Of special interest is a 1901 ad for the Kodak No. 2 Brownie (see a larger version from the source). As many know (and as I’ve written about before), Kodak launched an entirely new roll size for this camera, now called 120—the same 120 film we’re still using today.

Kodak Brownie No. 2 ad, 1901 “Youth’s Companion” magazine

The No. 2 Brownie took 2-1/4 x 3-1/4 inch photos (aka 6×9 cm). But it’s interesting that the film length was originally shorter: Only 6 shots (today’s 120 would give 8).

Kodak had introduced an earlier Brownie using film size 117, at the startlingly low price of $1—making an all-out effort to sell cameras simple and cheap enough for children. So it’s not an accident that this ad uses an image of the curious little girl and her schoolbooks. (But what is the deal with that hat?!?)

The name “Brownie” and that scary figurine appearing on the table refer to a series of children’s illustrations drawn by Palmer Cox, very popular with children of the era. It’s not clear whether Kodak actually licensed any drawings from Cox, or merely created their own elf-like Brownie illustrations (which to be fair, had originated from Scottish folklore).

I have always wondered if the Brownie name was also a tip of the hat to Kodak’s original camera design wizard, Frank Brownell.

Compared to the original Brownie, the No. 2 took larger photos and, significantly, included a viewfinder! Two, actually—allowing you to frame photos horizontally or vertically. This helped justify the doubled, $2 price tag. With this addition, the No. 2 became the template for thousands of cheap box cameras to follow—both from Kodak, and its competitors, like Ansco.

Eventually the 120 size was taken up by other, top-quality cameras: First the Rolleiflex and later the Hasselblad. Both of these helped cement the reputation of 120 as a “serious camera” film.

But the association between 120 and Brownies remained, enough so that in Japan, many kept referring to the size as “Brownie film.” And in 1958, this inspired a name for Zenzaburo Yoshino’s innovative new 120 camera—called the Bronica.

Let’s hope 120 film survives somehow until at least the year 2021—in time to celebrate its 120th birthday.

Yet we must note another group of long-lived film cameras. Instead of classics, let’s call them… “the holdouts.” I’m speaking of models whose success came mainly because of affordable cost, rather than any special excellence. Yet even as changing technology left them behind, some of these models enjoyed paradoxically long production runs.

And a certain odd fondness for these models can persist—or even perversely increase—today decades later.

The Brick

The ultimate example of this group might be the Argus C3, first introduced in 1939.

In the 1930s, the Leica and Contax generated a great mystique around precision 35mm rangefinders. But their prices were wildly out of reach for the average hobbyist. And then the Argus C-series appeared, offering a modest subset of the same features, in a sturdy and reasonably reliable package—yet at a dramatically lower price.

Creative commons image from Flickr user pointnshoot

A surprising influence on camera choice in those days was that Kodachrome color film was available in 135 format, but not in larger roll-film sizes. Thus, demand for some affordable, adjustable 35mm model was immense. When it was all over, C3 sales ran into the millions.

In turn, popular entry-level 35’s (like those from Argus) assured a mass demand for 135-packaged film, in a way that an elite handful of Leica & Contax purchasers could not.

As a native of Ann Arbor, Michigan (where Argus was founded), I should probably show more home-town loyalty for the ungainly old Brick. But let’s be honest: The C3 was never a great camera. The shutter-speed range was limited (and got smaller, not larger, in later versions); its shutter cocking arm uncoupled from the film advance was prone to error; and its separate rangefinder eyepiece inconvenient.

Rangefinder alignment could be unreliable too; and switching to a different lens than the basic 50mm Cintar triplet was barely practical, requiring unwieldy disassembly.

By the time World War Two ended, the C3 design was already dated, and Argus knew it. They attempted to revamp their lineup with the “Markfinder” 21, featuring a streamlined body which soon evolved into the C-4 and C-44. Despite those models’ dramatically-improved viewfinders, sales never caught up with the cheaper (and still manufactured) C3s, which stayed in production all the way until 1966.

I’ve always suspected a certain psychological basis for the C3’s longevity: Its boxy, geared appearance gave gave a generation of men (probably Popular Mechanics readers) a feeling of pride at mastering what certainly appeared to be highly complex technology. In comparison, perhaps the smaller and less alarming-looking C-4 made photography look too easy.

But by the end of the 1950s, the glaring discrepancies between a C3 and the many cheaper, better-featured Japanese brands only hastened the collapse of the Argus company.

The Everyman’s TLR

Another curious “holdout” is the the long-running Yashica Mat series.

Germany’s Rollei has always defined the standard for twin-lens reflex cameras. But in the late 1950s, an automatic crank-advance Rolleiflex featuring a 4-element Tessar lens commanded a US list price of about $200. (That equates to about $1500 today.) But by that time, crank winding and a Tessar-copy lens were also offered on several premium Japanese TLRs. This included Minolta and Ricoh models listing for about $100, or Kowa’s “Kalloflex” costing $120.

But in 1957, Yashica (whose previous TLRs had all been inexpensive knob-wind models) matched the same feature set with its new Yashica Mat—at an aggressive price point of only $75. Sales took off, and never stopped.

Late Yashica Mat 124G. Creative commons image from Flickr user Ian Tindale

The ‘Mat design lacked some of the finish and solidity of its rivals; and in particular the winding mechanism could fail under rough use. Certainly the detail its 4-element lens could pack into a 6×6 frame was impressive compared to 35mm format. But the Yashinon lens quality could be variable—some samples showed an edge softness which failed to live up to the potential of the Tessar formula. (It originated in the same Tomioka optics shop which gave the world the much-mocked “Tri-Lausar” design.)

By the middle 1960s, it was clear that 35mm film and eye-level viewing would dominate future amateur camera sales. So most Japanese firms who built TLRs dropped them from their lineups—except for Yashica. (Another exception was Mamiya, with their interchangeable-lens, pro-oriented C series.) After some early selenium-cell models, by the 1960s the ‘Mat had acquired a CdS light meter. And then—astonishingly—production marched onwards all the way to 1986, with only minor changes in the basic design.

When a camera model becomes a hit (like the C3 or the Yashica Mat), its maker can spread tooling costs over more units—a simple economy of scale. This can sway a company into extending the life of a still-profitable older model. And so, a once-booming segment of Japanese camera manufacture dwindled to its final remnant in the Yashica Mat, whose optics and metering remained stuck in the 1960s.

It would be hard to argue that the Yashica Mat was Japan’s finest TLR. (I might make that claim for the Minolta Autocord; and I’m sure the Ricoh and Kowa models have their partisans too.) So the enduring renown of the Yashica Mat is a bit of a puzzle—as are the inflated prices that the final 124G version sometimes fetch today. Instead, it is the sheer number sold and their workmanlike service record which earned the model its fame.

The Iconic “Student” SLR

The Pentax K1000 was introduced in 1976. Blissfully ignoring industry shifts towards autofocus and microelectronics, it stayed in production until 1997. In fact, aside from its K bayonet lens mount, the camera was little altered from Pentax’s 1960s Spotmatic series.

Creative commons image from Flickr user John Kratz

Now, in some circles, it would be heresy to say anything negative about the K1000. Its fans praise its all-mechanical reliability, design simplicity, and beginner-friendliness. But the mystery is why this fondness endures today, when other fuller-featured cameras sell for lower prices on the used market.

In the mid-1970s, the appearance of the Olympus OM-1 dramatically shook up the Japanese camera industry—re-writing the rules for what camera consumers expected. Like other manufacturers, Pentax moved to redesign its SLRs, revamping their K-mount offerings with a new, compact M series. Within this lineup, the MX filled the niche of their mechanical- shutter, manual-exposure model.

Pentax MX (with special pancake lens) versus K100. Creative commons image from Flickr user slimmer jimmer

So compared to the K1000, what additional features did Pentax themselves feel ought to be included in such a camera? Well, shield your eyes, K1000 lovers—the list is long…

• Smaller, lighter body (the K1000 began its production run at 620 grams; it lost weight over the decades as Pentax substituted plastic parts for metal ones, but never matched the MX’s svelte 495g.)
• Gallium photodiode metering—more sensitive and faster-responding than the CdS cell used in the K1000. (The MX specs claimed metering down to 1 second at f/1.4 with 100-speed film.)
• Larger, more accurate viewfinder image
• 5-LED meter display including exact -1/+1 stop indicators
• Shutter speed indicator in viewfinder; also a peep-sight showing selected f/stop on lens aperture ring
• Depth-of-field preview
• Self timer
• Option to attach power winders
• User-interchangeable focus screens
• Shutter release lock

…and perhaps even some others I’ve missed?

Less is More—Unless it’s Less

For all these beloved econo-cams, we must praise the positive. When new, each opened doors for aspiring photographers at an attainable price. Their spartan feature-set helped focus the beginner on learning the essentials—exposure and composition—rather than fiddling with gadgets. And all gave surprisingly reliable performance, considering their low price levels.

But past a certain point, a strange feedback loop comes into play. Large sales meant widespread familiarity with particular models—and perhaps some rose-tinted nostalgia from those who got their start learning on one.

Veteran photographers and photo instructors began to insist that their protegés also start with a spartan, all-manual camera, at a time when the available choices in the marketplace had dwindled down to a handful. So their production runs dragged on even further. And perhaps the former students became professionals and teachers themselves, repeating the cycle all over again.

Today, no K1000’s or Yashica Mats are available new. Film shooters mostly buy from the same pool of used cameras showing up on eBay.

Yet the oddity is that name recognition and familiarity with those classic econo-cams keeps their prices firm even now, relative to other models offering more features. (Admittedly, prices for an Argus brick remain low—as they should be—perhaps because the “C-3 generation” is passing from the scene.)

I noted in my last post that Japan’s Cosina company had spent decades manufacturing basic, entry-level SLRs—essentially the peers of the K1000—usually even featuring the same K bayonet mount. Yet they were sold under a bewildering roster of different brand names; so there’s no popular recognition of any one model.

But Cosina continued to evolve its SLR platform, until even these inexpensive models featured 1/2000 sec. top shutter speeds, 1/125 sec. flash sync, sensitive silicon meter cells, and other amenities common to 1980s camera designs—but missing from the K1000.

These “other K1000’s” go all but unrecognized, under such obscure designations as the Ricoh KR-5 Super II, Chinon CM-7, or Yashica FX-3 Super 2000. Gee, you even get a self-timer! But eBay auctions for these unknowns often pass with little interest and few bidders. (In fact, under the Vivitar moniker, you can even buy a brand new one for all of $140.)

A local Flickr pal and two-fisted defender of the K1000

Yet I doubt any of this will sway the die-hard fans of the K1000. Remember, the (original) Volkswagen Beetle remained in production well past the point that its engine and suspension had become engineering anachronisms; in fact the bug became an iconic brand. And just as nostalgia for the old Beetle spawned a 1999 revival, cult reverence for the K1000 caused Pentax to re-brand their (previously unpronounceable) digital SLRs with new models dubbed K10D and K100D.

And there’s more to camera choice than steely rationality (as any regular reader of this blog should find obvious!) So for those who find their no-frills Yashica Mats or K1000’s the right tools to unlock their creative energies—by all means enjoy them.

Yet for a classic rangefinder lover, the appearance of this new camera in 2000 was like throwing raw meat in front of a hungry beast: The “R” of the model designation might as well stand for Retro Rangefinder Revival.

For years I have happily bought and enjoyed used equipment; but the Bessa-R and its matching lenses actually caused me to open my wallet and plunk down serious cash on new-in-box photo gear for the first time in decades.

Think Different: Bessa-R versus Canon Rebel DSLR. With the digital’s crop factor, both lenses give equivalent coverage, speed

Despite the umlaut-festooned name, the current Voigtländer lineup comes from Japan’s Cosina. This is a company which has been quietly cranking out cameras for many decades—but with only a tiny fraction sold under their own name.

Over the past 30 years, Cosina ironed out a standardized kit of parts—including shutter, film transport and meter electronics—to build a basic, no-frills SLR. And this “platform” (as the auto industry would call it) was quickly adaptable to different lens mounts and camera styles. So, many entry-level cameras for other brands were really manufactured by Cosina, like the Nikon FM10, the Canon T60, Olympus OM2000, or any of the Vivitar SLRs.

The rest of Cosina’s business is making optical glass and lens components—and interestingly, building computer LCD projectors (again, all sold under other brand names). Anyway, they’ve developed quite a lot of expertise at being the low-cost supplier of optics and opto-mechanical products without compromising quality—for example, making aspherical lens surfaces cheaply.

But the president of the company, Hirofumi Kobayashi (the son of Cosina’s founder) is also a camera nut, and in particular, a lover of vintage German rangefinders. So eventually he had the brainwave, “Let’s launch a ‘prestige’ brand to show people what we can really do.”

After some wrangling, Cosina worked out the licensing to use the trademarks from the long-defunct Voigtländer company of Germany (although Cosina still doesn’t own the name outright). This licensing arrangement is why the cameras are still weirdly marked “Voigtländer Germany” on the top and “Made in Japan” on the bottom.

Cosina’s first bombshell product was an ultrawide, rectilinear 15mm f/4.5 lens of excellent quality (including an accessory wide-angle viewfinder that was impressive by itself). This was something even Leica & Zeiss hadn’t attempted before; and even if they had, it would certainly have cost thousands of dollars. But Cosina priced it at under $400.

The original camera body offered to match the 15, the Bessa L, was an oddball with no viewfinder of its own (scale focusing being fine, given wide-angles’ enormous depth of field). The L was a rather quick-and-dirty adaptation of Cosina’s standard SLR camera platform—but notable for its idiosyncratic revival of Leica’s pre-WWII 39mm threaded lens mount. (LTM or M39 for short.)

Voigtlander Bessa R; at left, the tiny 21mm wide-angle with accessory viewfinder

Cosina’s next body was the Bessa R, their first rangefinder model. This also shocked people, by offering an outstandingly crisp and bright viewfinder that was arguably clearer than that of many “classic” models from Leica, Contax, Canon & Nikon. The R’s film door and top and bottom panels were made of plastic, which caused some rangefinder purists to bristle, but this did allow for a lighter weight body.

And Cosina kept introducing more and more interesting, top-quality lenses. One strength of lenses for rangefinders is that without an SLR’s flipping mirror in the way, a lens can recess more deeply into the body and be made much more compact.

This Voigtländer Ultron 35mm f/1.7 can be much smaller than an equivalent lens for SLRs

Also, because slow lens speed does not reduce viewfinder brightness, rangefinders let you opt for even svelter, moderate-aperture lenses if you prefer that. For an interchangeable-lens travel kit, a Bessa R plus a few lenses saves ounces even compared to the far-from-chubby Olympus OM system equivalents that I own.

I bought and adore Cosina’s laughably-tiny 21mm f/4.0 wideangle (which needs an auxiliary viewfinder, natch). A lens this wide is not something you need every day; but it’s so compact that it’s painless to carry it along for the moments you do:

Compared to the elitist pricing of the Leica M series, Cosina simply rewrote the cost/performance equation for rangefinder lenses. They are not always cheap relative to SLR equivalents, but the build quality is always solid and nicely finished. The silky feel of the half-stop aperture detents on my 35mm f/1.7 is quite lovely.

A variety of companies besides Leica have made 39mm thread-mount lenses over the years, particularly Canon (in their 1950s, pre-SLR days). These all turn up on eBay from time to time, including some cheap, idiosyncratic Russian optics originally made for the Zorki and Fed rangefinder cameras. The quality control with these is quite erratic, but you can get lucky and find an excellent one.

Ratty-looking but surprisingly sharp 1961 Jupiter-8 lens, 50mm f/2.0. Standard equipment on many vintage Zorki Russian rangefinders

After the Bessa R, Cosina followed up with the R2 model. This was essentially the same camera, but with metal panels all around, plus a change to a different lens mount: Leica’s “modern” (post-1954!) M-series bayonet. (There’s an adapter which allows you to mount 39mm Leica thread-mount lenses on an M bayonet body, with no loss of function.)

The R and R2 bodies can be ID’d at a distance by their top plate, which slopes away diagonally from the viewfinder windows. All subsequent Bessa models have a step-down top panel design instead, and all continue the M bayonet mount and metal construction. The current bodies weigh about 10% more than my old plasticky R.

The bayonet attachment is obviously a lot less fumblesome than the thread mount for changing lenses quickly. (Threading lenses onto an M39 body goes easier if you rack their focus out to the closest distance, thus retracting the rangefinder coupling.) And the throat of the M bayonet is a little larger, allowing for wider-aperture designs.

So, while the original Voigtländer lens lineup used screw mounts, the trend is for the recent Cosina introductions to be M bayonet only. (Note that you can’t go backwards and mount those on an R screwmount body.) Cosina’s new M bayonet 35mm f/1.4 looks very nifty—even lighter and more compact than my f/1.7 threaded version. But the later lens releases have been accompanied by price increases, making them less of a bargain compared with the original series.

Cosina’s good work also caught the attention of Zeiss: Today there is a new Zeiss Ikon rangefinder line, manufactured by Cosina (in fact, just a re-engineered version of the Bessa series). This is intended as a showcase for Zeiss’s top-end lens designs. All but two of the lenses are assembled by Cosina, however.

Why Rangefinder?

But to take a step back for a moment… There’s a more general philosophical question, about what rangefinder cameras are good for.

Unlike an SLR, rangefinders allow you to maintain “eye contact” with your subject right through the moment of exposure. Also, the area visible outside the framelines can help you anticipate where unpredictably-moving subjects are headed next. So rangefinders have long been a favorite for people photos and street shooting.

I find that my Bessa is the camera I grab for group events, where I expect to take shots of people wandering around interacting with each other.

Compared to the shallow depth of field of an SLR groundglass, the RF viewfinder sharply renders all of the potentially distracting clutter within the frame. You might find this makes you more conscious of when you need to move around to get a clearer viewpoint.

On the minus side, rangefinders aren’t the best choice for exact, tight framing. Most rangefinders stop focusing at about 3 feet from the camera. Different brands have more or less accurate framelines, but you generally get a bit more coverage on the film than what the viewfinder showed. That’s fine if you don’t mind “casual” framing, or plan to crop anyway—but I’m a no-cropping purist, and this aspect sometimes bugs me.

An RF viewfinder does not change its angle of view when you switch lenses; with the Bessas you need to flip a lever to switch in different-sized framelines matching each focal length. But this means that for a particular viewfinder, there is only one frame size that makes the maximum use of the visible area.

Switch to a wider lens choice, and you’ll need an auxiliary viewfinder (slid into the camera’s hot shoe). Go to longer focal lengths, and you’ll be framing your subject in successively smaller rectangles within the middle of the image. Thus, on my Bessa R the 35mm frame is great to use; but the one for a 90mm lens is really somewhat marginal.

You get used to all this quickly enough—but it’s not quite the seamless experience of swapping lenses on an SLR. And manufacturing an interchangeable lens mount with rangefinder coupling adds a lot to the complexity and cost of the camera.

So if you always plan on using just one focal length, you might consider that there have been many delightful fixed-lens rangefinders made over the years—often quite a bit more compact than the Bessa line, and with leaf shutters bordering on the inaudible. I have long pined to own a 1970s Yashica Electro GX—nice and compact, with a fixed 40mm f/1.7 lens and aperture-priority auto. But they’re maddeningly difficult to find in North America, although apparently less so in Japan.

Anyway, today’s current Bessa lineup has become rather confusing, with autoexposure and manual versions of three different viewfinder variations. Two remarkable new models are the R4A and R4M—unfortunately the most expensive ones—whose viewfinder shows the view of wide-angle lenses up to 21mm without a need for auxiliary viewfinders.

All the Voigtländer “A” models offer both manual metering and aperture-priority autoexposure—although their electronic shutters mean they’re dead without batteries. I have not personally touched any of the auto versions, but the description/diagram of the viewfinder display makes it sound slightly distracting to me.

The Bessa bodies offer the cheapest entry point today into a modern rangefinder system. But as their prices have crept north of $500, I’m becoming less enthusiastic about their value-for-dollar (My own closeout Bessa R was just $250). Ultimately, they are all still derived from the same old econo-SLR platform, so they share a few quirks and flaws:

• Because they’re based on a retooled full-sized chassis, their height and width is really no smaller than a typical film SLR. It’s only in their front-to-back body+lens depth where they have a significant advantage.

• The metal, vertically-traveling shutter provides for a nice 1/2000 sec. top speed, and flash sync at 1/125th. But it is not nearly as quiet as the iconic, cloth-shutter Leica shlurp. Instead, a Bessa makes a pretty sharp “clack.” (Actually, if you want stealth, any leaf-shutter camera is the best alternative.)

• The strap lugs on the R are on the front of the body—unmoved from their original SLR position.

However, given the lack of a mirror box, and the smaller RF lenses, the balance is completely different: With lighter lenses, the camera hangs at an angle, digging its hot-shoe into your ribs. (The lug position doesn’t appear to have changed with the current lineup.)

• With the subjects I shoot, I definitely hit the RF close-focus limit more frequently than I’d like.

• A black Bessa R is finished in black paint over white plastic for its top panel—which makes its inevitable “brassing” look particularly tacky. (Would it have been so hard to mold that part using solid black resin?)

• Most worrying, the film transport derived from their old platform just doesn’t quite have the reliability that you’d expect in a $500 camera. About once every second or third roll, my R has a brief frame-spacing hiccup (though this appears to be getting better, not worse, with wear). And I’ve heard a number of stories of people experiencing total jam-ups. On the other hand, I’ve also heard of people “fixing” the problem by sharply thwacking their Bessa against the heel of their hand (if you try this, I’m not responsible).

Now against all of that, I must end by mentioning the positives: A Bessa is just about the handsomest camera around (especially in black). The viewfinder is simply a delight. (A DSLR-using acquaintance once literally gasped when she looked through it—this fueled at least two full months’ worth of smugness on my part.) And the wonderful Ultron 35/1.7 is on my short list of lenses to grab whilst running from my burning home.

Plus, a camera that flies so completely in the face of today’s camera mainstream is a proud, defiant badge of eccentricity—one I am happy to wear.

Nowadays when you shop for filters and other lens accessories, it’s universal for their sizes to be listed in millimeters—reflecting the influence of metric-speaking Japanese and German optics manufacturers.

Yet if you flip through 50-year-old photo magazines, or root through the odd-parts bins at a vintage camera sale, you’ll start seeing accessories cryptically labeled Series V, Series VI, Series VII, etc. What are these weird sizes, and are they good for anything?

A Series filter has three parts: An adapter to fit the lens; a standard filter disk; and a retaining ring

“Series” adapters were the most common American system for lens accessories in the middle decades of the 20th century. And they were actually a very cool, totally modular way of doing things. My googling has not turned up much history about Series accessories. So I’ll share the information I’ve been able to put together—but I’d be grateful to hear from anyone who can steer me towards a definitive source.

My suspicion is that (as with many other photographic standards) it was Eastman Kodak who established the Series system. In any event, Kodak became a major supplier of Series filters and accessories.

The idea of the system was this: Colored filters, close-up lenses, etc., were manufactured in a few standard diameters—as “drop-in” disks, without threads. You chose the Series that would cover your largest diameter lens. Then, a multitude of different adapter rings were available, sized to fit all your various cameras and lenses.

Each particular Series had one standard-sized retaining ring, to hold the filter disk into the adapter. Some retaining rings had both male and female threads, allowing you to stack additional filters. Conveniently, the retaining ring could also be replaced with a lens shade having the same standard Series thread.

Mixing and matching modular parts. At right, a Series-threaded lens shade; can also be used without a filter

A few manufacturers put threads on their lens barrels that were “natively” standard Series sizes—thus no adapter was needed, just the retaining ring. Several Argus, Kodak and rangefinder Canon lenses adopted this system (and no doubt other brands I haven’t come across yet).

The dimensions of the system were specified in inches, not millimeters (this may resolve some mysteries you have with weird unidentified lens or filter threads). The different Series sizes were designated with roman numerals, and ranged from quite tiny (e.g. for cine lenses) up to moderately large. But Series V, VI, and VII seem to be the most common (and useful) sizes.

I measure their dimensions as:

Series V — filters 1-3/16″ (~30mm) — retaining thread 1-1/4″ (~32mm)
Series VI — filters 1-5/8″ (~41mm) — retaining thread 1-3/4″ (~44mm)
Series VII — filters 2″ (~51mm) — retaining thread 2-1/8″ (~54mm)

Series adapters to fit different lenses: TLR-style bayonet mount, unthreaded push-on, and threaded styles

Colored filters in Series sizes were available from many manufacturers—both names that will be familiar (like Tiffen) to others that faded away decades ago (like Omag). Some useful black and white filters might be found under unfamiliar, older color designations, such as deep red (formerly designated “A” but now #25), green (formerly G, now #13), and yellow (K2, now #8, or X1, now #11).

Kodak sold “Portra” close-up lenses in the common Series sizes, in strengths of +1, +2, and +3 diopters; but with non-reflex cameras you need a table of corrections to find the distance for proper focus. It’s nicest to get Porta lenses together with their original yellow Kodak containers, which include the table as a handy decal inside the lid.

Among the other Series oddities you sometimes see are Kodak’s “Telek” attachments: These were lenses with negative diopter powers. While it’s a bit non-intuitive, adding one in front of a lens and then racking its focus outwards has the effect of lengthening its effective focal length—yielding a quick & dirty telephoto lens. (The strongest -4 Telek can almost double the focal length). Unfortunately these are really only practical for cameras offering groundglass focusing, e.g. a Press camera.

Now, for most of my photographic youth, I used Japanese SLR systems, whose manufacturers tried to stick with a single filter diameter across most of their lens lines. For Olympus, it was 49mm; for Canon, 55mm. You just bought a couple of filters in the right size, and were done with it.

But, as my fascination with vintage cameras grew, somehow more and more of them began appearing in my home. And I had a problem—it seemed that each one used a different filter size!

But this is exactly the situation where the Series system shines. A friend had inherited a garage-ful of assorted series adapters and accessories; and by sifting through his heap, I was able to find adapters for about nine of my favorite vintage camera lenses—allowing me to use a single set of Series VI filters for everything.

Okay, I admit you could approximate the same thing today with one set of (oversized) threaded filters plus an arsenal of different step-up rings. But another advantage of the Series system is that many “slip-on” adapters were sold—making it possible to use accessories even on lenses that have no filter threads. (Or, ones with damaged threads, or impossible-to-find sizes… ) One Kodak 42mm push-on adapter turns out to be a perfect fit on vintage Diana cameras.

Slip-on Series adapters let you use filters with threadless oddball cameras

Admittedly, one place where this clever scheme falls apart is with polarizing filters. A polarizer needs to be rotated to a particular angle to be most effective, something that wasn’t practical with the Series drop-in disks. (In fact, there were clever threaded polarizing attachments manufactured for the Series system—you looked through a separate auxiliary polarizer while rotating a control handle—but it may be tough finding one today.)

It’s been decades since Series accessories were being widely produced. Yet if you dig around on eBay you will still find sellers offering series adapter rings and drop-in filters. (Note that some listings use Series 6, Series 7, etc., instead of the roman numerals.) Also, some specialist mail-order firms may be able to help.

If you need to track down every little odd Series filter component one at a time, the process might not be worth the effort. But if someday you’re as lucky as I was, and stumble onto some vast forgotten cache of Series accessories, just remember—it’s a neat system that’s still completely useful today.

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…

Some make the distinction between Mamiya Six (spelled out) for the company’s early 120 folding models, versus Mamiya 6 for the modern plastic ones. But in fact, the later 1950s folders are actually engraved MAMIYA-6 (note the hyphen).

The Mamiya Six series began around 1940. Mine is the final model, introduced in 1958, which was the most sophisticated version. Its identification as the Automat II model is common in collector circles, but it’s not marked as such on the camera. Actually I noticed one eBay auction for this model with its original box, printed “Automatic Model 2.”

Despite its many refinements, by 1958 the market was moving away from this style of camera. Folding designs were beginning to seem archaic and excessively fragile. Even the venerable folding Kodak Retina line would switch over to a rigid body style by 1960. And amateur enthusiasm for 35mm film was rapidly eclipsing 120.

But “Medium Format in Your Pocket“—with a rangefinder for accurate focusing—is a great idea, one that deserves to be revived today (despite the archaic appearance of a camera with, *gasp* bellows).

In the world of 120 folders, this one is not particularly small; yet compared to my Minolta Autocord TLR it’s about 2/3rds of the volume, and saves 15% in weight. And it folds up to a tidy package about 2 inches thick with few projections to snag on a coat pocket.

Unlike some folders, its body style is nicely graspable, particularly by cradling the dropped door in your left hand. Unfortunately it lacks neck-strap lugs. (These would have been provided by the original leather case, which I am missing.)

The camera’s styling is angular and businesslike, rather than plump and cute like some of its folding competitors. The look seems to have been inspired by Zeiss folders of the day, especially the Super Ikonta III (right down to the horizontal stripes embossed in the leather).

However Mamiya bettered Zeiss by having their film winder also cock the shutter (hence the Automat name). The necessary linkage is hidden behind a cover at the front of the dropped bed—an easy way to ID the Automat models.

The cocking linkage does not work if you wind while the camera is folded (unlike a Retina). In that case, you’ll need to manually slide a cocking tab on the top of the shutter. (You can re-cock the shutter for double exposures in this way also.)

This model is meterless. The ASA dial is simply a reminder of which film you have loaded. Frankly, I prefer that to any untrustworthy 1950s selenium-cell meter marring the camera’s looks. The Seikosha shutter has (unevenly spaced) speeds from 1 to 1/500th second, set via a somewhat hard-to-grasp knurled ring.

An unusual feature of all the Six models was that they focused by moving the film plane, rather than the lens. Before seeing this in person, it sounded like a strange idea to me. But I’ve discovered no particular penalty in close-focusing distance, or film flatness. It allows for a more direct rangefinder coupling, and a focus thumbwheel on the camera body.

Automatic advance knob with counter; focus thumbwheel

The thumbwheel focusing does require some mental re-adjustment. I always half-expect that turning it will advance the film (as it would on my Olympus XA compact). However its location is actually quite convenient. There’s a distance and depth-of-field indicator atop the camera, but the coarse gradations of its footage scale make it pretty ineffective.

The moving focal plane means the camera has a separate pressure plate which slides out from the body during loading—if this part is lost, the camera becomes essentially worthless, because focus will be totally erratic.

Compared to the ubiquitous red window, and competitors’ sometimes balky automatic frame-spacing methods, the Automat’s film-advance scheme is refreshingly easy. (If you want quirky, try a Balda Baldax sometime.)

Thread the film, then wind with the back open until the Start arrow lines up with white dots near the takeup spool. Remember to replace the pressure plate, close the back, and wind until the knob stops and “1″ shows in the advance knob’s counter window.

Replace the pressure plate after threading the 120 backing paper. Note the white bandaging tape added to the takeup spool.

Following that, frame spacing and shutter cocking are automatic. After you expose frame 12, the knob can turn continuously again until you’ve wound all the backing paper onto the takeup spool. Easy!

A red window is provided on the film door if you feel the need to check what’s happening inside there (it has a nice spring-loaded cover); but in my experience it’s superfluous.

Today’s film must be a bit thinner than the 1950s stuff: My Automat’s film advance tends to give pretty tight spacing between frames. To avoid this, you may want to wrap a couple of strips of cloth bandaging tape (about 4″ long) around the takeup spool’s inner core.

This camera’s viewfinder is no prize—it’s kind of small and dim (even when new, and certainly now after 50 years). Yet the automatic cocking and film advance, along with the thumbwheel focusing, rank a Mamiya-6 Automat as one of the user-friendliest 120 folders.

The original Six was Mamiya’s earliest product, before they had their own lens-manufacturing capabilities. For many years they used other companies’ optics (including, briefly, one Nikkor lens).

But in the 1950s Mamiya generally used Olympus D.Zuiko lenses. The D is not someone’s initial: It’s an Olympus code for the number of lens elements (D=4, E=5, F=6, etc.). Thus a D.Zuiko is a 4-element Tessar-type design.

By version 2 of the Automat, Mamiya had begun producing their own Tessar copy, simply labelled Mamiya-Sekor.

This is a credible performer, but not quite as snappy as some competitors (for example, the 4-element Rokkor on my Minolta TLR is outstanding).

But simply using the larger 6×6 negative gives a noticeable improvement in detail regardless. And the Mamiya-Sekor lens seems to give agreeable bokeh in most situations.

While my Six has a focus scale labeled in feet, not meters, Mamiya’s name only made rare appearances in US photo magazines of the 1950s. And in the accelerating 35mm wave of the 1960s and 70s, the brand never achieved the same success as their competitors. Instead, Mamiya earned their greatest recognition with their professional medium-format cameras.

In that arena they were hugely innovative: They began with the landmark C-series twin lens reflexes: Pro-duty TLRs with—uniquely—interchangeable lenses. They developed an interesting press camera series in the 1960s; then followed it with the workhorse RB67 cameras; and finally invented the first 6×4.5 system SLR (and continued to develop that with new versions all the way into the autofocus era).

Mamiya also made some of the more interesting entries in the Japanese 16mm subminiature boom. Finally in more recent history they introduced not only the (new-style) Mamiya 6, but also a 6×7 variation called the Mamiya 7—both earning praise as fast-handling cameras yielding outstanding image quality. It’s a company with an interesting history of groundbreaking products.

Mamiya even moved into the professional digital realm with a 22-megapixel back to fit their latest 645 model. But in 2006 Mamiya’s parent company decided there was more money to be made in their other, diversified product lines—including golf clubs and pachinko machines—and spun off the camera division to an unrelated tech company. Now there is a cloud of uncertainty over Mamiya’s future.

If you look closely, you may note that the condition of my Six is a little rough. The leather has some flaws, including a missing piece on the shutter-cocking guard. The bellows look a bit mashed (but remain light-tight). The camera was dropped at some point, slightly bending its wind knob. The body is engraved with the original owner’s name (and his profession, “architect” —googling found one tantalizing mention of modernist apartments he designed in Miami.)

But I enjoy vintage cameras as “users,” rather than imprisoning them in some display case. So I don’t mind a few dings and quirks. They relieve any guilt I might have about taking these old Eisenhower-era marvels out, and bashing around shooting pictures with them.

And a camera as nice as this Mamiya-6 certainly deserves to be used.

Sample Mamiya-6 photo: Detail of former Argus Camera optics shop, Ann Arbor, Michigan. Fuji Neopan 400, red filter.

What made mercury button cells so appealing was that their voltage stayed absolutely ruler-flat, until the last of the chemicals were depleted. After that, the battery quickly died. Most camera makers omitted any voltage compensation in their meter circuits, and simply used the battery itself as a voltage reference.

Mercury PX-13 battery, curse of vintage camera-dom

By far the most common size used in older cameras was the PX-13 or PX-625 type. Its case had a raised shoulder around its minus end, making it look vaguely muffin-like.

Today we recognize mercury to be a highly toxic metal; and worldwide, mercury battery production has been phased out. Any stocks of mercury batteries now remaining are from old production runs—a safe guess being from sometime in the last millennium.

If you go shopping for a PX625 today, you’ll discover lookalike replacements being sold. But they are alkaline cells, not mercury. And the problem is, a mercury cell is a 1.35 volt battery. An alkaline cell starts out at about 1.55 volts instead.

In a calculator, kitchen timer, etc., this voltage discrepancy is unimportant. But a light meter works by measuring the exact current flowing through a photocell: so the wrong voltage can wreak havoc with accurate readings. A few cameras (notably Pentax) used a meter circuit which was insensitive to voltage variations—but for most meters, wrong voltage means wrong exposure.

Worse, an alkaline battery actually drops off in voltage as it’s used, so the error is not even consistent—really you get the worst of both worlds. (The same drooping-voltage problem applies with 3-volt lithium batteries, in applications where those could be used.)

But silver-oxide batteries are widely available, and maintain a flat voltage (of about 1.58 volts) over their whole lifetime. The long life of silver-oxide cells make them the first choice anywhere it’s possible to use them.

Meter-Battery Voltage: Myths & Reality

Sometimes you read confused internet discussions about whether this o.2-volt error is important. And some rather questionable assertions get repeated. One claim is: “modern film has such wide exposure latitude that it doesn’t matter.” Another is, “you can just change the ASA setting to compensate.”

Fortunately, I am lucky to own one last genuine, mercury PX-13 cell, which still has some juice to it. So I decided to make a definitive test for myself.

I took light meter readings using two classic old-school SLRs (an Olympus OM-1 and a Canon FTb), and compared them to a known-accurate Pentax V spotmeter. Using the intended mercury battery, I got the camera and the spotmeter to agree within about 1/2 stop, over the entire range from full sun to dim indoor light.

But with the higher voltage of a silver-oxide battery, the cameras’ meters gave incorrect readings—and with a strange pattern: In bright sunlight, the indicated readings would yield two and a half stops underexposure! Yet in dim indoor light (at about the limit for handheld shooting) the meter readings were nearly correct. Between those two extremes, there was a variable amount of underexposure.

Well, this demolishes both of the internet myths I mentioned. First, 2-1/2 stops of underexposure is a terrible idea with any negative film I know of. (You’d get ugly grain and totally blank shadows.) Second, there is no simplistic way to adjust the ASA to compensate, because the error is not consistent as you go from bright to dim light.

The errors could certainly be different for other brands of cameras, using different circuit designs. There is no substitute for checking your own equipment against a known-good meter. But obviously the problem is a real one.

Frans De Gruijter has written the definitive article on this problem, along with several solutions, downloadable here (500 kB PDF). This article goes into dense technical detail; but at the very least, look at the graph he provides on page 3, showing the voltage curves for several different battery chemistries.

And there you’ll notice an intriguing possibility: Zinc-air batteries.

Zinc Air?

Zinc-air is an interesting battery chemistry, giving excellent energy density at low cost—advantages that have made them the preferred power supply for hearing aids. Happily, zinc-air cells have a voltage quite close to that of mercury cells. And this voltage stays consistent over the battery’s lifetime, just as we’d like.

Pull the blue tab to activate the battery

Zinc-air chemistry is also the basis of the “Wein cell,” often sold in camera stores as the correct-voltage replacement for mercury photo batteries. However the cost of vanilla #675 hearing-aid batteries is much lower—about $6 for a pack of 8.

To use either of these types, you must pull off a sticky tab first, which allows air to enter pinholes in the battery case. The battery does not produce any voltage until oxygen reaches the interior. Unopened cells can be stored for many years and remain fresh.

But one downside is that the inside of a zinc cell must remain moist for the chemical reaction to work. In arid environments, the cell can dry out and stop working after just a month or two, before its electrical capacity has been used up.

Putting the sticker back over the air holes will prolong the battery’s life, if you can remember to do it. But with the low cost of hearing-aid cells you might just consider them expendable, replacing them often.

The 675 size hearing-aid battery is a little bit thinner than a PX13 mercury cell; also it lacks the “muffin” shoulder and so is smaller in diameter. Sometimes you will need to add a little spacer ring to keep it centered in the battery compartment.

For this, I just slice rings off the end of a piece of tubing of the proper diameter:

Others have suggested getting a rubber O-ring from the hardware store; and Rick Oleson shows a neat solution using a loop of copper wire.

Now, the voltage of the zinc-air battery is not perfect—it can be a shade too high. In fact, both the Wein cell and hearing-aid solutions have some voltage quirks, which I plan to write about in another article. However let’s keep things in perspective:

Over 40 years, any light meter might drift out of calibration—even if supplied with the textbook 1.35 volts. The shutter speeds on a vintage camera could easily be out of adjustment by a half a stop or so. There can be some slop in aperture linkages, so that you aren’t getting precisely the marked f/number. Vintage cameras are not the place to look for 3-digit precision.

But my tests say that a zinc-air hearing aid battery will get you to within half a stop of the exposure reading you’d get using a mercury battery. And any error will be worst in bright sun—the one situation where it’s most reliable to trust those old “Sunny 16″ instincts.

So if all that’s stopping you from taking some nice old camera for a spin is the mercury battery issue, go with the zinc-air cells. It’ll get you out there shooting after one quick, inexpensive trip to the drugstore.

Then you can explore other, techier solutions to the problem later, if you choose to go that route.

Update: More on the quirks of zinc-air battery voltage in this follow-up post.

These questions can spawn long threads—and often frustrating ones—as different posters assert their own personal understanding of the disputed term. Often these opinions are oblivious to historically-accepted usage; or are trying to define a concept (like Toy Camera) which is inherently subjective.

I had all this in mind when a similar question occurred to me about 127 film. While this film size is teetering on the edge of extinction, 127 black & white is still manufactured by Efke in Croatia, and I’ve enjoyed shooting it. (The lowest price I’ve found is from Freestyle Photo in California—although note their $25 minimum order.)

So for a brief while longer, we might ponder the enigma, “would 127 film be considered medium format?”

The answer is not entirely obvious: 127, like 120, is a roll film supplied on open spools with a lightproof backing paper. It’s about 47mm wide, versus 120 film’s 63mm.

A majority of early 127 cameras took frames of 1-5/8″x 2-1/2″, yielding 8 shots per roll. Those measurements are roughly equivalent to today’s 6 x 4.5 format—a size we assuredly include in the medium-format camp.

Actually, the long dimension of modern “ideal format” 645 negatives is always 56mm (it’s limited by the width of the 120 film stock). But in a traditional 127 camera, the frame’s long dimension runs parallel to the film and can be as wide as 65mm—thus giving an even larger negative area than today’s 645 standard.

On the other hand, when someone uses the term medium format, there’s an implication of sharpness and detail greater than what’s attainable with 35mm. I always have a chuckle when someone says they shoot medium format—then it turns out they own a Holga. Well, technically, yes. But the blurriness of the plastic lens totally negates any extra detail inherent in the film size.

The majority of the world’s 127 cameras were simple snapshot cameras, e.g. many of Kodak’s hugely popular Brownie series. It seems rather ludicrous to call a non-focusing bakelite Brownie Starflash a medium-format camera.

The most notable high-quality 127 cameras were the 4×4 twin-lens-reflexes produced during the brief Superslide boom of the late 1950s. Rollei touched off the trend in 1957 with its charming gray baby Rolleiflex; and was quickly joined by a flock of Japanese imitators, for example my delightful Yashica 44:

The Superslide concept was that an image 38mm square would still fit within a standard 2″ cardboard slide mount (allowing the same trays to be used), yet would offer a larger, clearer image that filled the screen. But Kodachrome never became available in 127 size; and whether for this or other reasons, the Superslide fad ultimately fizzled.

Yet an image 38mm square is really getting too small to qualify for “medium-format-ness.” As a point of reference, Kodak’s 828 Bantam cameras used an image area of 28 x 40mm —yet 828 was universally grouped alongside 35mm as a “miniature” format (828 stock actually was 35mm wide; omitting the sprocket holes allowed for a taller image).

So, does 127 count as medium format or not?

Well as so often turns out, the question turns out to be somewhat misguided. The heyday of 127 film was the middle decades of the 20th century. And in that era, the term “medium format” simply wasn’t used.

I have a July, 1957 issue of Popular Photography, a special issue dedicated to “120-620 Roll-Film.” The highlight was a review of all the twin-lens-reflexes then available. Another article profiled 120-using pros.

The words medium format do not appear in this issue once.

It’s true that in the 1950s, 35mm models were becoming increasingly numerous and capable. And particularly since Kodachrome slide shooters could only buy 35mm (and 828), amateur demand for the smaller format was mushrooming. But commercial photographers remained wary of using the tiny negatives for serious work. Many were still shooting 4×5 film in their Speed Graphics. What were then termed “roll film” cameras (including 120, 127 and 620) were the mainstream choice for many photographers.

Then about 1959, a revolution began: Camera-makers introduced the first 35mm SLRs featuring instant-return mirrors and instant-reopen diaphragms (for example the landmark Nikon F). With those innovations, the advantages of the fast-handling 35mm SLR soon overwhelmed all other camera types, even in professional use—a dominance which would endure for 40 years.

By the middle 1960s, 35mm had become so universal that it was necessary to distinguish between it and those older, larger film sizes—and this is when the term “medium format” began to appear.

Thus, medium format is a term something like landline. Originally obscure jargon used by radiotelephone operators, landline makes a distinction which only became relevant after cell-phone use exploded. Before that, people simply called it a phone.

Meanwhile, 1963 saw another revolution: Kodak launched the first Instamatic cameras, using the drop-in plastic 126 cartridge. This incredibly successful introduction quickly dominated the snapshot-camera market. During the 1960s, introductions of new 127 cameras dwindled to zero.

So it’s really useless to ask whether 127 counts as medium format—it’s asking a question that, historically speaking, doesn’t have an answer.

But if you do have a camera that uses 127 film, go out there and shoot with it while you still can! Rather than fretting over terminology, that’s what’s really important.

Li-ion battery, Canon digi, 1918 Ansco folder

While my Elph’s compact size is great, and it has withstood an impressive amount of abuse, I will soon be at the crossroads. Both of the lithium-ion battery packs I bought for this camera have reached the point where they barely hold a charge—maybe lasting a dozen photos before conking out.

As many users of cell phones, iPods, and laptops have discovered, lithium-ion batteries are our civilization’s little pact with Satan. They’re the chemistry cramming the greatest number of watt-hours into the smallest volume, so all kinds of consumer electronics use them. Yet every Li-ion battery has a finite calendar lifetime. No matter how well or poorly you treat them, eventually, they all degrade to uselessness.

Confusingly, all the rules we once had drilled into our heads about caring for NiCad or lead-acid rechargeables turn out to be wrong for lithium-ion cells.

Keeping Li-ion batteries on their charger, fully topped off, actually damages them and shortens their lifespan. Worse, leaving a fully-charged pack in a hot, sun-baked car can wreck it in no time flat. Manufacturers tend to remain silent about this little bug, despite it being a far-from-exotic scenario.

Anyway, it turns out the best regime for preserving Li-ion cells is storing them at half-charge in a cool place; then only topping off the charge right before use.

The certain death of all lithium-ion battery packs has troubling implications for digital models surviving to become “vintage” cameras.

Battery packs are generally a proprietary type, specific to one particular camera brand. As different digital models come and go, many battery formats have been introduced. Today, I can still buy a replacement Li-ion pack for my Elph, at the boggling cost of $45. It seems silly to spend that kind of money prolonging the life of a dinosaurish model.

And every other shopper must be be reaching the same conclusion I am—so eventually, there will be no market left for selling replacements. Then, one by one, all the remaining packs of that particular type in the world will wither and waste away.

And no matter how much you may adore some particular digital camera… without electricity, it’s a cold, dead doorstop.

A real enthusiast might be able to reverse-engineer some alternative power supply. Perhaps the future collector of proto-digital cameras will obsessively freeze a cache of the right lithium packs, just as we retro camera nuts currently stockpile film.

But for the great bulk of digital cameras, their fate seems sealed. Five, ten years after the last replacement battery becomes unobtainable, virtually every digital model is headed to the landfill.

Some might shrug that this is the price of progress. But as a lover of vintage camera gear, this throwaway Brave New World saddens me.

I have several 50-year-old film cameras still in regular use. I have shot rolls with my father’s 1937 Kodak Retina. Actually, I consider my 1980s Olympus OM-2N to be rather newfangled technology.

And consider the other camera shown at the top of today’s post: an Ansco Vest Pocket Speedex No. 3.

This camera dates to about 1918, give or take a couple of years. By the time I got it, the leather covering was a wreck, and the camera had endured a few modifications. The shutter is not original (hence my piece of white tape, re-calibrating the f/stop scale); and I doubt the Goerz Syntor lens is either.

The Syntor is from the correct era, however—as I was delighted to find in this great 1913 Goerz catalog posted online by Seth Broder.

Now, let’s take a moment to contemplate the world of 1918. Model-T Fords were lurching around the country’s rutted roads—the very start of the automobile revolution. Rickety biplanes were flying mail routes; but passenger flights were rare experiments. So were radio broadcasts. The “candlestick” dial telephone, allowing subscribers to connect their own calls, arrived in 1919.

Yet today this 80-year-old Ansco can still perform exactly the same job it was created for. The manufacturer is extinct, but that doesn’t matter to me. Since it uses 120 film, I can simply load it up and go take pictures. (Note that the term “Vest Pocket” is more often associated with 127 film, because of Kodak’s successful line of 127 cameras using the name.)

I must admit that the camera’s shutter timing deviates wildly from the marked speeds. Fortunately its bellows were free from cracks and pinholes, though they did shed some black flecks onto the film.

So, the results?

Far more than just yielding a few hazy image to prove a point, the 4-element Syntor really surprised me. The photos were crisp and detailed even wide open at /f6.8. The focusing scale still seemed to be spot-on. And the richness of those 2-1/4″x 3-1/4″ negatives was a delight.

The folded size of the camera truly is “Vest Pocket” portable, too—it’s plausible that I might really throw this museum-piece into my camera bag for serious use.

I’m not going to claim this ancient Ansco has the convenience of digital. But for longevity, I put my bets on film.

Yet in the second half of the 1950s, Japanese camera-makers began flexing their technical muscles as innovators in their own right. And within 10 years, original Japanese camera designs would completely dominate the marketplace—as they continue to do today. So I’m always intrigued by cameras dating from that first burst of technical innovation—like this Konica IIIA, introduced in 1958.

Konica IIIA, an innovative and stoutly-built 35mm rangefinder

“Konica” comes from Konishiroku Camera (just as Leica meant Leitz Camera). Konishiroku is the oldest name in Japanese photography, starting as an importer, then building their own first cameras in 1882.

The IIIA was the penultimate evolution of Konica’s I, II, III series of post-WWII, fixed-lens rangefinders. (While these were all meterless models, the final Konica IIIM was basically a IIIA with an ugly light meter grafted onto it.)

With the III series, Konica aimed to sell a high-quality rangefinder camera with an excellent 6-element lens at about 1/4 of typical Leica prices, by omitting the feature of an interchangeable lens mount.

Think Different

Note the absence of the typical thumb-wind film advance lever. The III series cocks its shutter and winds the film using two strokes of the lever sticking out to the right of the lens.

This odd-sounding design actually works quite nicely for me: As a left-eyed shooter, I’m able to keep my eye to the viewfinder when advancing—rather than jabbing myself in the forehead with a wind lever.

Street Shooter

Rangefinder cameras are often the first choice for photographers who want to unobtrusively capture street scenes, or people in action. M-series Leicas, whose cloth shutters only make a discreet “shlurp” sound, are the iconic example.

Yet leaf-shutter cameras can be even quieter, and this Konica is exceptionally silent. Even held right against my head, with typical outdoor backround noise I can barely hear the click of its shutter. You do give up some of that stealth with the IIIA’s rather noisy and conspicuous film-advance lever, though.

A Clear View

I need to gush about the viewfinder of this camera, the breakthrough feature of the “A” model. It is simply one of the great rangefinder/viewfinders of all time. It has a life-size 1:1 view, with very clear bright-line framelines. In fact, they’re actually brighter and larger than the ones on my 2005 Voigtlander Bessa R—which is really saying something.

What’s more, the framelines are not just parallax-adjusted; they also change size, matching a lens’s slightly reduced angle of view as you focus closer! This yields outstanding framing accuracy—not commonly a strength of rangefinder cameras.

I’m not aware of any other 35mm rangefinder which does this, past or present. Your only alternative would be to buy an immense 1960s Linhof Technika 6×7, which has the same feature (as did some older Polaroid models).

It’s true that the IIIA’s rangefinder spot does not have sharply-defined edges, so you can’t use the “split image” method of focusing. But the rangefinder baseline of about 49mm with 1:1 magnification gives excellent focusing accuracy.

Konica even innovated with the film-loading scheme for these cameras. Typical 35mm cassettes have a light trap formed by velvet strips; but Konica sold proprietary cassettes featuring a special gate, which linkages in the film compartment would open wide—thus avoiding all possibility of film scratching. Conventional film cassettes worked fine, actually, so the system is forgotten today (although I would love to find a few of the special cassettes to load bulk film into).

Evil EV

But the fatal flaw of the IIIA’s design from my point of view is its EV coupling—an interlock between the shutter speed and aperture rings.

The black ring with its white EV numbers moves in parallel with the shutter-speed ring. It engages the silver aperture scale with stiff spring tension (pulling it backwards uncouples them); but the f/stop ring does not have its own finger-grips to allow you to set the aperture directly.

Instead, you determine the correct EV number for the scene (e.g. from a light meter offering an EV scale); then wrestle with the black ring until the red pointer aligns with the proper value. After that, apertures are linked automatically to changes of shutter speed, setting the combination shown by the black diamond pointer.

The Konica IIIA’s annoying EV interlock, here at EV 11. (Apologies that my EV scale looks so dirty.)

The theoretical advantage is that when you shoot a series of pictures in the same light, you can switch between the (uneven) shutter speed steps (i.e. 10, 25, 50, 100, 250) and the correct aperture is automatically selected for you—even if that is not a whole f/stop number.

Disappointingly, the 1/500th shutter speed does NOT couple correctly. Switching to that speed, the shutter-speed dial rotates further than normal, to tension a supplementary spring in the leaf shutter. Consequently the EV interlock opens the lens aperture by one extra stop, leading to overexposure.

As I rarely shoot more than a couple of frames in the same lighting, the EV coupling is simply an inconvenience. It’s hard to avoid a lot of awkward pulling back and twisting on the black ring to reach your desired settings.

Going Backwards

1957 Konica III, showing aperture tab and EV scale

The IIIA had been preceded by this 2nd version of the Konica III, which had a much more sensible EV coupling system. A small tab operating the aperture could be rotated along with the EV scale (located directly on the nicely-machined shutter-speed ring). Or, the tab could be flexed outwards, easily disengaging from the EV-scale detents to set the aperture directly.

However the location of the f/stop scale—out of sight on the underside of the III’s lens barrel—was not exactly convenient.

Thanks to E. & K. Norris for the loan of this beautiful Konica III

There were also some appearance changes between the III and the IIIA—but to my entirely subjective tastes, the styling of the earlier model is nicer. The IIIA added an oddly-sculpted self-timer lever, and lost the III’s charming chevron-shaped advance plunger. And the IIIA’s astoundingly sophisticated bright-line viewing system came at the cost of much larger, more awkward-looking viewfinder windows.

The solidity and finish of these Konica III cameras remains impressive. Later Konica rangefinders were worthy models, but the build quality moved more towards the “consumer” end of the scale.

Konica still had one technological breakthrough up its sleeve, with 1965’s revolutionary Auto-Reflex—the camera which introduced auto-exposure to mainstream 35mm SLRs. But in later years, the company lost direction and eventually merged with Minolta; the combined company recently abandoned camera-making entirely.

So it’s nice to remember the long heritage of Konica with a model like the IIIA, which—flawed EV scheme aside—shows the company at its heights of making interesting, innovative cameras.

[a shorter version of this originally posted on Flickr 14 Dec 2007]