WHAT YOU NEED NOW - CONTENT UPDATED THROUGH THE DAY
Jan. 14, 2006
COMMENTARY: Film Cameras Going Way of Buggy Whip, High Button Shoes
By David M. Kinchen
Editor, Huntington News Network
Hinton, WV (HNN) – Talk about contrarians: On the day the Nikon Corp.
announced it would stop making most of its film cameras in order to
concentrate on digital ones, I actually went out and bought a film camera.
Like most film cameras, the Graflex Norita – which has been described as a
Nikon F on steroids – was bargain priced. The Japanese-made professional
camera uses 120 film, which is increasingly difficult to find outside of big
city camera stores. I buy mine via mail order from a photo supply store in
Hollywood, CA. You won’t find 120 film at Rite-Aid or even Wal-Mart.
Enlargements from 120 film are a dream to make and look at.
I have fond memories of my Nikon cameras, for decades the choice of
photojournalism professionals. I’ve owned a variety of single-lens reflex
Nikons – a couple of Nikon F’s, an F3, an F2, a Nikkormat, an FM-2, etc. –
along with a classic Nikon S-2 rangefinder camera that I wish I never sold.
Now, in addition to my thoroughly automated film Canons, I use a Canon
digital camera, a D60, which uses all my film Canon lenses. I also have the
Norita and a dozen or so other cameras. I swear I’m not a collector! So why
am I buying obsolete cameras? As I said, I like black and white film
developing and printing. I repeat, I AM NOT A COLLECTOR! There is a term,
“shelf queen,” to describe beautiful collectible cameras that are rarely
taken off the shelf and actually used. I have no shelf queens in my, ahem,
non-collection.
John Kline, the Blacksburg, VA. camera dealer (motto: “If John can’t find
it, you don’t need it”) who sold me the Norita, is in the process of
building a digital studio in his store next to the Virginia Tech campus.
He’s selling his vintage film cameras, but he still stocks supplies for
contrarians like me. My view is what was good enough for Ansel Adams and
other masters of black and white photography is good enough for me as a
photographic hobbyist. Most colleges and universities these days
concentrate on digital photography and Virginia Tech is no exception: I’m
guessing some of my photo enlargers once graced Hokie darkrooms.
According to a Jan. 12, 2006 story in the New York Times, Nikon, which made
its first camera in 1948, is “the latest to join an industry wide shift
toward digital photography, which has exploded in popularity. Rivals like
Kodak and Canon have already shifted most of their camera production into
digital products.”
Times Reporter Martin Fackler said that Nikon made the decision because film
camera bodies – once the mainstay of most newspaper and magazine pros –
accounted for a mere 3 percent of the $1.5 billion in sales at Nikon’s
camera and imaging division – down 16 percent from 2004.
He adds: “By contrast, sales of digital cameras have soared, the company
said, jumping to 75 percent of total sales in the year ended March 2005,
from 47 percent three years earlier. Scanners and other products account for
the remainder of the division's sales.”
I read on a photo hobbyist user group site that Kodak has halted production
of black and white enlarging paper. Most of the paper I use comes from
manufacturers in Japan and Europe.
Legendary Life magazine photographer David Douglas Duncan was the first to
recognize the quality of Nikon products, during the Korean War from 1950 to
1953. If any one person can be responsible for a trend, Duncan, born in
Kansas City, Mo. in 1916 and a WW II Marine, can take credit for the success
of Nikon. The first Nikons arrived as Korean War servicemen bought them in
Japan and brought them back to the States. Soon many professionals discarded
their Speed Graphic press cameras for the ease of use of 35 mm film, which
all Nikons used.
Film camera devotees…see you on eBay or at places like John Kline’s store in
Blacksburg.
