I saw a discussion on the Negative Positive
Film Photography Podcast group on facebook that spoke of the quality
of film cameras. Mario Piper posted this perfectly reasonable
question; “Are Leicas, Nikon F’s, Canons, Olympus OM’s and the
like truly substantially better than the likes of Minolta SRTs, or
Konica Autoreflex’s, or the Working Man’s Pentax’s? Am I
missing something? Everyone talks about Leica’s.”
Being
of an engineering turn of mind, my thoughts began a long road that
had to be travelled and was way too long to post on facebook. Here’s
my thoughts on why “everyone talks about Leica’s”.
Leica is a premium brand for one simple
reason. Excellence. The excellence is in the attention to detail
during design and production of their camera's that stems from the
very early days of the company and the principles of Oskar Barnack.
Ask any Leica user about Barnack Leica’s and their eyes glaze over
with love and off they go, converting you to the cause. Hamish Gill
wrote an excellent article on his 35mmc website that goes into why he loves Barnack Leica camera’s and
I will link to it below. The
principles of design that produced those early Barnack Leica
rangefinder camera’s still underline the company to this day.
Leica are
basically hand made camera's built from precision engineered parts
that have a tolerance of, to all intents and purposes, zero. Quality
is Assured. Every
Leica is built to the same standard, perfect. They wont accept
anything less. There is no such thing as Pro and Consumer grade
Leica's and is the reason Leica camera's cost so much new. High
quality means even a Leica from the 1930’s will still work as it
was intended as long as it is given the correct service and
maintenance. Old cameras
get sloppy with use, even the much lauded Leica and regular servicing
is essential to their
longevity. However it is not just Leica that are built to a high standard.
Pro grade
camera's from the big Japanese manufacturers are also built to fine
tolerances yet
have a common parts supply to consumer grade cameras. The larger the
production volume, the quicker the need to produce. Consumer Grade
Camera's are perceived to be of
lesser quality, but
that doesn’t mean the build quality is inferior to their
professional grade siblings. Often
the difference is in the specifications, consumer grade cameras tend
to have less features making them simpler to use.
My
Pentax SP500, The bottom of the Pentax range, has a
highest shutter speed of 1/500th of a second marked on the shutter speed dial, yet you can select a
higher speed not marked on the dial. All other Pentax Spotmatic
camera’s had a top speed of 1/1000th of a second. The only
difference with the SP500 was the number 1000 was not printed on the
dial. It’s
also built like a tank. My SP500 has
new career as a deadly weapon should it ever break, which isn't going
to be in my lifetime. Pentax has a reputation of being “The Working
Man’s” camera and are solid
and dependable. It's fair to say all other manufacturers have the same high standards.
Canon and Nikon went for the high
end of the market first. Nikon
stole the market with the Nikon F and the high standards they set
with the original Nikon F and Nikon S cameras continue to this day. Canon hit the ground
running with the Canon F-1 and became the system of choice for many photographers thanks to its durability. Then there's Hasselblad, the bastion of the studio photographer. The quality of a Hasselblad lies in its simplicity, it has all it needs to take a great photograph, nothing more, nothing less. As with Leica's they too hold a high premium and are still an aspirational item for folks like myself.
To give you an idea of how Olympus go it
right, my OM-1 is 50 years old soon and still works like new today.
Yoshihisa Maitani knew the company needed to be better and set about
designing camera's to rival Leica. The Olympus Pen F started it all
with it’s innovative sideways mirror arrangement, but soon his
attention turned to the conventional SLR and the Olympus OM-1 was
born. I had mine serviced a few months after buying it as it was
struggling a bit. My investment was worth every penny as
it is working perfectly again. A little maintenance was all it took.
I am merely its custodian until I am no longer able to use it and it
passes on to another film photographer.
This is true of
all film camera’s whose custodians care for them correctly. We have
a responsibility to ensure those who join our community have decent
camera’s to produce images with. This is why I like to support
Camera Rescue and PPP Repairs. Juho and friends and Pierro are
the youth the film photography community needs to survive and
they have taken the steps to making sure it happens. They are not alone as
there are many people around the world for whom Film camera’s have
been a constant source of income, even through the Digital
revolution. I know Film Camera sales, servicing and repair is in good
hands.
There's no denying that Leica make excellent camera's that stand the test of time, but so do the companies I have mentioned here and there are plenty more that I haven't who also do the same. One day I would like to use a Leica, but there are also several other makes that I would also like to try too from Konica, Minolta and Zorki. Photographers are a fickle bunch, we enjoy our craft yet have differences of opinion over the best tools to use and that is a good thing. Given the proliferance of camera's over the last century and a half, there is a camera out there for everyone and variety is the spice of life. Here's a few of my photographs taken with my "Not Leica's" that I am particularly happy with for lots of reasons.
Hamish Gill's excellent article can be read at https://www.35mmc.com
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Olympus OM-1 50mm f/1.4
Ilford FP4
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Olympus OM-1 50mm f/1.4
Ilford FP4 |
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Olympus OM-2 28mm f/3.5
Ilford FP4 |
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Nikon F801 50mm f/1.8
Kodak ColorPlus 200 |
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Nikon F801 50mm f/1.8
Kodak ColorPlus 200 |
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Pentax SP500 Tamron Adaptall 2 28mm f/2.5
Agfaphoto Vista 200
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