What was the best decade for 35mm cameras?

[blockend]

A mechanical camera will almost never expose slide film correctly.Its not a simple matter of adjusting processing because the exposure will be high in one frame and low the next and theres no prints than can be adjusted, its either right or not.

I used an OM-1 for some years almost exclusively with slide film and almost every shot was correctly exposed. A friend's father had thousands of slides taken on old mechanical cameras and they were nearly all perfect.
If a mechanical camera isn't exposing the film correctly it's defective.

 

[Leigh B]

Its not a simple matter of adjusting processing because the exposure will be high in one frame and low the next...

If that's true for a specific camera, it needs to be serviced.

I was repairing Nikons during this period, and I can guarantee you that every camera we finished would expose correctly at every shutter speed.

- Leigh

 

[Ralph Javins]

For me, the “decline” began with the discontinuance of the F2 not the introduction of the F4.

I agree. In the Nikon (Nippon Kogaku K. K.) line of 35mm SLR cameras, the F2 was the last one that truly was fully mechanically operated, and it did not require a battery to function. With a couple of my other cameras here, they no longer can be used, because the battery they require is no longer manufactured. With many of my light meters, both in-camera and handheld, there is a fairly expensive adapter that will allow a currently made similar battery to be used in them to keep them going, such as the Nikon Photomic FTn and the DP-12 for the Nikon F and F2. However, both of those cameras can still be used with a handheld light meter, or even the "Sunny 16" guideline.

If a camera has become an object of art to be displayed in a cabinet or on a shelf because it no longer can be used due to the lack of the supporting structures to keep it operating, then I question the utility of such a camera. At least my early Nikons and the early Minolta SR cameras are still working, as long as I take them to the shop for a CLA at a reasonable interval. My Minolta X-700 still has a couple of different battery types available that will keep it going for a while longer, and I am hoping that one of the three very different battery types for the Minolta Maxxum 9/Dynax 9 will still be available 20 years from now. The early Minoltas and Nikons are over 40 years old now, and they are still going. The Maxxum 9/Dynax 9 is only about 10 years old right now, and I am already worried about whether or not I will still be able to use it when it is only 30 years old.

Often I do wonder what will happen to my digital SLR cameras a few years from now.

 

[Leigh B]

In the Nikon line of 35mm SLR cameras, the F2 was the last one that truly was fully mechanically operated, and it did not require a battery to function.

Yep. I still have my F2, and it still functions perfectly (although I should replace the foam).

- Leigh

 

[fstop]

You only have a choice of fixed shutter speeds with a mechanical camera. If you need an in between speed you are SOL.The F2 can be set inbetween but you have no way of knowing what the speed it.
Pick up an FM and see how many scenes meter so that changing the shutter speed results in over or under, never dead on. With kodachrome and ektachrome film this error can be just short of one stop and that error is enough to not give the correct exposure with slide film.
A half stop under exposure can saturate colors, but a full stop over exposure will ruin it.

Its a problem inherant in all mechaical cameras, brand new they have this problem. If you need 1/90th you have a choice of either 1/125 or 1/60.
If you need 1/450 you have a choice between 1/500 and 1/250. Get the picture?

 

[lxdude]

The electronic cameras were reliable enough, with the big advantage they have over mechanical when shooting kodachrome sold me on them. A mechanical camera will almost never expose slide film correctly.

Absolutely false.

Its not a simple matter of adjusting processing because the exposure will be high in one frame and low the next and theres no prints than can be adjusted, its either right or not.

Millions of perfectly exposed slides were shot on mechanical cameras. I have thousands of shots on K25, K64 and other slide films, taken with various mechanical cameras over the course of 36 years, which say you're wrong. Precision is important with transparency film, yes, and I have obtained very precise reults from any mechanical camera in good condition. Do you actually think Kodachrome couldn't be accurately exposed in (for example) Nikon F's and F2's? Old National Geographics will prove you wrong. Do you really think a 500 series Hasselblad will ruin people's Velvia? Hell, I have beautifully exposed ASA 10 Kodachromes taken by my grandfather in the 50's with his Argus C3.

Bracketing is not an option with action shots, and exposure requirements can change if following a moving object from the start of a pan to the end.

Talk about exposure inaccuracy! Relying on AE for perfect exposure will get you a lot more poorly exposed images than careful exposure with a mechanical camera by an experienced, knowledgeable person. In action shooting such as you mention AE has advantages, true, but if the scene reflectance (not luminance) changes significantly you will get poor exposures if you do not compensate for it.

It has always cracked me up seeing a motor drive on a FM at the track. Unless they are shooting print film they are wasting film.

Not if they know what they're doing. In the 70's I went to many races at Riverside and Ontario raceways and saw many an F, F2, and Canon F1 with motor drives being used. For one thing, lighting conditions don't always change much depending on which way the camera is pointed. The exposure is for the highlights and that often remains completely constant. For another, the photographers planned their shots and set up, prefocused, and waited for cars to enter the frame. If they panned, they knew at what point they would take the shot, and prefocused and set exposure accordingly.

The shift away from full mechanical was after people learned the electronic controlled cameras had better exposure control.

Not better exposure control, just shutter speeds closer to nominal. More accurate than mechanical, yes, but the mechanical speeds were still accurate enough to work just fine.

 

[Leigh B]

You only have a choice of fixed shutter speeds with a mechanical camera.

The same is true of modern digital cameras. They typically operate in 1/3 stop steps.

You always have the option of adjusting the aperture, which is continuously variable and accurate within its limits. The change in rendering for a 1/2-stop adjustment is minimal, and you can always go the other way if you need more (or less) DoF.

A mechanical camera will almost never expose slide film correctly.

Absolutely wrong.

I shot thousands of Kodachromes with no exposure issues that could be blamed on the camera.


- Leigh

 

[2F/2F]

Anybody expecting perfectly exposed slides all the time from an in-camera meter, especially on any sort of AE mode, is going to be disappointed. Sorry, but in-camera meters have always been a compromise that sacrifices quality for convenience. They get you a "good enough to work with" result most of the time, if you shoot average-looking shots; But they give you absolutely ideal results almost none of the time (unless you go around shooting nothing but gray cards...and even then you have to open up 1/2 to 2/3 stop to get the ideal exposure). It is frustrating that they are considered to be the norm by most people...and then these same people complain about exposure problems, and blame them on things like mechanical shutters.

Mechanical or electronic shutters work fine.

 

[lxdude]

You only have a choice of fixed shutter speeds with a mechanical camera.

And lens openings are variable.

If you need an in between speed you are SOL.The F2 can be set inbetween but you have no way of knowing what the speed it.

Setting an aperture ring between clicks won't tell you what aperture it is either, but it works. Are you advocating for full-time AE? Because many electronic camera's manual shutter speeds cannot be set at in-between speeds, either.

Pick up an FM and see how many scenes meter so that changing the shutter speed results in over or under, never dead on. With kodachrome and ektachrome film this error can be just short of one stop and that error is enough to not give the correct exposure with slide film.

Good thing the diaphragm is infinitely variable, ain't it?

Its a problem inherant in all mechaical cameras, brand new they have this problem.

Not a problem, if you know what to do about it.

If you need 1/90th you have a choice of either 1/125 or 1/60.
If you need 1/450 you have a choice between 1/500 and 1/250.

So you choose one and move the diaphragm ring a half stop or quarter stop or third stop or whatever to compensate. And it may very well be that your electronic camera is giving you 1/450 when it says 1/500. Which is fine: the difference between 1/450 and 1/500 is insignificant in actual use.

Get the picture?

I've gotten thousands, as a matter of fact.
Your argument is not borne out in actual use. Millions of images refute it. All cameras, mechanical and electronic, have tolerances. Those tolerances are tight enough to yield excellent images consistently.

 

[fstop]

The only option you have in action shooting is the in camera meter.Shooting a pan with a motor drive going from deep shade into bright light is a waste of film with a mechanical camera.
Put a circular polarizer on a lens, give it a spin, what value do you use for a hand held meter?

The mechanical cameras don't have stepless speeds.Electronic shutter controlled cameras do.
Shoot enough macro and you'll see another problem, you don't have much choice but to set shutter after choosing an aperture setting, you can not go back and change aperture to achieve correct exposure, you are stuck with what can be done with shutter speeds.

Electronic shutter control was the best thing to happen to cameras, it was developed to address the exposure errors.

 

[Leigh B]

Electronic shutter control was the best thing to happen to cameras, it was developed to address the exposure errors.

There are hundreds of sports photographers who got great shots with their mechanical cameras.

Electronic shutters were designed to meet the demands of the brainless amateurs who want mediocre pictures, and because the electronic type is cheaper to manufacture than the mechanical type.

Put a circular polarizer on a lens...

And what's this about "circular" polarizers? They don't have to be circular type, you know.
Every comment you make indicates that you haven't been doing this very long.
Have you ever actually used a manual camera, or just read about them?


- Leigh

 

[Ralph Javins]

Its a problem inherant in all mechaical cameras, brand new they have this problem. If you need 1/90th you have a choice of either 1/125 or 1/60.
If you need 1/450 you have a choice between 1/500 and 1/250. Get the picture?

Good morning, fstop;

Yes, I do get the picture. I also know that if I have a camera that has shutter speeds that are reasonably accurate and repeatable, I can use the lens aperture control ring to slightly alter the amount of light going to the film to precisely control the exposure the film will receive. Adjusting the aperture to 1/3 of an f/stop is fairly easy with this process, at least on my Minolta, Nikon, Tamron, Vivitar, Kiron, Schneider, Canon, Asahi-Pentax, Caltar, Quantaray, Cintar, Arsat, Hexanon, Omegaron, and other lenses. And, this procedure does not seem to be a problem for owners of a Hasselblad or Leica, nor any of the users of rangefinder cameras with in-the-lens leaf shutters.

fstop, you might rightfully ask how do we know if our camera shutters are accurate and repeatable. In my case, I just put the camera on the Kyoritsu EF-511NK1 Camera Tester or the ZTS TesterPRO Portable Camera Tester. When you know where your camera is, regardless of its pedigree, and that it is consistent, in addition to being reasonably accurate, then you can use the recommendations from your light meter with much greater precision and accuracy. My most recent light meters are rated to be accurate to +/- 1/10th of an f/stop. This should translate to better exposure on your negatives and an easier job printing them.

Finally, on the subject of those mechanical shutters, first, I have been very pleased with the accuracy of the Nikon F and F2 camera focal plane shutters. And I have different brands of cameras here that use the Copal Square Vertical Travel Metal Focal Plane Shutter in them. On my camera testing equipment, I have found the Copal Square shutter to be remarkably accurate and very consistent with no significant deviation from their chosen setting when checked over a multiple event testing period. I have also said that I could probably use the Copal Square shutter as a quick check of the accuracy of my shutter speed testing equipment, with the exception of the well known and documented quirk of the 1/125th second actually being a 1/100th of a second. It may be that the marketing types with Copal were pushing it a bit when they claimed that the Copal Square had the fastest X-sync focal plane shutter at 1/125th second. Yes, it actually was faster than the 1/50th or a 1/60th everyone else had back in the 1960s, but it really was not 1/125th second. However, please note that with the standard tolerance of +/- 20% accuracy in the ASA standard for photographic shutters, the claim really was valid.

 

[2F/2F]

The best thing to happen to improve the quality of pictures was SLRs IMHO. Second best doesn't even involve cameras. It is incident light meters. Third best, again, has nothing to do with cameras. It is the excellent modern films we have today. Electronic shutter have absolutely no bearing on my judgment of a camera.

The least important things I consider about a camera are frame rate, auto exposure, and metering...and I primarily shoot news, events, sports, music, and street photography.

 

[Leigh B]

It may be that the marketing types with Copal were pushing it a bit when they claimed that the Copal Square had the fastest X-sync focal plane shutter at 1/125th second. Yes, it actually was faster than the 1/50th a or 1/60th everyone else had back in the 1960s, but it really was not 1/125th second. However, please note that with the standard tolerance of +/- 20% accuracy in the ASA standard for photographic shutters, the claim really was valid.

The Copal Square was slightly slower than 1/125th, but still in spec.

The ASA tolerance for shutters speeds was ±20% for speeds of 1/100th or slower, and ±30% for speeds faster than 1/100th.

The higher sync speed was achieved by using a vertical blade travel rather than the horizontal that the other shutters used.

- Leigh

 

[LudditeJay]

50's

 

[erikg]

The guy's handle is fstop, not shutterspeed, maybe we should cut him some slack.
The idea that you can't shoot chrome film well with a mechanically timed shutter, it's just not borne out by evidence. But it's off topic. Best decade? seems like slr guys say 70's, but if you are a rangefinder guy i would think the 50's are the best. I would like my decade to include the early 80's, so my fav OM-3 makes it, mechanical shutter not withstanding!

 

[cooltouch]

The electronic cameras were reliable enough, with the big advantage they have over mechanical when shooting kodachrome sold me on them. A mechanical camera will almost never expose slide film correctly.Its not a simple matter of adjusting processing because the exposure will be high in one frame and low the next and theres no prints than can be adjusted, its either right or not.
Bracketing is not an option with action shots, and exposure requirments can change if following a moving object from the start of a pan to the end. It has always cracked me up seeing a motor drive on a FM at the track. Unless they are shooting print film they are wasting film.
The shift away from full mechanical was after people learned the electronic controlled cameras had better exposure control.

I had to laugh in disbelief when I read this. I suppose it all depends on which camera one is talking about. It was in the early 1980s, when camera manufacturers had shifted most of their attention away from mechanical cameras to electronic ones en masse, when I became interested in photography. My first two cameras were a Canon AE-1 and an A-1. By the time I bought the A-1 I was shooting slides almost exclusively, mostly Kodachrome. And I was very unhappy with the way many of my slides were turning out. It was the A-1's metering pattern that was the culprit. It was terrible at handling stray light sources that might have been somewhere in the frame, which resulted in severely underexposed slides. Soon after I bought an all-mechanical FTb, and my problems were cured! All because of the difference in metering patterns -- the FTb meters only within a central rectangle that occupies about 12% of the focusing screen. Later I bought a Canon F-1, which uses the same metering pattern as the FTb, and my good luck with shooting slides continued. Soon after buying the F-1, I bought a motor drive for it, and had no difficulties firing off a string of correctly exposed shots as long as the lighting didn't change mid-string -- which happened very seldom. I think you'll find that, in reality, exposure requirements just don't vary that much when you're shooting outdoor subjects -- which is what I've always done using motor drives. And when they do, well, you just have to have your wits about you. Shooting slides takes practice, which it seems most folks can't be bothered with anymore.

I also shoot mechanical Nikons -- F2s mostly, with motor drives more often than not. If you analyze their 60/40 metering patterns, they are almost as knife-edged as the Canons' were, and I've had excellent results shooting slides with them too. Nikon concentrated the pattern to 80/20 with the F3 and I shot many slides with motor drive with the F3, and had no problems.

Oh, and Nikon's FM and FM2/N use Nikon's 60/40 pattern too, so chances are those guys burning through slide film with those cameras were getting well-exposed slides for the most part.

I don't know which type of "track" you're referring to, but I used to be a freelance motorsports photographer and shot slides exclusively at the tracks I went to, and the cameras I was using were the original mechanical Canon F-1s with MDs, and a Nikon F2 and F3, both with MDs. The tracks I went to, the only changes in exposure conditions that occurred were caused by the weather. I've attended a lot of airshows too. Same difference.

After I got my F3, I'll wager I was like a lot of pros regarding its Aperture-priority Auto mode when they first got their F3s. I didn't trust it, preferring manual. Until one event where I decided I'd go ahead and leave the F3 on the A setting and see how it did. I'll admit, I was surprised by the results. All my slides were correctly exposed, but still, I attribute that to the 80/20 metering pattern it had and not the fact that it was calculating exposure from one instant to the next.

So anyway, you just can't make blanket statements like those above because there is ample evidence to contradict them. Like the thousands of slides in my archive, for starters.

EDIT: Oops, looks like I missed an entire intervening page of arguments. Oh well, just add mine to the majority.

 

[cooltouch]

The guy's handle is fstop, not shutterspeed, maybe we should cut him some slack.
The idea that you can't shoot chrome film well with a mechanically timed shutter, it's just not borne out by evidence. But it's off topic. Best decade? seems like slr guys say 70's, but if you are a rangefinder guy i would think the 50's are the best. I would like my decade to include the early 80's, so my fav OM-3 makes it, mechanical shutter not withstanding!

Hey, it's a 70s holdover, 'cept for its spotmeter, eh?

 

[2F/2F]

I think you'll find that, in reality, exposure requirements just don't vary that much when you're shooting outdoor subjects.

Anyone who has shot action and sports with any real success, attention, and understanding knows this is the case. You don't change your exposure unless the lighting changes. Because if you do, your exposures stink. The fact that in-camera meters do change exposure even when the lighting remains the same is why they stink so much, in general.

The caveat, of course, is that you have to know what you are doing technically. You have to understand light, metering, and have plenty or practice, planning, and attention to detail.

The way my friend (one of 4 national photo editors for the AP, and former Getty and Allsport shooter/editor/manager) explains it, what in-camera meters, AE, motor drives, etc. allow is for mediocre (or worse) technicians to make technically-passable photos a fair amount of the time. That is their main advantage. There are advantages for people who truly do have their shit together technically. But, for the most part, those features benefit the least capable the most, and the most capable the least. She says that she has never seen so many technically incompetent professional press photographers in her life as she has in the past ten or so years of digital, and that if it was not for these automatic features, she'd have to spend much more money to hire much better photographers. I am not shitting you. Those are the words from her mouth. Those features make more money for companies because they allow worse photographers to get the job done passably.

Electronic shutters have ZERO to do with any of this.

 

[erikg]

Hey, it's a 70s holdover, 'cept for its spotmeter, eh?

true enough! but what a meter.

 

[fstop]

There are hundreds of sports photographers who got great shots with their mechanical cameras, probably because they didn't read your opinions.

Electronic shutters were designed to meet the demands of the brainless amateurs who want mediocre pictures, and because the electronic type is cheaper to manufacture than the mechanical type.


And what's this about "circular" polarizers? They don't have to be circular type, you know.
Every comment you make indicates that you haven't been doing this very long.
Have you ever actually used a manual camera, or just read about them?


- Leigh

You're right I haven't done this very long, only since the mid 70s.
Going on 40 years is fairly short in the grand scheme of things.



Ralph I'm not talking about the accuracy of the speed, I'm talking about the speed itself.There is not a manual camera ever made that can be set to 1/93 th of a second if you need it, electronic shutters are stepless.

 

[ricardo12458]

1976-1986. I own a Canon AE-1. BEST camera I have ever owned. Good lenses, not too many features (unlike the DSLRs of today; they have TOO MANY settings ), and good overall construction.

I once used a friend's Canon EOS Digital Rebel XS, and I was immediately overwhelmed by the sheer number of features/settings. Not my type of camera. My AE-1 may need a CLA, but that's another thing. (My camera might even outlive me.)

 

[Leigh B]

You're right I haven't done this very long, only since the mid 70s.
Going on 40 years is fairly short in the grand scheme of things.

Well, I've got you by about 20 years, going back to 1954.

Ralph I'm not talking about the accuracy of the speed, I'm talking about the speed itself.There is not a manual camera ever made that can be set to 1/93 th of a second if you need it, electronic shutters are stepless.

1/93rd of a second???

What electronic shutter is stepless in actual operation?

It's theoretically possible to have a quartz-timed shutter with speed resolution in the millisecond range. But I've never encountered one that could actually be set that way.

My Nikon D300s has an electronically-timed shutter, but it's only settable in 1/3 stop increments based on the standard speed sequence.

And to what purpose? Aperture is also infinitely adjustable. There's no advantage to having both attributes with the same granularity.

------

On the general subject of mechanical shutters, you should realize that the advertising industry was dominated by mechanical shutters (Hasselblad and LF) until quite recently. They shot exclusively chromes, and you won't find a bad exposure in the pile.

- Leigh

 

[fstop]

What electronic shutter is stepless in actual operation?

Any Nikon or Minolta electronic controlled shutter in aperture priority mode.

You can throw all the insults you want.If full mechanical cameras were performing good enough, why then did Nikon persue the F3? If you want to spend all day screwing around with hand held meters, 35mm isn't for you. The whole idea is for a fast operating system.The hassy analogy is bad one, a studio with controlled lighting is obviously going to provide predictable lighting and the Blad has a polaroid back that is used to check exposure...if it needs more light you give it more light and so on.

Surprised you haven't learned anything in those 40 years.

Oh I've learned plenty, people are like sheep.

 

[Leigh B]

Any Nikon or Minolta electronic controlled shutter in aperture priority mode.

Not true. I just tried my D300s in Aperture Priority mode, and the shutter speeds change in 1/3-stop steps, not continuously.

The shutter specifications in the Owner's Manual (page 387) state:
Type: Electronically controlled vertical travel focal-plane shutter.
Speed: 1/8000 - 30 s in steps of 1/3, 1/2, or 1 EV...

I checked the D90, D200, D300, and D7000 manuals... all the same (D7000 only has 1/3 & 1/2 EV steps).

Remember, for any given adjustment granularity, your error will never exceed half that amount, and 1/6th stop accuracy is more than sufficient for any commercial photographic film.

The hassy analogy is bad one, a studio with controlled lighting is obviously going to provide predictable lighting and the Blad has a polaroid back that is used to check exposure...

Advertising work was frequently done on the street rather than in studio. You need only look through the magazines to confirm that.

The Polaroid back was used for checking composition and lighting ratios, not for exposure.

- Leigh