The "What Were They Thinking?" Design Awards

Hi Everyone -

 

Do you sometimes wonder if manufacturers actually use their products

before they ship them?

 

My previous post about M42 cameras reminded my of a Chinon CM-4 I

used to own. It mostly worked well, but only if you ignored the

meter.

 

First, it was the three LED "stoplight" style. Technically this is

not a flaw, but I don't like them ("it's not a bug, it's a feature").

 

Second, the LEDs were on the viewfinder frame, not inside the

camera. You think they would be visible in the corner of your eye,

but no (at least not my eye).

 

Last, the meter set new marks for being influenced by light coming

through the viewfinder. If your eye was anything but plastered

against the finder, the meter would pick up the light and cheerfully

suggest that you underexpose the picture. Yuk.

 

So let's hear your nomination. Best submission gets a sealed copy of

Microsoft Bob.

Those ... things ... that appear to be SLRs bearing the Canon name but actually have an optical viewfinder (a bad one) through the "prism". They're of flimsy plastic and came fully equipped with a handle grip flash on the side. I've seen dozens of these abominations in pawn shops and thrift stores.

 

Did Canon actually authorize these horrors?

Lex, i think those are called canomatics, and are just plastic toys made to fool people who don't pay attention. Same like the so-called "nipon" which has a "color optical lens" :) etcetc.

Why do most exposure counters count up? When you put a roll of film in the camera you know if it's 20, 24, or 36 or whatever number of exposures. A week later you may have forgotten. My Kodak Retina and Olympus Pen D count down and you know when you are about to come to the end. (You can sometimes squeeze out an extra frame or two by manually turning the counter beyond zero.)The counter dials are chrome on black so you know it's a count down system.

The Canon EF's AE hold button is on the top left side of the camera, so you can hold the exposure with one hand, focus with the other hand, and trigger the shutter with your third hand.

 

Then there are those Voigtlander folders with the shutter release on the door--very elegant when they fold and unfold, but just far enough out to impart motion to the lens, if you're not careful.

 

Nikon CoolPix 990--offers full manual control, and gives you the option to reassign functions to different buttons. You can set it up so that the jog wheel changes either aperture or shutter speed, but to make the jog wheel focus manually, you have to hold down another button at the same time, as if on a manual focus camera you would want to be changing the exposure constantly from moment to moment, but only refocusing occasionally.

 

Even though Voigtlander figured out how to design a 120 frame counter on the Superb TLR by 1933 that could measure film travel directly with a feeler wheel, the early Linhof Rollex rollfilm backs made into the 1950s (the ones with the knob) were designed so that the film was metered by turning the knob an absolute number of turns. Today these backs produce overlapping frames with many film types, because they depended on the film and backing being a certain minimum thickness.

The Pentax K1000 will not meter when set to ASA 25 and 1/1000 or 1/500, or ASA 64 at 1/1000. Not that meter reads erratically or anything, it's just dead at those settings. I can see those engineers thinking "Well, no one's ever gonna use Kodachrome 25 in this baby, so we don't need those settings."

My nominee in the Classic Division is the Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta with a frame counter which only allows 11 frames on a roll of 120 film.

Agfa Optima II. There was a 'one'? What the hell!?

Any rnagefinder like the Braun Gloria or Voigtlander Prominent with the focusing knob where the rewind knob is on a normal camera WHAT a PIA

 

Canon F-1N screens have the name/number on the side you have to put in the viewfinder first meaning you have to completley remove it to see which screen you have in the camera. For most screens it's not a problem but with the Super Brights the J and K screens they all look exactly alike just a plain matte. I have all six and wish it was easier to tell which was in the camera.

 

NIKON's that focus backwards LOL

The film advance winder on the Diana and all its clones sounds like a 1/2" drive ratchet wrench. It's designed to be LOUD.

I don't remember which point and shoots did this or why but some cameras had you put the film in the right side and roll to the left. This meant that your pictures were upside down on the roll.

 

You wouldn't think it would make any difference but some drug store processing machines where programed to automatically assume that what was on top was sky and set the exposure accordingly.

How about the original Canon 7? No accessory shoe on the camera (they finally made a clip-on job available)! Or how about the virtually useless framelines on the current Leicas -- they cover 80% of the image when the lenses are focused at their closest setting? Totally worthless for real-world photography (anyone who can afford a Leica is gonna have an SLR to use for closeups). And the Vertical running shutter on Contax cameras, when they actually held the patent on the Leica shutter. (Nikon was smart enough to copy the Nikon body but put in the Leica horizontal shutter).

Rollei 35 and its variants. - If you weren't one of the fortunate few who bought the Rube Goldberg accessory flash bracket and PC cord adapter, you rather quickly developed a liking for orienting the camera into the portrait position for flash exposures.

All bottom-loading Leicas and Leica clones. It took them until 1954 (M cameras) to figure out that it might be useful to be able to see where the film is going?

Nikon's Nikkormat FT design -- setting the ASA required a strong

fingernail and then you had to reseat the lens when you changed

your ASA setting. Especially when every other SLR had an asa

setting dial on the top deck or front of the camera.

I can live with the Contaflex lack of automatic mirror return, even taking off the back to load film, but having focus only be in the center of the viewfinder was in my mind WAY behind the times. Also, way too many of the cameras in our era make it so hard to see and set apertures and/or shutter speeds without holding the camera upside down, etc. One of the best designed cameras is the not highly enough regarded Ricoh 500 post-war RF-beautiful rapid trigger wind; smooth focus with large, secure focus levers; bright, large viewfinder; best implementation of EV I have ever seen-easy to "unlock" setting and apertures and shutter speeds are visible right on top of the lens mount. One of the best cameras I own. Another ergonomic winner is the Konica II/IIa RF.

The Nikon F3, which is superb in most ways, has the minature +/- indicator up at the top of the viewfinder to show the exposure. And, if you need the display lit up, there is a red button next to the prism that is next to impossible to depress. And the light is a pale red glow.

 

Many folks now love the Leica M5, but I recall that the meter was klunky to interpret with its 2 indicator pointers. Also, the meter was very sensitive, but, in low light, you could not see the display because not enough light came through the little illumination window. Also, the M5 could not use a motor or winder at a time when the use of battery-operated winders was really taking off among press and sports photographers. It might have been a great sales success if it had been introduced 5 or 10 years earlier.

Mark, it's been 25 years since I shot with a Nikkormat, but I still automatically turn the aperture ring all the way back and forth every time I mount a lens, and I've been using PENTAX ever since 1980! (Talk about conditioning!)

Voigtlander Bessa 6X9 folders with coupled rangefinder. If you accidentally close the camera when not focused at infinity the cameras folding mechanism gets stuck. A REAL PAIN IN THE ASS!!!! I've had to disassemble my bessa rf several times to open the damn thing, why couldn't they just copy from zeiss.

The two Nikkormat Ftn's of mine index as Bill mentioned. The older FT variant required one to align the ASA to the lenses max aperture. The FT has no auto indexing gizmo; ie no ratchet/catch; which records the peak/max aperture. The indexing of the Ftn sets the maximum aperture ratch gizmo. If worn; it may not catch. The older FT variant has no shutter speeds in the viewfinder; and has no narrow weighted meter. The FS variant has easy lens indexing :)

Charles said:<br>

> Why do most exposure counters count up?<br>

<br>

It's worse that that sometimes. Why does my Canon Eos-5 count up, but my second body, a Canon EOS Kiss/Rebel, count down?! Frustrating decision...

What about the Linhoff 220 press camera? A 6x7 format camera with a sub-2

inch baseline rangefinder; a permanently fixed pistol grip which made it

impossible to use in landscape mode; and, best of all, a lever wind that made

working the bolt action of an ancient .303 Lee-Enfield rifle seem like winding

a Swiss watch..........

Re Bill Mitchell 7:02 PM- I thought the vertical running shutter allowed a faster X synch speed with a constant velocity shutter. Are there problems with a vertical running shutter?

My candidate for lack of imagination is the 2x3 Busch Pressman. As far as I know, Busch never made a roll film adapter for it. I asked a friend to design one for me. He hogged one out of solid aluminum on his Bridgeport and it accepted Graflex rf adapter and with its ingeniously designed ground glass holder, it worked out beautifully. I was doing a lot of copy work for art exhibition panels. I knew about the long awkward rf adapter made by third party, but I didn't like it at all. Just to show how dumb I am, I sold or swapped the Busch with built- to- order adapter that Karl spent many a night working or week end on and gave me as a gift. Shame on me! I switched to 2x3 Speed Graphic with Graflox back some years later. And still later, sold it and bought another Busch with no rf adapter, which I still have. I challenge the bromide, "wisdom comes with old age." Not in my case.

 

Camera fickle,

 

Les

Regarding Jani's post on the Bessa--My Bessa II will close properly with the focus set anywhere, so they seem to have fixed that one.