[AgX]

Over here I never heard of this dentist story. Actually in the 70's I only twice came across a photographer using a Hasselblad.

 

[Helge]

Your neighbor is a dentist.

My Crown Graphic is lighter than my DSLR setup. I have a bad left wrist and though using the Crown would be an issue. It's fine, I use it as a rangefinder and it's a joy to carry around. No-one calls the police on someone with a Graflex

You're a rabid anti-dentite!
Oh, it starts with a few jokes and some slurs. "Hey, denty!” Next thing you know you're saying they should have their own schools.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Your neighbor is a dentist.

My Crown Graphic is lighter than my DSLR setup. I have a bad left wrist and though using the Crown would be an issue. It's fine, I use it as a rangefinder and it's a joy to carry around. No-one calls the police on someone with a Graflex

I think so. Maybe a doctor although they usually buy Leicas.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Over here I never heard of this dentist story. Actually in the 70's I only twice came across a photographer using a Hasselblad.

They were all sent to America and sold to dentists.

 

[Alan Edward Klein]

Most dentists I knew who had cameras bought Nikons with those macro lenses and circular flash strobes. They used them for taking pictures of your teeth.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I think so. Maybe a doctor although they usually buy Leicas.

Doctors I would find more believable. As noted above dentists liked Nikons for close up teeth photographs.

 

[miha]

Most dentists I knew who had cameras bought Nikons with those macro lenses and circular flash strobes. They used them for taking pictures of your teeth.

Are you sure they bought Nikons? I understand these were far more popular among dentists: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Yashica_Dental_Eye but then again their use was limited since the lens was fixed.

 

[blockend]

The story of photography has been manufacturers offering us less film for more money. Families that started out with pictures taken on 6 x 9 box cameras, ended up with shots taken on 110 film.

Re. 35mm point and shoots, I have around 50, ranging from fixed focus plastic lens models, to quality glass models. 1980s onward meant battery dependent, noisy auto advance and AF cameras with proliferating tricks designed to make things simpler, but mostly rendering them more complicated.

 

[AgX]

The story of photography has been manufacturers offering us less film for more money. Families that started out with pictures taken on 6 x 9 box cameras, ended up with shots taken on 110 film.

But they all eagerly exchanged their 6x9 box cameras for 110 cameras, as
-) they had less weight and bulk to shlepp
-) yielded larger prints
-) and with good 110 camera even sharper images.

Everyone was happy. The amateur, the film manufacturer, the camera manufacturer, the finisher.

 

[mgb74]

What I've always heard about dentists and photo equipment is that they are the best source for used gear as a) they had the income to afford top line equipment, b) they did use it very much, and c) as a result of their training, they took very good care of it. True? Who knows. But not a derogatory view.

I don't knock cheap cameras. I think that for every image that has value as art, there are 100 images that have value as memories (not to mention the 1 or 2 that have value as historical record). And most of those 100 images were made with cheap cameras.

 

[blockend]

But they all eagerly exchanged their 6x9 box cameras for 110 cameras

If you can convince consumers that a fixed aperture, shutter speed and focused lens means the camera is "fully automatic", it's certainly good for company profits. Vintage camera advertisements aimed at the mass market sell technical deficiencies as benefits.

 

[AgX]

6x9 box cameras had rarely any setting and were meant to yield contact prints.

The range of type 110 cameras was very wide. Good lens, focussing, auteexposure models were not uncommon, films had got better, colour surpassed b&W and anlargements were the standard output of finishers. Thus my remark of type 110 being an advancement.

Since decades I got an 8x10 colour print portrait standing in the light, that I find very pleasing. It had been made with a middle-of-the road 110 camera.

 

[Helge]

110 was just Kodak’s way of making the 16mm trend into something convenient and manageable.
The fixed aperture is a way of managing a primitive lens.

 

[AgX]

How come you speak of a primitive lens? For instance except for one or two models all by Agfa had at least a Cooke triplet, the top models a Tessar type. And these cameras must have had a vast share amongst all type 110 cameras, just looking at the used market.

 

[MattKing]

The large 6x9 box cameras were enjoyed and used by a tiny fraction of the number of people who enjoyed and used 126 and 110 and disc cameras.
And the users of the 6x9 box cameras tended to use them a lot less than the users of 126 and 110 and disc cameras - film and processing was much cheaper and often more accessible for the small camera users.
The quality differences that we observe between the formats were rarely noticed by the users of those simple cameras. Those who might notice them tended to migrate either to high end versions of the cameras that used those formats (think the Instamatic Reflex) or to different formats.
But most importantly to the subject of this thread, the role of the camera has changed now. It used to be the only way you recorded memories (other than journals and sound recorders), and the act of recording those memories was relatively infrequent, somewhat expensive, and at least slightly inconvenient. All of which made it at least a little bit special.
With cel phones and the internet, the act of recording a memory has lost almost all of its character as something "special".
If people no longer consider taking a photograph as something special, the simple cameras they used tend to end up in the trash.

 

[reddesert]

Are you sure they bought Nikons? I understand these were far more popular among dentists: http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Yashica_Dental_Eye but then again their use was limited since the lens was fixed.

There's a common dental photography outfit in the US that has a Nikon body, a nice Lester Dine (Kiron) macro lens, and a Dine ring and point flash. Dine is a firm that put together these outfits for dentists. I have one where the body is an N2000, but the body changed over the years AFAIK. Dine is still in business at dinecorp.com. Unlike the Yashica Dental-Eye, these use a standard lens mount and the lens and body can be separated.

As for all the non-enthusiast film cameras, in the US many of them were donated to charity shops. If you look on shopgoodwill.com, there are lots of film cameras. There are still Kodak instant cameras surfacing - these haven't been usable since the late 1980s. The capacity of the American basement is nearly infinite.

 

[Helge]

The large 6x9 box cameras were enjoyed and used by a tiny fraction of the number of people who enjoyed and used 126 and 110 and disc cameras.
And the users of the 6x9 box cameras tended to use them a lot less than the users of 126 and 110 and disc cameras - film and processing was much cheaper and often more accessible for the small camera users.
The quality differences that we observe between the formats were rarely noticed by the users of those simple cameras. Those who might notice them tended to migrate either to high end versions of the cameras that used those formats (think the Instamatic Reflex) or to different formats.
But most importantly to the subject of this thread, the role of the camera has changed now. It used to be the only way you recorded memories (other than journals and sound recorders), and the act of recording those memories was relatively infrequent, somewhat expensive, and at least slightly inconvenient. All of which made it at least a little bit special.
With cel phones and the internet, the act of recording a memory has lost almost all of its character as something "special".
If people no longer consider taking a photograph as something special, the simple cameras they used tend to end up in the trash.

You might well be right, but do you have actual numbers to back that up?
Box cameras where immensely popular and was for a long time the only realistic option for most people.
6x9 or similar format contact prints are extremely common in photo collections from the first half of the twentieth century.
They where cheap and fast to make.
And the quality was actually very good considering the simplicity of the equipment.

Basically everything in recent decades has become cheapened and not special, because nothing is really very hard to do technically or materially any more.

That’s a complicated and new situation, especially because there is still a lot of residual from recent cultural strata, where there was natural gates that kept most people out.

What recent developments has put into strong contrast and clear relief, is how talent and ability is not widespread and universal, and was only slightly constricted (for good and bad) by the past material limitations.
It also makes clear how important and illusive good taste and curation is from non artists.

Sure, a lot of great artists have been lost to happenstance, lacking social skills and connections in the modern era.
But not as many is some egalitarian minded people might have thought.

YouTube and Instagram make intensely clear how everyone is certainly not an artist, and how art is not democratic.

Really great art was always special in a way that was hard to put a handle on.
Otherwise it wouldn’t be art.

 

[Helge]

How come you speak of a primitive lens? For instance except for one or two models all by Agfa had at least a Cooke triplet, the top models a Tessar type. And these cameras must have had a vast share amongst all type 110 cameras, just looking at the used market.

A triplet certainly benefits from stopping down.

When I say “primitive” I mean in the original non derogatory or value judgment meaning.

AFAIK all but a few box cameras had a simple meniscus and only the Tengor a dublet.

 

[Cholentpot]

Maybe it is that digital or the phones now can produce decent quality photos with so much ease and they can spend more family time and they are not specifically into either that digital or that film approach but any approach that suffices? Maybe it is just so hard to give that up. My barber used to have darkroom in his place and he developed BW and E6 film as well as Process 41 not C41 he said he ha to shine a 200W bulb at the film. He also now just use digital with his Olympus gear the larger one not the current OMDs but he uses his older Olympus lenses. He still has his Minolta film scanner which he has been digitising his film.

I think this is it. They just want to take snapshots. They could care less how it's done.

Why always dentists? What is the deep seeded hate of dentist on this website? I never knew a dentist that was also a photographer, let alone one that owned a Hasselblad.

All the camera went to KEH which gave me lots of choices.

You're a rabid anti-dentite!
Oh, it starts with a few jokes and some slurs. "Hey, denty!” Next thing you know you're saying they should have their own schools.

I think so. Maybe a doctor although they usually buy Leicas.

My neighbor who's a doctor gave me his Pentax ME Super. The guy two doors over who was my dentist for years won't give me anything. I got a camcorder from the lawyer. Best camera I was given was from an owner of a junkyard...I mean scrap yard. I got a Bronica S2 in working condition from him. He got it from someone's basement. Lens is fungy but it still works just fine.

 

[MattKing]

You might well be right, but do you have actual numbers to back that up?

I don't think total usage numbers have ever been publicly known.
But I was indirectly involved in the photo-finishing industry during my younger years - my father was the Customer Service manager at the Western Canada Kodak lab and was the person responsible there for interactions with a large number of Kodak dealers throughout western Canada who sent customer film to that lab.
The amount of customer film - movies and slides mainly - that went through that lab between 1961 and 1983 was absolutely huge. But that amount was eventually dwarfed by the amount of print film that went to mini-labs instead.
When I started working in retail camera stores, 35mm was popular, but the people who used snapshot cameras had no end of trouble with loading and rewinding film. The 126 format was incredibly popular, and 110 thereafter was in many ways more popular. Almost none of those people were willing to struggle with larger roll film cameras.
Larger film sizes are wonderful - particularly with modern films. But the mass market has never been focused mostly on image quality. It has been focused on flexibility, ease of use, speed of results and economy.
Even in the days when volumes were huge, customers were incredibly price sensitive. One of the camera counters I worked at was at a large department store. From time to time we would have sales on our photofinishing services, which were already very competitively priced (and frankly of middling quality). People would save up their films and only put them in for development when we had a sale on.
At the same time that was happening, the really high quality lab I was using was doing great work with the 120 Vericolour I was sending them, and giving me fast, pro quality results at excellent prices.
The volumes that supported most of the industry were in those 126, 110 and 135 films that snap shot amateurs were using and we were sending off for them (overnight service) for middling quality photo-finishing.
The really good quality stuff had good volumes too, but they were small in comparison.
FWIW, I've got my Dad's 110 Kodachromes and, when projected using the 110 projector, are quite nice.

 

[Cholentpot]

I don't think total usage numbers have ever been publicly known.
But I was indirectly involved in the photo-finishing industry during my younger years - my father was the Customer Service manager at the Western Canada Kodak lab and was the person responsible there for interactions with a large number of Kodak dealers throughout western Canada who sent customer film to that lab.
The amount of customer film - movies and slides mainly - that went through that lab between 1961 and 1983 was absolutely huge. But that amount was eventually dwarfed by the amount of print film that went to mini-labs instead.
When I started working in retail camera stores, 35mm was popular, but the people who used snapshot cameras had no end of trouble with loading and rewinding film. The 126 format was incredibly popular, and 110 thereafter was in many ways more popular. Almost none of those people were willing to struggle with larger roll film cameras.
Larger film sizes are wonderful - particularly with modern films. But the mass market has never been focused mostly on image quality. It has been focused on flexibility, ease of use, speed of results and economy.
Even in the days when volumes were huge, customers were incredibly price sensitive. One of the camera counters I worked at was at a large department store. From time to time we would have sales on our photofinishing services, which were already very competitively priced (and frankly of middling quality). People would save up their films and only put them in for development when we had a sale on.
At the same time that was happening, the really high quality lab I was using was doing great work with the 120 Vericolour I was sending them, and giving me fast, pro quality results at excellent prices.
The volumes that supported most of the industry were in those 126, 110 and 135 films that snap shot amateurs were using and we were sending off for them (overnight service) for middling quality photo-finishing.
The really good quality stuff had good volumes too, but they were small in comparison.
FWIW, I've got my Dad's 110 Kodachromes and, when projected using the 110 projector, are quite nice.

One time use cameras. I remember getting developed and 2x prints from something like 1.99 give a dollar or two. Or better, the camera was 3.99 but you didn't pay for development and prints. And some places would give you a free roll for every x amount of rolls you shot.

 

[Helge]

I don't think total usage numbers have ever been publicly known.
But I was indirectly involved in the photo-finishing industry during my younger years - my father was the Customer Service manager at the Western Canada Kodak lab and was the person responsible there for interactions with a large number of Kodak dealers throughout western Canada who sent customer film to that lab.
The amount of customer film - movies and slides mainly - that went through that lab between 1961 and 1983 was absolutely huge. But that amount was eventually dwarfed by the amount of print film that went to mini-labs instead.
When I started working in retail camera stores, 35mm was popular, but the people who used snapshot cameras had no end of trouble with loading and rewinding film. The 126 format was incredibly popular, and 110 thereafter was in many ways more popular. Almost none of those people were willing to struggle with larger roll film cameras.
Larger film sizes are wonderful - particularly with modern films. But the mass market has never been focused mostly on image quality. It has been focused on flexibility, ease of use, speed of results and economy.
Even in the days when volumes were huge, customers were incredibly price sensitive. One of the camera counters I worked at was at a large department store. From time to time we would have sales on our photofinishing services, which were already very competitively priced (and frankly of middling quality). People would save up their films and only put them in for development when we had a sale on.
At the same time that was happening, the really high quality lab I was using was doing great work with the 120 Vericolour I was sending them, and giving me fast, pro quality results at excellent prices.
The volumes that supported most of the industry were in those 126, 110 and 135 films that snap shot amateurs were using and we were sending off for them (overnight service) for middling quality photo-finishing.
The really good quality stuff had good volumes too, but they were small in comparison.
FWIW, I've got my Dad's 110 Kodachromes and, when projected using the 110 projector, are quite nice.

“You press the button, We do the rest” was meant very literally.
Not just with the original Kodak, but with most other cameras, people would hand in their camera when buying film and having it developed, to have new film loaded.
Even in this day and age, my mom has her Trip 35 rewound and loaded at the camera shop.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I don't think total usage numbers have ever been publicly known.
But I was indirectly involved in the photo-finishing industry during my younger years - my father was the Customer Service manager at the Western Canada Kodak lab and was the person responsible there for interactions with a large number of Kodak dealers throughout western Canada who sent customer film to that lab.
The amount of customer film - movies and slides mainly - that went through that lab between 1961 and 1983 was absolutely huge. But that amount was eventually dwarfed by the amount of print film that went to mini-labs instead.
When I started working in retail camera stores, 35mm was popular, but the people who used snapshot cameras had no end of trouble with loading and rewinding film. The 126 format was incredibly popular, and 110 thereafter was in many ways more popular. Almost none of those people were willing to struggle with larger roll film cameras.
Larger film sizes are wonderful - particularly with modern films. But the mass market has never been focused mostly on image quality. It has been focused on flexibility, ease of use, speed of results and economy.
Even in the days when volumes were huge, customers were incredibly price sensitive. One of the camera counters I worked at was at a large department store. From time to time we would have sales on our photofinishing services, which were already very competitively priced (and frankly of middling quality). People would save up their films and only put them in for development when we had a sale on.
At the same time that was happening, the really high quality lab I was using was doing great work with the 120 Vericolour I was sending them, and giving me fast, pro quality results at excellent prices. 5
The volumes that supported most of the industry were in those 126, 110 and 135 films that snap shot amateurs were using and we were sending off for them (overnight service) for middling quality photo-finishing.
The really good quality stuff had good volumes too, but they were small in comparison.
FWIW, I've got my Dad's 110 Kodachromes and, when projected using the 110 projector, are quite nice.

While in college I worked at camera stores in the Washington DC area in the '60s. I would show and explain a camera to a customer and if the final price was $5 too high they would leave and drive across the metropolitan area to save money [ignoring the cost of driving].

 

[Cholentpot]

While in college I worked at camera stores in the Washington DC area in the '60s. I would show and explain a camera to a customer and if the final price was $5 too high they would leave and drive across the metropolitan area to save money [ignoring the cost of driving].

Gas was the cheapest liquid you can buy back then.