michael_goldfarb

Yeah, it's tough to justify a subminiature film camera in the smartphone age. I shot b/w film with a Minox IIIs on and off for years; I carried one everywhere in a knife belt case daily from 1995 to around 2015. I made hundreds of great shots, both general photography and family pics. I also shot color film (Fuji Reala, Kodak Supra 100) in a Minox B up until Minox Processing Labs closed. I enlarged 4x5 and 5x7 prints from films like Agfapan APX 100 and T-Max 100 on an Omega D-3v with a 50mm EL-Nikkor. But once I lost access to a proper darkroom and began scanning my negatives, I just couldn't manage decent scans out of the teeny Minox negs. More to the point, while the Minox produced absolutely unique-looking images and the camera itself was (and remains) a great conversation piece... now everyone's smartphones were capable of capturing "better" images. So I put it aside. The smallest camera I shoot with now is an Olympus Pen F, which is another jewel. Recent print scans from my late-90s Minox shots:

Back around 1998 or 99 I wrote a ten-page field guide to the different models of Minox subminiature cameras. As a lifelong user of these cameras (I got my first one back in 1967) and a technical writer, it was fun, something I was doing for my own study. A work friend at the time, another Minox shooter, who had a website (still a rare thing then) published it, and it was online for a couple of years. It eventually came down when he changed hosting services, or something. To this day, I occasionally find statements and whole paragraphs from my document turning up in articles/posts/guides/etc. about Minox cameras! So yeah, I'm quite aware of how stuff, once visible on the web, may never entirely disappear! And how misinformation and opinions can be endlessly cloned. The Nikkormat thing just strikes me as very strange. Nearly ALL 50s-70s mechanical cameras have their own unique kinks and working oddities. Why the Nikkormat is dismissed for its unique design aspects is just weird, especially because they are among the few outstanding cameras of their time that are still plentiful, working, and have remained reasonably priced. And there are lots of great non-AI Nikkor lenses around that are also real bargains. (E.g., I picked up a vintage-1961 Nikkor 13.5cm/3.5 last week, in good working condition... for $36!)

I am bemused, bordering on annoyed, with how seemingly every young "analog photography" dude trying out a Nikkormat finds both the lens mounting method AND the shutter speed control "difficult", "fiddly", "obnoxious", "uncomfortable", "too complicated", "difficult to remember", etc. Historically, the standard position for shutter speed knobs in most cameras was set by the connection to the underlying focal plane shutter assembly, not an act of God to determine the most ergonomic spot. And not for nothing, my favorite non-Nikon SLRs, the Olympus OM series, use the same around-the-lensmount control. In contrast, I find the knob on the F2 (etc.) far less comfortable/convenient. And the Nikon Shuffle takes about a second and a half. We used to consider it a miracle of engineering, an incredibly simple means to index the lens to the meter. I still think it's brilliant. But then, I haven't been ruined for old school mechanical technology by immersion in recent electronic auto-everything cameras.

I'm an example of one of those photographers who was forever prejudiced because of that Nikkor 43-86/3.5 lens! My parents were pros who'd been shooting mainly 4x5 from the forties, and they began buying Nikon equipment in 1963. We got a Nikkor 43-86 to put on our Nikkorex F, it was our second Nikkor lens after the great 50/2... And it was quickly consigned to use only for family vacation slides. It was marginally acceptable for that use - and quite convenient having a normal and tele in one package - even though it wasn't really sharp at any focal length. Multiple Nikkormats and Nikons and many more Nikkor lenses would soon follow, but my folks never bought another zoom lens. And I have never bought a zoom myself, I'm still a totally prime lens guy. Oh, and that 43-86 eventually seized up and sat in the back of the camera cabinet, not worth repairing. We ultimately put it on a similarly broken Nikkormat FTn and buried them alongside our dad to honor his lifetime as photographer. That was probably its most useful moment.

I'm late to this thread, but I've been shooting Nikon equipment since the sixties, and still regularly use a Nikkormat FTN and Nikon F2. My favorite lenses from most used to least: 45/2.8 GN - it's miniscule size and weight make it a delight to carry, and it's plenty sharp (yeah, we first got it in 1972 to use with manual electronic flashes) 105/2.5 - no need for details, this is one of the greats; I'm still using the one my parents got in 1966... it's never even needed a CLA! 35/2 - my "normal" lens; I also have two 50/1.4s and a 55/3.5, but I never use them (I liked using this one so much that I got a Zuiko 35/2 as my normal lens for my OM cameras) 28/3.5 - when I feel the need to go wider; the aperture click stops are mushy, but its optics are still fine

My son is a scientist who's worked at Duracell for several years. He recently told me that today's SR44 silver batteries are essentially LR44 alkaline batteries with the bare minimum of silver added so they can legally be sold as silver batteries. (Silver is much more expensive, of course.) So perhaps the old "silver batteries don't change output as they discharge the way that alkalines do" may not be entirely true anymore. That said, I haven't noticed any recent problems using SR44s in my OM-2n or F2 Photomic. But I thought I should mention it as something to keep in the back of your mind if you use silver batteries in your equipment.

I'm an unusual case in that my parents were professional photographers with their own little commercial studio. I was literally surrounded by cameras from birth. Big 8x10s and 4x5s, a couple of TLRs, plus a Stereo Realist for family slides... which was replaced in 1963 by our first SLR, a Nikkorex F. A series of Nikkormats and Nikons would soon follow. But my first personal camera, when I was around 8, was a Brownie Starmite. I shot 127 Verichrome Pan... and I soon learned to develop it myself. When I was 11, I was given a new-in-box Pony 828 by a photofinisher friend clearing out his old stock... I wanted a camera with manual settings in order to prove that I could handle estimating exposure and focus, so my parents would get me my dream camera, a Minox B, as my bar mitzvah gift. Hey, it was 1968, the spy-mad sixties! So my first serious camera was a Minox B when I was 13. A couple of years later, when I was ready to move up to a personal 35mm, we replaced the Minox with a Petri Color 35, which was my go-everywhere companion for 15 years. A great little camera. Since then, there have been a couple of more Minoxes, a pile of Olympus OM and Pen equipment, and plenty of others... Yet just as in 1967, I'm shooting Tri-X with my parents' Nikkors!

My parents were pros for over 50 years. We never used stop bath or clearing agent for film processing, just water... and I've got 4x5 negatives from the FORTIES that are still in great shape. That said, my father's motto was: "An amateur knows how to follow the rules... A professional knows how to break the rules."

Iron gate in Beacon, New York: Olympus OM-2n with Zuiko 24/2.8 (Ilford FP4 Plus, developed in D-76 1:1, 1200dpi scan w/minor adjustments)

Last month I bought a final-year-of-production minty black Nikkormat FTn for a crazy low price... even the meter works. I shot a test roll of Tri-X with multiple lenses and got gorgeous results. Personally, I always preferred shooting with the Nikkormat to the Nikon F and F2... I have a VERY long history with these cameras. My parents were pros with their own little commercial studio. Our first 35mm SLR was a Nikkorex F with 50/2 bought in 1963 when I was 8. Initially, it was just used for making vacation slides - we were a mainly 4x5 shop, Dad didn't consider 35mm a "serious" format. But we soon also had a Nikkormat FT, and within a few years had acquired a Nikkormat FTn, a Nikon F with a couple of different meter heads, and a bunch of classic lenses: 28/3.5, 35/2, 45/2.8 GN (my favorite!), 43-86/3.5 zoom (in our experience soft at all focal lengths, and quickly consigned to just vacation slides), 50/1.4, 55/3.5 Micro, and the awesome 105.2.5. In the seventies, the Nikkorex and 50/2 (plus a Gossen Pilot I wish we'd kept) was sold to a friend, and the Nikon F traded in and replaced with a pair of F2 Photomics. The Nikkormat FTn was broken by then and remained so: it ultimately went into Dad's coffin alongside him when he died (with the also broken 43-86 mounted), which seemed appropriate for a lifelong photographer... Anyway, I always liked using the streamlined Nikkormats more than the heavier, clunkier Nikons. I inherited the surviving Nikon F2s (along with the rest of the studio's equipment) and over the last decade-plus have shot a lot of b/w with an F2. Most often with just the plain prism head (using a little GE-1 selenium meter or just sunny-sixteening) and the tiny 45 GN to keep weight down. This past summer, I had occasion to handle a (broken) Nikkormat for the first time in decades... and realized hat I STILL preferred its feel to the F2s. Now that I have a Nikkormat again, the F2s are being put aside as backup bodies. Anyway, I love Nikkormats, and am surprised how underrated they are in the current booming film camera market. Below: one of my test roll shots; Nikkormat FTn with vintage-1966 105mm, Tri-X in D-76 1:1:

I've got a circa-1950 GE PR-1 I use with a plain-prism Nikon F2 and an Olympus Pen F. It seemingly sat in its case in a camera bag for decades and it is still pretty accurate when compared to my OM-2, and DP-1 on the F2, meters - accurate enough for Tri-X, anyway. I recently picked up a Petri 7s rangefinder at a flea market whose around-the-lens match-needle meter works perfectly. Again, because the lens cap had apparently been kept on for 50 years and the Selenium hadn't lost its charge.

My parents were pros with their own little b/w commercial studio. Back in the early 1960s when my memories of the biz begin, nearly everything "important" was shot on 4x5. For stuff that was going to be used VERY small, like catalog shots, sometimes a medium format negative from a succession of Mamiya TLRs we had was "acceptable". The only 35mm camera we had then was a Stereo Realist from the fifties used for personal shots, like kids and vacations. But the Nikon system called to us. We started with a Nikkorex F in 1963, and soon moved on to Nikkormats and Nikons. I think the (pre-AI) 43-86 was the third Nikkor lens we got after the 50/2 and 28/3.5. But it was quickly consigned to use only for family slides, because while it was indeed convenient to have a semi-wide to semi-long in a single package, it just wasn't critically sharp at any focal length. Postscript: I still shoot with our old F2s, mostly with the 35/2, 45/2.8 GN (so small and light!), and 105/2.5 lenses. But I had no desire to ever use the 43-86 again. When my dad, who'd been a photographer since the 1930s, died in 2011, we had a long-broken Nikkormat FTn with the 43-86 mounted placed in his coffin. It just seemed appropriate for him to have a camera at his side.

I've also been using a GE PR-1 for several years, with a plain-prism-head Nikon F2 and Olympus Pen F. It's accurate enough for TX and FP4, and a lovely conversation piece. I have a Luna Pro stored somewhere, but haven't used it in decades. Back around 1980, I used a Gossen Pilot (first model) for an entire summer photo job: it's a great little meter.

My parents were pros, I always had access to Nikons and Nikkormats, but my personal camera 1969-1983 was a Petri Color 35. I took hundreds of great shots with it, mainly on Tri-X. I carried a two-stop neutral density filter to use when it was too bright for 1/250 at f/16... but I rarely put it on, instead depending on TX's legendary exposure latitude. Calling it a masterpiece is a bit much, but it was definitely a great design. A crazy small, very capable camera with a surprisingly decent lens for its modest price. I still shoot small cameras - Pen F, Stylus Epic, assorted rangefinders (and Minox subminiatures on and off for 50+ years) - but a part of me misses my Petri Color 35.

Either Agfa APX 100 or Kodak Plus-X. I am not crazy about my results with Ilford FP4!