What would this forum look like in 1971?

[brian_m.1]

<p>If a Classic Manual Camera forum existed in 1971, what would the posts be like? Many cameras we are drooling over now were in production back then. Would anyone be waxing poetic about their HiMatics, Konicas, Canonets, or Yashicas? What cameras would make the cut as a "classic"?</p>

[SCL]

<p>Argus C3 probably would have made the list, a few old Leicas, some Ansco stuff, a lot of small Japanese manufacturers whose names are lost to oblivion.</p>

[craigd]

<p>In 1971 we would be complaining about all these useless modern cameras with their built-in TTL meters and other silly features. Cameras with batteries? Get outta here!</p>

<p>The real old-timers, meanwhile, would still be sneering at 35mm (you can't make real pictures with a tiny little flyspeck of film like that! People who use those things don't even develop their own film!) and reminding us that all you need is a manual view camera, some glass plates, a wooden tripod, and the Zone System. Everything else is just a bunch of modern nonsense designed to teach people to be lazy and never really learn to do photography right.</p>

<p>Hey, Rick, nice Rapid Rectilinear you've got there! Real sharp, especially since you don't have to blow it up to make contact prints, like these youngsters today with their little toy cameras...</p>

[tony_lockerbie]

<p>It's funny, but looking at a mid fifties photo annual, I was struck by how many shots were taken with a Rolleiflex/Rolleicord or a Leica of some sort.<br>

So I guess that these cameras with a smattering of Prakticas and Retinas would be high on the list.<br>

The Japanese invasion of the camera industry was a fait accompli by 1971, so I feel that most would consider the great German marques to be more classic, if there is such a thing!</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Craig has it spot on, I think. Those danged TTL cameras, much less cameras with a meter tacked on or built in would all be dismissed as trendy, unnecessary junk. The pre-war Contax III might qualify, however.</p>

[dan_fromm2]

<p>Hmm, back then there was a mad scramble from crappy old cameras like thread-mount Leicas to modern SLRs with, ideally, TTL metering and diaphragm automation. My brother was then pursuing an MFA in photography, bought all of the Leicas and lenses to fit them he needed at ridiculous prices. I got a couple of Retina IIs for cycling cameras, same story.</p>

<p>I knew a few collectors back then. They concentrated on good cameras, wouldn't go near the '50s junk people make so much of here.</p>

<p>As for me, I wanted good tools. That meant a decent grade of modern SLR with good lenses from its maker to match. I didn't go Exakta, the Exakta writing was on the Exakta wall, but Exaktas just made the cut. You have to remember that until the Nikon F was introduced the Exakta was <em>the</em> pre-eminent system SLR.</p>

<p>The kind of nostalgia for the past -- leaden, not golden as in fantasies here -- manifested here would have been mocked. The late '50s and '60s were a period of rapid and significant technical change. We'd have been fools not to prefer the latest most best.</p>

[john_shriver]

<p>Look at Jason Schneider's books, that's the era he was writing them in.<br>

You could still buy Verichrome Pan 122 then, for the wonderful 3A size folding Kodaks, including the Specials. 116 and 616 were current as well.</p>

[andylynn]

<p>It would have had a lot less traffic. Mailing all those posts to each other after typing them up and Xeroxing them would have made things go a bit slower.</p>

[User_4525289]

<p>in 1971 classic cameras would be mostly pre-war German gadgets.</p>

[marc_rochkind]

Better get an F while you can... I've heard there's gonna be an F2. And, some say they're gonna start using

PLASTIC!!!

[steve_levine]

<p>Al Gore was in Viet Nam in 1971, so he hadn't invented the internet or this forum yet.<br>

The 1970's were in the peak of the anti-rangefinder years. The ad men, and their camera building clients, had everyone convinced that the SLR was the "automatic transmission" of it's day. If you didn't shoot an SLR, you were out of the loop completely in 1971. Also in 1971, the obsession with lenses ,particularly zooms hadn't been started yet. Most of our pictures were taken with normal, fixed focals. And no one noticed that they didn't zoom.</p>

[robert_meyer3]

<p>I would guess that the forum would have been largely devoted to a few of the classic European cameras: Leica, Exakta, Contax, Rolleiflex, plus a lot of the old Kodak classic cameras, especially those in 620, 127, 828, and 122. There would have been a lot of Kodak Medalists, Chevrons, etc. I know in the early 1980's I was was sent to Japan on a couple business trips. My camera of choice was a Kodak Medalist, I took both Kodacolor and Verichrome 620 film with me, and shot a lot of it. I had a lot of folks stop me on the streets of Tokyo and ask to see the camera, and several offers to buy it. I know in those days, when Kodak discontinued a film we brought bricks of it to freeze so we could keep using our favorites for the forseeable future. I still have some (maybe half a brick) 620 Verichrome left from bricks I brought then.</p>

[robert_marvin]

<p>The list would have excluded new fangled cameras with coated lenses and built-in flash sync :-)</p>

[Mike Gammill]

<p>I think we'd see a lot of Praktica FX-2. When the FX-3 came out (at least according to my old magazines) the FX-2 with Westonar f2.8 or even C.Z. Tessar were heavily discounted, in some cases almost down to the price of fixed lens leaf shutter rangefinders. The EXA was another lower priced model that would have turned up as they were lots less expensive than the regular Exacta models. I base this on some 1950's back issues of Popular Photography that I inherited from my dad.<br>

Also, for the members who had deeper pockets, we might see some early Nikon RF posts. The early Nikon RF that had the 24 x 32mm frame size might have been a particularly interesting topic.</p>

[awahlster]

<p>In 1971 the big talk would be the Canon F-1 system and how it was going to start the end of Nikons reign of terror over the press world.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>We don't have to speculate without data on this. Both <em>Popular Photography</em> and <em>Modern Photography</em> had collector columns back in the days in question. Schneider's books are collected columns, after all.<br /><br /><br />The cameras covered by the columnists at the time belie the idea that collectors then were more into what some people think are "real classics". Some of the cameras were Leicas, etc. to be sure; but many were old "junk" of the same sort that "offenders" here discuss so often. I have lots of these old photomagazines, and went back to look at Schneider's columns from August, September, and October of 1971.<br /><br />Here are the cameras discussed Anno 1971.<br /><em>August column</em>:</p>

<ul>

<li>Of production cameras, the 1895 Kombi -- original price $3 prepaid, (then estimated at $60 value)</li>

<li>The 1915 Expo Police (value $50-75)</li>

<li>the English 1935 Coronet (original cost $2.50, est. value $15-20)</li>

</ul>

<p><br /><em>September column</em></p>

<ul>

<li>Mostly devoted to a person still making bellows</li>

<li>specifically an example was a Kodak 3A folding camera</li>

<li>replacement costs for a bellows ranged from $2.0 to $6 (!)</li>

</ul>

<p><br /><em>October column</em></p>

<ul>

<li>a mystery camera-- the postwar Weha Chrome Six</li>

<li>The booby prize given was a Pigeon 35 (value $5)</li>

<li>Also discussed, 1948 Jem Jr. 120 box camera</li>

<li>and a 1925 "Deceptive Angle Graphic" camera (value in 1971, $350)</li>

</ul>

<p><br />Even given that the dollar in 1971 was worth about 8-10X what it is now, these do not as a group qualify for the sort of Hasselblad- and Leica-class cameras that some of you speculated were the primary interest of collectors in 1971.<br /><br />As I've already said, like now, collectors in 1971 were often fascinated by not only the "real classics" but also by kinky old junk cameras. <br /><br /></p>

[k5083]

We'd have a Brownie sub-forum that nobody posts in, just like now.

[jodys]

<p>For the real retro look, something already obsolete even before it was made, for the collector/user who drew a perverse pleasure out of using some ridiculous contraption to try to create beautiful images.... one word: "Visoflex".</p>

[chuck_foreman1]

I enjoyed reading this very much especially how of course all of this would of been a newsletter and xeroxed and mailed.

I'll bet a lot would be made over european oddies and attention to the cost of Nikon RF,Contaxes and Leica M39 equipment

[mfophotos]

<p>There was no internet, no personal computers, and no photo.net in 1971. We would have been reading issues of Shutterbug, going to the camera store and hanging out with our pals and talking photography, and doing more shooting and less worrying about gear that we couldn't afford, anyway.</p>

[Robin Smith]

<blockquote>

<p>and doing more shooting and less worrying about gear that we couldn't afford, anyway</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I (seriously) do not think this was true: the world was much the same back then and we boys still had our toys and obsessions just as today. The only thing that happens now is that it happens so much faster. Of course with digital (I know this forum is <em>not </em>digital) one could argue that people are actually shooting more than ever - not that most of it is any good (this goes without saying really).</p>

[red_robin]

<p>Gee Steve, thanks for sharing your bit of propaganda, but you've got the wrong forum! This one's about cameras , not politics, or should we ALL start touting our own personal pol ital views? Me, I'd rather talk cameras & film & technique here.</p>

[lex_jenkins]

<p>In 1971 posts to a hypothetical forum would have been very similar to photo.net's discourse now. Generally civil, well informed, varying between formal, erudite and humorous. The main difference would be the near absence of "versus" posts, since "vs." was reserved for boxing and wrestling matches. The more appropriate "or" would have been used. Misuse of the word versus is a more recent conceit.</p>

<p>In January 1971 I would still have been drooling over Modern Photography's annual December 1970 camera porn issue. In particular I would have been tempted by the Koni-Omega. But in reality almost everyone I knew, including the professional photographers who shot stills for my stepdad's industrial and educational movies, used 35mm SLRs.</p>

<p>As of this month in '71 (per my recollection as a teenager in the NYC area)...<br>

I'd have been pestering the cranky old clerks in the NYC camera stores, especially the Spiratone store because of all those nifty gadgets.</p>

<p>Our camera club had a Yashica-Mat 124 (the pre-G version), which nobody but me used. Then, as now, I loved that square format. My mom still has a photo of me using that camera. I looked like a damned hippie or, more likely in current context, a hipster with oval wire rim glasses, a wool watch cap over shaggy hair and a plaid winter coat. Today it'd probably be a Holga instead of the Yashica.</p>

<p>No SLR manufacturers had established the sort of "C or N only" dominance we see now. Of the two pros who usually shot stills for my stepdad in NYC, one used a Nikon F, the other a Pentax Spotmatic. And one of the producers my stepdad worked with had the Beseler-imported Topcon. (I remember panicking the poor fellow by removing the prism to compare it with my Miranda Sensorex prism. I'm not sure whether he didn't know the prism was removable, or whether it was due to my being an obnoxiously precocious 13 year old. Probably the latter.)</p>

<p>One of my camera club instructors used a Mamiya-Sekor (TL or DTL, don't recall much other than it had a true spotmeter); the other a Minolta SRT-101.</p>

<p>One of the older fellows in the camera club had an Olympus Pen. We were still a year away from the OM series, tho' I recall hearing some rumors about it (yup, even then, camera rumors were popular).</p>

<p>My buddy bought a Pentax Spotmatic with his bar mitvah loot. I got a Miranda Sensorex. He was always more practical. His camera was still working a year later, whereas my fickle Miranda had a finicky meter and was soon orphaned.</p>

<p>Among other members of our camera club were a Petri, a Yashica compact fixed lens rangefinder and assorted other 35mm cameras.</p>

<p>I also recall being startled by the clarity of one particular print sitting on a table in the camera club room. I'd photographed that same area of Central Park but never with that sort of clarity. I asked what sort of lens or film I'd need to match that quality. The instructor told me to try a large format camera with full movements, and make contact prints. I probably rejected that answer as being incompatible with my pretenses of being a candid photographer roaming the urban landscape.</p>

<p>Some things never change, including questions about how to force a miniature format camera to do the impossible.</p>

[JDMvW]

<p>Nice nostalgic essay, Lex. My personal story is more small town, but by 1971 I was at a place where there was not only a good photo program; but around that time, my little college town was still the place of origin for a nice commercially-sold view camera.<br>

Alas, I could only hang out at Spiratone in my dreams with the arrival of my photomagazines. I was playing with my spanking brand new PC-Nikkor at the time-- trying to "to force a miniature format camera to do the impossible" or at least the difficult. :)</p>

[Karim Ghantous]

<blockquote>

<p>Gee Steve, thanks for sharing your bit of propaganda, but you've got the wrong forum!</p>

</blockquote>

<p>Are you serial? I thought his joke was cute.</p>

<p>Anyway, we'd all be communicating via editorial letters to photo magazines, fanzines and newsletters. We'd also be making good money with stock!</p>