Silverbased

Since this blog has been known to trumpet the virtues of fifty- or even ninety-year-old camera designs, perhaps a few words are in order about “progress” in photography.

Of course, camera technology has been going through continuous evolution since the get-go. In particular, George Eastman’s flexible roll film ‘Kodak’ of 1888 ignited rapid development in amateur-oriented cameras, a process which has never stopped since.

The overarching trajectory of these changes has been to reduce the number of technical details the photographer needs to keep track of. Today we’ve stopped noticing interlocks that prevent us from accidentally double-exposing or shooting blank frames (until we use a camera without them!) We take for granted light meters which read through the lens, offering accurate exposures without tedious calculations for filter factors or lens extension. Yet at one time, both innovations were much-trumpeted, newfangled breakthroughs.

Digital cameras are just the next chapter in this process, with today’s top models basically being sophisticated small computers—evaluating white balance; weighting light readings from multiple zones; computing the optimum point of focus with moving subjects, etc.

If you are a manufacturer of cameras, you can hardly be blamed for keeping this cycle of innovations churning. Unless consumers have some incentive to replace their older (and presumably still functioning) models, your company simply goes out of business.

Yet the essence of making an image has scarcely changed since the first handheld cameras became available. And at some point all photographers must ask, where is the line when technology and automation start to encroach on our own creative process?

Few of us would want to go back to coating our own collodion wet plates (although there are a few!) Yet controlling focus and exposure for specific effects could be essential to our own specific vision—not a choice to be left to the camera’s electronics. And learning to master those steps manually brings its own pleasures.

Thus, each photographer chooses where to step off the speeding express-train of technological progress, at whatever level of technology feels most comfortable.

For some it’s a 1980s manual-focus SLR with (optional) auto-exposure. For others who need to work quickly, it’s the latest 12-megapixel auto-everything wonder. For an eccentric few, it’s a completely metal, mechanical, 1950s rangefinder requiring a separate light meter (or even—gasp!—guessing the exposure). But this is one reason Silverbased often celebrates camera designs that are well past their 50th birthdays.

In connection with this, it’s interesting to note a few film-camera brands which have attained classic status—models which have spent decades in production, with only a few minor changes to their original design. How can a camera achieve such “rightness” that it remains viable in the marketplace for 50 years or more?

One classic is surely the Hasselblad medium-format SLR. The first model 1600F went on the market in 1948; but problems with its original focal-plane shutter led to the introduction of the 500C in 1957. This modest redesign allowed the use of several excellent Zeiss lenses, each carrying its own individual Compur leaf shutter.

Advertisement for Hasselblad 1600F, featuring a Kodak Ektar lens; U.S. Camera, November 1952. Click to view larger

The quality of this lens lineup, and the high level of finish and durability of the Hasselblad body, earned it many admirers and professional users (including Ansel Adams). In later decades, the 500-series went through minor evolutionary changes; but the fundamental design (and in most cases compatibility of the modular accessories) remained faithful to the original—even its lack of an instant-return mirror. While production of the series appears to have finally ceased, new-old-stock 503CW bodies remain available today.

An even more timeless design is the Rolleiflex twin-lens reflex. Rollei used its experience building multi-lensed stereo cameras to introduce the original Rolleiflex in 1929. In 1937 Rollei introduced its crank-winding “Automat” version, introducing the styling and control placement which not only remains unchanged to the present day, but also launched countless TLR imitators.

Detail of Rolleiflex 3.5 advertisement in U.S. Camera, November 1956

The Rolleiflex’s standard Zeiss and Schneider lenses were first-rate. And professionals appreciated that the camera offered fast handling and manageable size, while retaining a large-enough negative to insure good image quality. (Remember that the typical press camera of the mid-20th century shot a 4×5″ negative.)

The popularity of all TLRs nosedived in the 1960s; but the Rolleiflex still had enough strengths (e.g. the freedom from viewfinder blackout) that it has come back into production today—while unmistakably keeping the same design as the 1937 model.

Naturally, no list like this would be complete without some mention of the Leica series of 35mm rangefinder cameras. We must give Leica credit for making the 24×36mm image format universal today, pioneered in their earliest scale-focusing models of the 1920s. Yet the early screw-mount Leicas are more desired today as collector pieces than as daily shooters. It’s really a 1954 Leica model which became the epoch-making classic: the M3.

Leica M3 advertisement from its first year of production; U.S. Camera, December 1954

Bayoneting a lens onto the M3 automatically selects the correct bright frameline, within a viewfinder of legendary clarity. Much faster-handling than its screw-mount ancestors, the M3 became the iconic camera for photojournalists and street photographers. And thereafter (aside from the much-criticized M5) Leitz only made incremental changes to the basic M3 body style. The main evolution has been growing use of electronics (the current M7 offers auto-exposure)—but all later M bodies retain certain quirky M3 features, such as film loading through the camera’s bottom plate.

And for the traditionalist, Leica even provides the mechanical-shuttered model MP, nearly indistinguishable from its offerings of 50 years ago. Leica also has the distinction that its new digital model, the M8, has the clear intent of maintaining as much continuity as possible with the film M bodies, while adapting to current technology.

Lest you accuse me of some Euro-centric bias, there is room in my list of classics for a mention of the landmark Nikon F—a 1959 introduction which set the standard for all quality 35mm SLRs to follow. However Nikon did not shy from doing “blank sheet” redesigns of their professional F series; and the current (and presumably final) F6 model shares little besides the lens mount with its distant ancestor.

Nikon F advertisement from its first year of production; features such as instant-reopen aperture were radical at the time. Modern Photography, September 1959

However, I would single out the Nikon FM2 for “classic” status, particularly the final “n” version. Despite its 1983 introduction date, the FM2n swam vigorously against an industry tidal wave of more electronics, plastics, and automation. In a sturdy, modestly-sized metal body, the FM2n offered a 100% mechanical shutter, simple center-weighted metering, and manual exposure—it’s a direct descendant of Nikon’s 1970s model FM.

Nikon FM2n, creative commons image from Flickr user Qualudez

Yet those old-technology roots were raised to an exquisite level of refinement in the FM2n: Shutter speeds to 1/4000th of a second; flash sync at 1/250th; and of course accepting the enormous range of fine Nikkor lenses. Two decades of Japanese mechanical SLR development reached its pinnacle in the FM2n, whose production continued (in new titanium and commemorative editions) through the turn of the millennium.

What all of these “classics” have in common is a sensible, well-tested control layout; reliability and excellent build quality; and access to top-quality lenses. For photographers who choose to skip entire generational jumps in camera technology, they simply represent the finest models available; and their value scarcely diminishes with time.

Thus their prices on the used market also tend to remain high, relative to other brands—one reason why even at this late date, your humble correspondent does not personally own any of the models mentioned above.

Some alert readers out there may be grumbling that I’ve forgotten another class of film cameras, ones that also enjoyed surprisingly long production runs. Far from the elite models I’ve mentioned here, these were more humble cameras, owing their success to affordable pricing rather than technical refinement.

No, I haven’t forgotten—but those cameras will need to wait for another article…