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My interest in photography was stimulated by my cousin John and my uncle Dave. Once I’d been bitten I was hooked for life. Everyone views their hobby slightly differently and this holds true for photography. In my case producing the finished article-the photograph-was only part of the story. Much of the interest was in the equipment, you could never have enough cameras and accessories. It seemed that, no sooner had you purchased that latest camera than somebody brought a new model with must-have features. |
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The Lieca M3 of 1962. A classic camera by any standard. I really wanted one but could never afford it. |
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Until recently, film was the main medium for virtually all photography. Glass plates had been phased out by the 1980’s and the main choices were negative and transparency films. This was a huge business with Kodak being the dominant player. |
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My first camera was a Lordomat. This was a coupled rangefinder, interchangeable lens 35mm camera of German manufacture. I bought it second-hand in 1960 for £29 10s 6p At this time the average wage was around £16 per week so in today’s terms it would be over £1000!
In the 1960’s, photography was polarised into professional equipment and consumer equipment. The serious photographer used studio cameras and the growing band of 35mm enthusiasts were catered for by the likes of Leica and Contax. 35mm was not considered a serious medium. Until the likes of David Bailey came along, professionals sneered at the little camera.
My uncle Dave had a Rollieflex twin lens camera. This used 2 ¼” square film so was considered fairly serious. This sort of demarcation used to annoy me, my camera took great pictures, you did not need a large format camera to take good pictures (although, I must confess, the larger the film size the greater the enlargement potential), On the other hand, I could take my camera anywhere and shoot fairly candid shots of people, you couldn’t do that with a studio camera.
Of course, as soon as you get a camera, you realise that you need accessories. First a light meter because, in those days, cameras did not have integrated meters. Then some filters, a tripod, developing equipment (developing and printing your own pictures was essential in order to have full control over the finished print, of course, this was the days of black-and-white—colour was a relatively new medium and not greeted with enthusiasm by the serious photographer). Then it was time to look for extra lenses, the serious amateur needed a wide angle and a telephoto lens in order to widen his horizons. Here I was in trouble. Although the Lordomat accepted interchangeable lenses, it would only accept Travenar lenses, as they had the cam which actuated the rangefinder. In the next twenty years I only found one set for sale in the local shops. These were priced at £30 each which was far more than I could afford. I began to realise the benefits of buying a camera from one of the major makes (Canon, Nikon, Olympus etc.) you could find lenses for these anywhere.
So I never did get the extra lenses but by this time I was thinking of changing to a SLR (single lens reflex) type of camera. The great advantage of the SLR was that you viewed the image through the lens, not a separate viewfinder. This avoided parallax errors but, more importantly, when you changed the lens you still viewed the picture you would take. Of course, there were other benefits, a focal plane shutter allowed speeds up to 1/000 th of a second whereas the older leaf shutters would only range to 1/300 th of a second. Add to these the fact that the new breed of camera was incorporating a metering system to allow automatic exposures and I was convinced, I had to have one!
One of the sad things about technological progress is the obsolescence of some wonderful creations. The birth of the modern 35mm SLR coincided with the death of some wonderful cameras. These cameras still took great photographs but the newer models had all the bells and whistles which people craved. In this way passed some of the great cameras, the Alpa, the Contax, the Contarex, the Voigtlander and the Exacta Varex (I was particularly keen on this camera because it had a built-in cutter so you could cut off the section of film you had used and have it developed without having to wait for the whole film to be used). These cameras were crafted to last a lifetime, the build quality was of the highest order, they incorporated ingenuous mechanisms and they are now just museum pieces. Rest in peace, the world will never see the like again.
As I saved for my new camera I began to research the contenders. Eventually I had a shortlist of three. The Canon A1, the Olympus OM1 and the Voigtlander SL35ME. The Canon was too expensive, a friend had the Olympus and it was so compact that I had trouble handling it so it had to be the Voigtlander. I never regretted the choice. The camera was superb and took great pictures, still does come to that. Once I had the camera I realised I needed those extra lenses which would broaden my horizons. I soon bought a 35mm and 135mm by Voigtlander but I still needed more! My prize acquisition was a 16mm fisheye Zeiss Planar. The lens should have cost several hundred pounds but I got it for less than £200. What a lens, 180 degree field of view, if you shot horizontally you would have your feet in the picture! It didn’t end there of course, my next purchases were Tamron zooms, a 35-80 and a 70-210. The reason I bought Tamron was because they supplied adaptors which allowed their lenses to fit any modern SLR.
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