You know Vacarro shot the war with a C3. I bet he still has it and I bet it still works.
What is the most rugged F and why?
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Of course there is the RTFM crowd and it does state 125seconds which is most impressive already.
But put into actual practice and you can get far longer - and repeatable, perfect exposures. My Sekonic could hang until 50 seconds but not after.
In this test, I was testing the length of aperture autoexposure I can take with the LX - as well as see what reciprocity issues the Fuji 100 color negative might have at these extreme times. BTW, I have two Pentax LX bought at different times and both act exactly the same way.
To be fair, the F2 has no flash controls other then to fire it while the LX uses the same metering cel for all metering including TTL flash.
I say render unto Caesar (Nikon) because from the historical perspective Nikon was the emperor. Herb Keppler (Modern Photography 1981) dubbed the Canon New F-1, Nikon F3 and Pentax LX the three kings because of the cost.
But now history is long behind us and all features have been superseeded. All except for one that has not been duplicated by any brand/model camera - past or present, film or digi. The LX can aperture priority autoexpose a scene for as long as it takes, all the while monitoring the scene for changes in lighting and adjusting exposure time accordingly.
Although I have tested a representative model from every brand that has aperture priority autoexposure - film and digi, it is entirely possible I may have missed one or more.
For instance possible second in this case would be the Olympus OM2 but it is subject to a lot of caveats. If you're interested, you can read about it at http://www.zuiko.com/web_5__20150924_032.htm
Another brand I tried are Canons and they all max out at 30 seconds.
And of course it came with a lifetime warranty that I have never seen offered on any other camera . . .
I understand that in A priority mode the LX integrates the light reflected in the film, so the exposure is not decided before shutter release, so it does not require an instant reading, so integrates the reading during all exposure time... it is a sound system, similar to the minolta at the time...
The drawback is that reading is not center-weighted...
https://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/pentaxlx/metering/metering.htm
Instead the Photomic had a very well defined center-weighted reading, with only a 1.5 stop loss (1977) compared to the LX. Probably the Nikon system would be well preferred by a Pro of the era, a Pro is not shooting much in the dark, while the center-weighted metering was quite a desired feature.
IMO, at the end, the metering system of the LX was a principal factor for many Pros to not consider its usage. And in that scenary Pentax abandoned that market when large investements were necessary to compete in that segment in that late 80s and beyond, not having Pro customers you don't develop Pro glass...
So we cannot praise those LX 120s without telling it prevented having the desired feature of the time, the center-weighted metering, that pitfall contributed to a remarkable failure in the Pro market segment...
The C3 is an unsuspected combat camera.
For what it is it's a great little unit. It's very rarely irreparable and it can be calibrated very easily. If I were shooting combat in WWII I'd rather the medalist I, however.
I'd have to check my PDF's to see if that was the case in the late 30's when the camera was launched, but I bet it was. I never liked the finish on those latter-day C series cams.And of course it came with a lifetime warranty that I have never seen offered on any other camera . . .
Similar to what Minolta at that time? I have Minoltas of that time and I am only aware of the Olympus OM series being similar as they all metered OTF.
The main drawback couldn't have been because it is center weighted because it definitely is as confirmed by lab testing by both Modern Photography and Popular Photography at the time.
BTW, in the MIR sited you referenced, it states, "One of the strongest asset for the Pentax LX is at its metering system. It is not too unreasonable to quote in terms of sophistication, the Pentax LX has the best metering system found in top rated SLR cameras during the early eighties."
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Les... the OTF of the LX was a total pitfall for most of the pros !!! it fails totally with backlighted subjects !
Imagine you are a wedding photographer, you have the couple there and background is a bright sky, you severely underexpose that people ! If you have all day long to take the shot then you meter the face nearing the subject and later you shot manual at right exposure, but if you have to shot several dozens of rolls in that wedding you don't have all day long to make a single shot...
The F2/F3/CanonF1 were smarter because the center-weighted metering delivers way more consistent Auto Exposures than average metering, specially when people is there, you don't want the background have too much weight. From the F2 (1971) to the F6 all Nikon cameras also included the center weighted mode, and none has the average mode.
Also center-weighted was to pave the way to advanced matricial metering, while OTF had no future. In fact F3 an beyond do include an OTF meter, but they use it only to control the flash, having to mount two meters because the OTF is a total pitfall in Auto mode, subjects are severely underexposed as background goes bright !!!
What happened with Olympus/Pentax with the OTF? No Pro wanted their meter, and they disapeared from the Pro segment. Instead Nikon, Canon and Minolta got that market.
Yes, as MIR tells the LX has the best meter, but I only agree this for night photography. If you are to shot people don't use those cameras, at least if you want to shot Auto and you are in a country with bright skies.
Why do you think the (for the rest) excellent LX was not sold? The meter was a pitfall for the Pros !!
Sorry, it was a short circuit, I wanted to say Olympus... , I had been a frequent user of a borrowed OM-2, before I could afford a SLR.
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I have three Fs, an F with plain and Ftn finders, two F2s, a chrome one from the first year of production and a black one from the last month of production. Both F2s are in F2A configuration, and both DPII finders are accurate - as is the Ftn for the F. The chrome F2 has been Soverised. The black F2 needs an overhaul, but is useable on all but the two shortest shutter speeds, this camera was used very little but had some unfortunate experiences.
I also have Nikkormats Ft and Ftn, both have been overhauled and both work as they should with accurate, non-jumpy meters.
I don't want any of the later Nikons, I do this only as a hobby.
But, any of the above cameras will (except the meters) function as long as they are properly maintained. Nikon's reputation for reliability and durability is in part due to their service network, and in part due to excellent design and material specification. Once upon a time, pros had their gear cla'd regularly as preventive maintenance. There were many skilled techs available, too - not ronsonol butchers as we have now.
Everyone's boggled about a Nikon shutter making over a million cycles? Big deal. Your car's engine makes, say, 2500 revolutions per mile of travel. What's 2500 times 100,000 miles? My wristwatch ticks five times every second. I've been wearing it for 38 years. Do the arithmetic. Of course, the watch gets regular service.
I also have Nikkormats Ft and Ftn, both have been overhauled and both work as they should with accurate, non-jumpy meters.
I don't want any of the later Nikons, I do this only as a hobby.
But, any of the above cameras will (except the meters) function as long as they are properly maintained. Nikon's reputation for reliability and durability is in part due to their service network, and in part due to excellent design and material specification. Once upon a time, pros had their gear cla'd regularly as preventive maintenance. There were many skilled techs available, too - not ronsonol butchers as we have now.
Everyone's boggled about a Nikon shutter making over a million cycles? Big deal. Your car's engine makes, say, 2500 revolutions per mile of travel. What's 2500 times 100,000 miles? My wristwatch ticks five times every second. I've been wearing it for 38 years. Do the arithmetic. Of course, the watch gets regular service.
I corrected myself above as the lab reports state center weighted.
Also, the OM1 does not meter OTF but the OM2,3&4 does.
This "problematic backlighting" you speak of is actually identified in most manuals and how to overcome it. In fact I believe my Argus C3 manual even has it.
Today's more sophisticated metering can automatically compensate for a lot of problematic lighting conditions. You may not be aware that pros - and nonpros, have encountered this scene long before today's more sophisticated metering systems and managed to get proper exposure. Back then they were even shooting Kodachromes which have far narrower latitude then today's Porta films.
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Today's sophisticated metering is almost magically good.
What's really magical is the latitude of most color negative and b&w film. I can shoot meterless and get perfect exposure during daylight hours no problem. OTOH, my flash dependency is still high but TTL flash and again film's ultrawide latitude is equally forgiving.
C41 is incredbly forgiving. There's that Kodak stuff Portra?
I use b&w 97/100 of the time, and particularly in small format, "printable" is not optimal.
And, my metering system consists of a LunaPro, a brain, and fifty years experience. If something goes wrong, it's invariably the brain part. Almost never use flash.
If someone cannot figure out how to set a camera for back lit subject, I feel sorry for them. If that is the camera's only problem, that is not much of a deficiency.
Of course all cameras of that era - and prior, had the same problem with possible exception of Minolta's CLC metering? Then of course if that was a problem then whatabout if the main subject was brighter then the bacground! How would a pro compensate for that!
Backlighting?
Omaha beach? Maybe. In 1937, a Contax II was half the price af a Ford V8 coupe. A third or so of a grade school teacher's salary. Or, 450RM at Foto Franke on Potsdamerstrasse, Berlin, 3 July 1937.
So Capa likely held on and took care of his.
There was a Contax II on Hillary's expedition in 53. The summit photo was made with a Retina though. Try using a Contax with mittens...
Compensation for backlighting was known and used as early as 1839.
Exactly my point. 138S stated that since the LX did not do that one thing that the camera was the worst ever built and sold and that the company should have been destroyed and erased from history. I would hate to see the reaction if he had trouble snapping the paper tab on a 120 roll of film. Oh the tragedy of it all.
But not as narrow as people seem to think.
Those would be the people who can't get good exposure . . .
This shows the practically unending latitude of Kodak Portra 400 specially on the overexposure side. I take a reference optimal exposure I labeled as 0 reference. I then keep adding 1 stop of exposure by adjusting the shutter. I thought that at +10 I had reached the point where the frame would be completely blownout. Apparently for Portra 400 that is not so. See the enlargement of the +10 overexposed frame below +7 thru +10. I took that +10 overexposed frame and applied white balance and levels adjustment to it and it looks reasonable specially when you compare it to +3 thru +5 of RAW digi which are completely unusable.
I expected Kodak Ektar 100 to not be as tolerant of overexposure and that's why I didn't go much further in this test although I did in another test later on.
Personally, I much prefer spot metering as I conduct tests like this to assess exposure range of the films I use at my system level. But I also know the metering characteristics of all my cameras and with these film's latitude, getting proper exposure in any setting is not something I worry about. I would believe a pro would know as much but they probably worry more about equipment failure and metering is just second nature to them.
Sirius, you miss the point... Look, a Pro is able to solve a backlights by simply analyzin how the air smells, but many times he cannot spend time in that.
Provide you are a wedding photographer, you have to organize groups, tell them to smile, explain the joke to they do it, catching precise instants, looking for Semi-conscious Images...
You have to get romantic scenes of the couple with perfect light nature and direction, with perfect composition, provocating the romantic expression, with the girl in slightly in command and the boy looking obedient... and while you check composition expression may degradate...
And artist may show a frame of each one thousand shot, a wedding photographer has to fill a book from a sesion or two, with the bride allways looking incredibly beutiful and the groom looking mostly lost. You need the A meter working consistently without spending much effort to get the right exposure.
For these reasons very intelligent meters and AF have been developed... Same with AF... Do you think a Pro cannot focus manually ? But he wants this automated, and today they also want an instant manual focus ring to override the automation when they want a weird effect.
The point was not if a Pro knew how to deal with a backlight, the point is that F2 center-weighted offered way more consistent exposures to a Pro than bare uniform Average (LX) when he had no time to play much attention to exposure.
An F5 is able of that. There are records around about F5 beasts having surpassed 1 million shots without a single CLA. Photo Secretary device tells the count.
Rob Finkelman (http://www.rwfphototestserver.dcreativedesign.com/index-info.html) has one nearing half a million shots, IIRC.
CLA of the F5 would be only cleaning, no Lubrication is specified in the service manual (http://www.mammola.net/manuali/Nikon_F5_repair_manual.pdf).
Regarding the "Adjustment" chapter, the F5 shutter was designed to self calibrate, a sensor always reads the effective speed got and calibration is adjusted, after 1 million shots the Copal F5 shutter is totally exact like the first day. This was a great feature in 1996.
Regarding the "Cleaning" chapter, internals are sealed... still you may blow the dust in the lens and film receptacles... you may use a Kärcher for the outside...
After 24 years, perhaps grease in the seals can be renewed... I don't know if this is much necessary, but if you buy an F5, even if it looks like it fell from an airplane in flight, you can bet you won't have a problem in the next 100.000 shots, with no kind of care, and even if you throw it stairs down several times, provided the finder survived and you don't mind the scratches. An impact in the (titanium anyway) finder would be risky, but it can be replaced in the field, the rest is well armored. For the war, an spare finder in the bag is the only part you should carry.
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And see, I shoot b/w much more precisely than I shoot color neg. I like to have a good starting place for further processing, and that means contrasty. I try to nail it dead on or underexpose slightly. I'll shoot color neg all day and barely touch the settings, as long as I'm in open daylight, maybe go up two stops in light shade, but I never like the results of the same method on b/w... Means too much processing for my taste, and I prefer natural contrast to artificial contrast.
Since you emphasized this let's be clear about something, all these PRO cameras had some features in common - interchangeable finders, horizontal travel titanium shutters and more to the point center weighted metering . . .
You can find this disclosure in each of their manuals or - since you like MIR, find them there and search for "weight" as in center weighted:
- Minolta XK AES finder -> http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/minoltaxk/htmls/index2.htm
- Canon New F-1 -> http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/canonf1n/metering/index.htm *Note spot and selective area metering with the appropriate screens.
- Nikon F3 -> http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/nikonf3ver2/htmls/index.htm
- Pentax LX -> http://www.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/pentaxlx/metering/metering.htm
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