Photography Book: The Family Of Man

In 1947, Edward Steichen became Director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art. The most important exhibition that he directed was "The Family of Man", which opened in 1955. The project began in 1952 and the call for entries resulted in a staggering 10,000 images for Steichen and his staff to cull down to 503 photographs from 68 countries. The Family of Man was seen world-wide as a traveling exhibition.

This is the book created to accompany the exhibition. It begins with an introduction written by Carl Sandburg. The photographs in the book follow a progression through different stages and aspects of the human experience: courtship, marriage, pregnancy, birth, childhood, work, family, celebration, war, old age, death. The book is arranged to show people from all cultures experiencing the same moments to show that we are all more the same than we are different. 

My copy of this book is an original printing and it is in exceedingly poor condition. The binding is broken and the pages are falling out. The book seems to be still in print though. at least, you can still buy new copies for normal book prices. There is even a 60th anniversary condition. It's an important document of the human experience and and even an excellent coffee table book. I highly recommend it for anyone, not just photographers. 

Photography Book: A Life In Photography by Edward Steichen

I'm in a period right now where not much is getting done with my own shooting. My father is fighting cancer. He is 88 years old now, and a little weaker every day. When I'm not at my job, which has nothing to do with photography, I'm staying close to my parents. One of my aunts passed recently, leaving behind an extensive personal library and had many great books on painting and photography. This gives me the opportunity to stay active by studying great photographers and blogging. I'm attempting a systematic approach to studying these books. I began with Stieglitz, now on to Edward Steichen. This fantastic book written by Steichen, full of quality reproductions of his work, traces his career from 1895 up to 1963. The story of Steichen's career is the story of how how the art of photography changed and developed  over the course of the early and mid 20th century.

Steichen was born in 1879 in Luxembourg and Settled in Michigan with his parents in 1881. He had one sister, Lillian, a writer, who would marry the Poet Carl Sandburg in 1908. Steichen first picked up a camera in 1895. He was bitten by the photo bug and began to teach himself printing. His first work was very atmospheric. He used his camera to capture the emotion of moments instead of attempting to make an accurate recording. He liked to shoot by moonlight and to intentionally throw his camera out of focus.

He quit a decent paying job at a lithographic company in 1900, and with a friend, he went to travel in Europe and go to art school. Stopping in New York City, he introduced himself to Alfred Stieglitz, and became involved with the Photo-Secession movement. While in France, he came up with the idea of traveling the continent and making photographic portraits of the great artists of the day. Steichen was not afraid to go dark. His photos were studies of darkness and shadow permeated by bright clusters of interest. His photos invite the views in to study the subtle detail in his shadows. 

Portrait of Auguste Rodin with Le Penseur by Steichen

When Steichen returned to America, he looked up Stieglitz in New York and eventually opened up a small portrait studio at 291 5th Avenue. 291 Would become the home of Stieglitz's "The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession". Steichen quickly became the go-to portrait photographer of anyone-who-was-anyone in America. When the U.S. entered the first world war, he received an army commission and joined the fledgling air reconnaissance unit. He hated the war, and the fact that the photographs he was responsible for told the Army where to drop bombs on people depressed him, but the challenges of figuring out how to take sharp photographs from a bucking aircraft 10,000 feet off the ground impacted his later work.

After the war, he settled in France and entered a period of experimentation, a period he referred to as an "apprenticeship". He worked on methods of suggesting a feeling of physical weight to the objects that he photographed. Photographing natural objects, he looked at spirals and brought the idea of the "Golden Section" into photography. 

1923 began a commercial, fashion, and advertising period in which Steichen photographed for Vogue and Vanity Fair. This lasted until 1938 when the work had become routine and stifling. He spent World War Two working for the Navy Department and was placed in command of all Navy combat photography. He was on board the U.S.S. Lexington when it was damaged by a torpedo. The post-war period found Steichen as director of the photography department in the Museum of Modern Art. During this tenure, he created one of the defining exhibitions in the history of photography known as "The Family of Man". I will be exploring the accompanying book to "The Family of Man" in a later post.

From the 1880s to the 1960s, from pictoral photography to social documentary photography, Edward Stiechen was a guiding hand that led photography into the modern art form that it is today. This monograph, if you can find it a great work that anyone interested in photography should own.

Camera Review: Nikon FE2

I wanted a camera in the Nikon FM/FE/FA family as something lighter than my trusty workhorse F3. I found this at my favorite camera store in practically new condition for a mere $80. It was the deal of the century.
It's manual focus only. Focusing is easy with a combination split image and microprism focusing screen. It has manual exposure plus an aperture-priority auto setting. The meter reading inside the viewfinder is an easy to understand match-needle system. The FE2 is a little bit more advanced than the F3, shutter speeds are 8sec to 1/4000 sec. Flash sync is a handy 1/250 sec. There is a 1/250 dead battery speed. Two 3.5 volt batteries or one 3 volt battery available at any pharmacy last for months and months.
It's looks are stupendous. The FE2 and it's close kin in the Nikon lineup are pieces of photographic jewelry. Especially in silver, the looks of this precision Japanese-made machine are up their with any classic Leica. Hate me all you want, I stand by this statement.
The FE2 is an ergonomically superior camera. It feels very well constructed, solid and confidence-inspiring. Weighed on my kitchen scale, the FE2 is 559g or 1lb 3 1/4 oz, body only. With a Nikkor 50mm 1.8ais, the weight is very comfortable to carry around. It's perfectly sized for a pair of average hands. Controls are located where your hands expect them to be.  Everything moves like a well-made machine. The FE2 begs you to handle it and photograph with it. Simplicity is the word with the FE2. There are no gizmos other than what you really need. It gets out of your way to let you be creative.

If it seems like I am singing this camera's praises without mentioning anything bad about it, it's because I really can't think of anything bad about it. I only have two small critiques, neither of which bother me personally. To see everything including the meter reading, your eye has to be right up against the viewfinder, so, if you must shoot with glasses, you should try one of there cameras out before purchasing one. The camera turns on by pulling the film advance lever part way, so, if you are left-eyed, you will find yourself poking your right eye out when you try to shoot.

The following photos were taken with a Nikon FE2, 50mm Nikon Series E lens and Fuji Pro 400 H.

Photography Book: Georgia O'Keefe, a portrait by Alfred Stieglitz

An edition of this book appears to still be in publication. Mine was printed in 1978. According to O'Keefe, she first wandered into the gallery "291" in 1908. Over the years a rapport blossomed with the proprietor, Mr. Steiglitz until, in 1917, he made his first photograph of her. Stieglitz's idea of a "portrait" was not that it should be a single image, but a study over a long period of time showing multiple aspects of his subject. This is a book of fifty photographs made between 1917 and 1933 chosen by Georgia O'Keefe for a showing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.. This collection shows the evolution of Stieglitz's photographic style and is a study of the decades-long relationship between Stieglitz and O'Keefe, two great artistic talents.

Photography Book: Alfred Stieglitz - Camera Work - The Complete Photographs 1903-1917

I geek out over photography books as much as I geek out over gear. What better way to learn and be inspired than by appreciating the work of great photographers and other visual artists? Alfred Stieglitz knew this. Not only was he a pioneering photographer, himself, but he shared with the world his massive collection of other photographers' work.

Alfred Stieglitz was an important photographer, curator, and publisher. He championed the acceptance of photography as an art form, a movement know as the Photo-Secession. His gallery at 291 5th ave. in Manhattan (named "The Little Galleries of the Photo-Secession" and later simply known as "291" displayed the works of early 20th century photography pioneers. The 291 gallery coincided roughly with Stieglitz's magazine known as "Camera Work" which ran quarterly from 1903 to 1917. Each edition was an extravagant production on fine paper and featuring some of the most beautiful photographs known.
The aesthetic of the Photo-Secession period was "pictoralism", which held that instead of photography being a mere scientific process of recording reality, the photographer, with a little creative experimenting with focus and darkroom chemicals, could produce true works of art.

This little book has 545 glorious pages with every photograph that was featured in Camera Work. It is a beautiful collection of pictoralist photography. In it you see gauzy, romantic portraiture by Edward Stiechen, nymphs frolicking in wispy landscapes by Alice Boughton, Stieglitz's own smoke and soot filled turn of the century urban landscapes, and so much more. The book, like the life of the magazine and of 291, ends as Stieglitz gets bored with pictoralism, and shows us the sharp, contrast-y modernism of Paul Strand, This is a must-have for the library of any fan of photography.

A new 35mm SLR?

So, here is an idea. The world's first manual 35mm SLR film camera design in 25 years combining the spirit of manual film cameras of the past with 21st century technology. This is what a new company has envisioned and they have a Kickstarter page and it is quite interesting.

Here is a link to the Kickstarter if you want to take a look at it.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/reflexcamera/reflex-bringing-back-the-analogue-slr-camera

According to the company, the Reflex will have a magnesium alloy body weighing in at less that 500 grams, making it a featherweight. The design language used in the body hearkens back to SLRs of the 1960s.

Relfex means to develop this camera with a bluetooth application that will send metadata to your smartphone. That would mean, if you are a student or just someone who likes to track their exposure data, then no more carrying around a little notebook. The Reflex will have both a flash and a continuous LED light built into the camera body, two things that seem unnecessary to me. Powering the new electronics will be a L-ion battery rechargeable via USB.

Aesthetically, this thing is very blocky and Frankenstein-ish. I find the built-in lights and the Bluetooth to be unnecessary. I applaud this startup, though and like the direction that they are going. I like the idea of a brand-new film package for using cool vintage glass, but, only if it is ergonomically superior and will still be functionable after older cameras have finally bitten the dust.

Where this camera gets really interesting is the modular design. You can swap out lens mounts for M42, Nikon F, Canon FD, Olympus OM, and Pentax PK. So, this single camera will be able to work with a shelf full of classic glass. The Relfex will ship with the M42 standard screw mount, so, out of the box you can take advantage of a wide range of vintage Japanese, German and Russian lenses. The Reflex will have removable film backs. If you didn't finish the roll of black and white that you were shooting last night, and wanted to get some fall colors in the morning, you would normally need two camera bodies. With the Reflex, you just swap out the film backs mid roll. The camera design is meant to be open source to encourage third party mods and people with the wherewithal to create their own DIY modifications. Ideally, no two of these cameras will be the same.

Camera Review: The Mighty Nikon F3

A note about my camera reviews, my write-ups tend to be very short, and I go light on the specs. There are good places online that give extensive lists of features for all sorts of cameras. I don't try to repeat any of that. I prefer to stick to personal impressions and maybe a little history.

According to the serial number, this camera left the factory in Japan in 1985. I bought it at a used camera store 10 years later. This is the camera that I grew into. It's the one that I really learned how to take a decent photo with. It's 32 years old now, and as solid a machine as the day I bought it.

The F3 was introduced in 1980 as the third in Nikon's professional "F" series. Nikon kept it in production for a ridiculous 16 years, even as they were churning out the F4 and  F5 cameras which superseded it technologically. It was the first of Nikon's professional line to have an electronic controlled shutter allowing aperture-priority autoexposure. It is a gorgeous piece of industrial design. It's shape came from the mind of a fellow named Gioretto Giuiaro, who was responsible for designing famed automobiles such as the DeLorean. It was also tough and insanely over-engineered. 

The manual film advance lever is silky smooth. Every control is a perfectly positioned physical button, knob, ring, or lever. No menus, just the way I like it! The only thing that seems even remotely capable of breaking off is the tiny multiple exposure film release which I hardly ever use. If you are already familiar with Nikon's F2 or F4, then you will find that all the good stuff is where it is supposed to be on the F3. If not, I recommend purchasing or downloading a copy of the very short user's manual.

If you use power-thirsty digital equipment, then you are used to carrying around special batteries that need constant recharging. Manual cameras made roughly from the early 1970s to the late 1980s typically use the same basic button-style batteries that are still used today in low-power household electronics such as calculators and kitchen timers. For the Nikon F2, F3, and FM/FE series cameras, you will need a pair of 1.5-volt SR-44 type batteries or a single 2L76 3-volt battery. These are easily found at any pharmacy, and will last you for months or even years depending on how often you shoot. If you are traveling, and you are still unsure, you can just buy some spare batteries and keep the package in your shirt pocket.

The F3 was a system camera with a plethora of available viewfinders and focusing screens, most of which were made for very specific professional applications and are completely useless to general photographers. The most common DE-3 finder and the standard "K" focusing screen are all that you will ever need. The view through the camera is big and bright and viewfinder coverage is near 100% making the framing of your shot accurately a breeze. Looking into the viewfinder, you can see everything without having to press the camera violently into your face.

There was a blistering fast motordrive called the MD-4 available which you can still find. Forget the MD-4, though. Let's face it, if you are a pro who needs high frames per second today, you are using a DSLR. People who shoot film today do it for the simple joy of taking their time. The MD-4 needs eight AA size batteries and turns the F3 into one heavy beast. The extra weight on the back of your neck will send you to the chiropractor every time you go out shooting.

The F3 is awesome, but, not perfect. In order to have an interchangeable viewfinder, the camera had to get a weird flash shoe located at the rewind crank. Nikon finally figured out how to wire the electronics through removable prisms with the F4. If you are going to do flash photography with an F3, your best bet is to get the specially designed Nikon SB-12 flash. Looking into the viewfinder, you will see a little LCD that shows you your shutter speed and a +/- exposure reading. The brighter the available light, the easier it is to read the LCD. There is a little electric backlight for the LCD, but it's almost useless.

The F3 was the professional choice thirty years ago, but what does the old workhorse have to offer us today? A powerful creative tool in the world of analog photography. The F3 makes you the master. Personal control of everything important (framing, focus, depth of field, and exposure) are as intuitive as you'll find with any camera at any price.

Camera Review: Canon AE-1

A note about my camera reviews, I'm going light on the specs. There are sites that give extensive lists of features for all sorts of cameras. I don't need to repeat any of that.

My uncle was looking to get rid or this one, so, I told him that I'd sell it for him. He had an entire kit:

Canon AE-1 camera body

Canon FD 28mm wide-angle

Canon FD 50mm normal lens

Canon FD 135mm telephoto

Canon 300 EZ speedlight,

My idea was to purchase the whole thing from him, run some rolls through it and then re-sell it. I was mostly interested in the historical significance of the Canon AE-1. I had to throw out the flash; the leak from the two AA alkaline batteries was too much to clean. The rest, I'm either going to sell on ebay, or see If I can trade the whole kit for a new lens that I really want.

The growth of consumer microelectronics in the 1970's allowed the big Japanese camera companies, (Canon, Nikon, Pentax, Olympus, Minolta) to start selling quality, reliable, automated SLR cameras at a price attractive to non-professionals. In 1976 (the same year of the first Apple II), Canon introduced the AE-1. The AE-1, (including it's improved successor: the "AE-1 Program") was produced until 1984. The AE-1 was aimed at offering an inexpensive, quality machine to the enthusiastic amateur snapshooter, and was very successful in this realm. It was a true volkskamera which they sold through a long-running and brilliant "So Advanced-It's simple" advertising campaign. 

The AE-1 is a lightweight, mostly plastic, but classic looking machine. The top and bottom are plated in a bright, creamy chrome. The controls feel firm and solid. It has a useful shutter lock lever. I do loathe the depth of view preview lever, an overly complicated affair that is not worth trying to use. A PX28 6-volt battery is inserted behind the door on the front face of the camera.

The AE-1 takes Canon's excellent manual focus "FD" series lenses. They have metal barrels, and fine glass. They feel feel nice and rugged, and focus smoothly. Unlike Nikon, Canon changed it's entire lens mount when it went autofocus, so you need older cameras to enjoy the FD lenses. The AE-1 is a very affordable way to do that.

The AE-1 has two modes: shutter priority automatic and manual. The "AE-1 Program" has full program automatic. You can use this camera in full manual, theoretically, but, you have to go through a lot of hoops to accomplish that.  When you meter the scene, the needle in the viewfinder points to the recommended f-stop for the shutter speed you have chosen. This is the only information that you have inside the viewfinder. It doesn't tell you what your actual settings are, or how off your exposure is. I cannot recommend the AE-1 to anyone wanting to get serious as a photographer and looking for a camera to grow into. 

It's not a manual camera. I repeat, it's not a manual camera.

This camera is really meant to be used in shutter-priority auto, and in this mode the camera truly shines. You pick the shutter speed you want to use for your shooting situation. Then, you just need to concentrate on focus and composition. In this way, the AE-1 is easy and fun to use.

Camera Review: Olympus Trip 35, the solar powered point and shoot.

I wandered into an estate sale, keeping my eye out for old cameras, when I discovered this interesting old gem. I purchased it for $5.00, and looked it up on the interwebs to try to figure out how to use it. Online is where I learned about the Trip 35's cult following. I couldn't wait to see what the fuss was about.

The Olympus Trip 35 was produced from 1967 to 1984. It was made as the perfect little camera to take on a trip, hence the name. It was meant to be a sort of photographic travel notebook, and actually has similar dimensions to a Moleskine journal. In spite of it's simplicity, this is not in the least a "toy camera". It has a real glass (and very sharp) Olympus Zuiko 40mm f/2.8 that puts beautiful images on the film, and the body is made of metal. It's such a cult favorite that today it is easy to find sites that sell accessories for it such as custom leather or leatherette covers, new light seals, lens caps, etc. Check out http://www.tripman.co.uk/

The fascinating thing about the Trip 35 is it's sheer genius. This camera takes automatic exposures without needing batteries...ever. There isn't even a place to put a battery. This is how it does it:

There is a ring of selenium photocells surrounding the lens. The cells do two things. First they gather light for the meter. Second, they make just enough electrical charge to power a very simple elecromechanical exposure system.

There are just two shutter speeds, 1/200 and 1/40. You turn the aperture ring to "A" and the camera begins at 1/200 at f/22. The camera then stops up the aperture to give you the correct exposure. If there is not enough light wide open, the camera then changes shutter speed and tries the same process at 1/40. If there is still not enough light, a little red flag pops up in the viewfinder and the shutter won't trip.

There is a very simple night photography trick. The camera has a working aperture ring. This is for overriding the autoexposure system for flash photography. Let's say that your goal is to shoot nighttime cityscapes, or portraits by street lamp, or whatever. By moving the aperture ring to f/2.8, you are telling the camera that you are shooting with a flash, but the camera does not know that you don't have one, so it will trip the shutter when you ask it to. This works. I have a photo below to prove it.

The Trip 35 has a zone focusing system. The focusing ring has stops with four settings, from headshot to landscape, each setting is labeled with a little icon. This estimated focusing works really well. The viewfinder is nice and clear. Remember to keep your subject inside the frame lines and watch out for parallax when shooting close.

Olympus made it's reputation with clever smaller cameras, and the Trip 35 was ultimate expression of how Nikon and Canon's little brother has always been good at thinking outside the box. It feels sturdier than it looks with it's metal construction. It is easy to use, and just fits in one's hands well. It begs you to take it with you wherever you go. It excels at allowing you to just compose and shoot. These are 40 year old cameras though, and some of them are not in great shape. I was lucky; mine just needed new light seals, and light seal kits are easy to find online and use. My trip is really as good as new now. 

Here is a pair of photos that I took with a roll of Ilford XP2.

A hazy morning in late summer.

A nighttime urban landscape using the f/2.8 trick

Camera Review: Olympus Stylus Epic with expired film.

I was meaning to kick off with a review of the Canon AE-1, but, there was a death in the family, and it will be a few days before I get to the lab to retrieve my film, so I'm going to start off with a pair of Olympus point-and-shoots that I had previously reviewed in my older blog, which is going into a non-photographic direction now. Posting to this blog will help to occupy my mind with other things during this time.

A note about my camera reviews, I'm going light on the specs. There are sites that give extensive lists of features for all sorts of cameras. I don't need to repeat any of that. I'm going to talk a little bit about my own personal shooting experience.

I was cleaning out my basement when I came across my old Olympic Stylus. This was one of my first favorite cameras. I hadn't seen it in years and thought I had thrown it out or sold it. In short, I thought that it was lost to me forever. Well, there it was, with a dead battery and a half exposed roll of Fujicolor Superia 200 still loaded. So I was able to do three things at once: shoot with a beloved old camera and see if it still held up to my memory, try shooting with expired film, and do a review.

The Stylus Epic was introduced in 1997 as part of Olympus' popular Stylus line of 35mm cameras. The stylus cameras from this era had very distinctive smooth lines and sliding protective front covers. Other Stylus models had zoom lenses, but look for the Epic because of it's fast and wicked sharp fixed Olympus 35mm f2.8 fixed lens. The plastic body is covered in a nice, creamy gold paint. The back door has a window to let you know what kind of film you have loaded. The direct viewfinder is nice and clear. When closed, the shell protects everything in the front of the camera, the lens, the viewfinder, and the light and focus sensors. When closed the camera has a nice, rounded shape that is unnoticeable in your jacket pocket.

The camera is point-and-shoot easy. It has a smart multi-point auto focus, and very few controls to worry about, just compose and take a picture. It has a quality lens and is  just fun and easy to carry around.

The expired film ended up looking kind of cool.

First Post: Why Film?

Digital photography is great. If you are a pro, there is really no other choice, it's just good business sense. If you shoot news, you can get your images uploaded to your wire service from the field immediately, and if you don't your competitors will. If you shoot events or products, the volume of a handful of SD cards means that the number of images that you can present to clients is limited only by how many files one person can practically edit in Lightroom without going insane. The rest of us regular folks can take pictures on our phones and get them up on Facebook or Instagram the minute they are taken. If I shoot an event for my company, it's always on my DSLR so I can put the files up into dropbox the same day. Film no longer has the advantage in quality anymore, either, not by a long shot. Last week I was walking through an outdoor art show at a county park. The photography there blew me away. A medium format or full frame DSLR will produce huge enlargements with so much detail, it's like you are there. If you are a novice, a prosumer DSLR will give you a tack sharp image with nice even exposure and perfectly rendered color, and it will do all of this for you, so all you need to think of is composing your shot.

So, what on earth is so great about using film besides the hipster appeal? First there is simplicity. The owners's manual for the Canon AE-1 is 72 pages. The owner's manual for the Nikon F3 is 46 pages. The owner's manual for the Nikon D90 (I know that it's obsolete, but, it's the most advanced camera that I currently own), is 278 pages. A 278 page owners manual!!!! Let that sink in for a minute.

Pick up a 35mm SLR from the 1970s or 1980s. Look through the viewfinder and turn the focusing ring on the lens and see the image smoothly come into focus. Turn the shutter speed dial (click, click, click). Turn the aperture ring (click, click, click). You know what is going on with the camera from tactile feel. It's a wonderful, confidence building experience. Most SLRs from this era have manual focus, and manual exposure (with a built-in electronic light meter). Maybe it has one automated exposure feature, if any, usually it is aperture priority. And that's it! Yes, you do have to pick an ISO and stick with it until the roll of film is finished, but, everything you really need to take a beautiful photo is at your fingetips with switches, knobs, and buttons, and no annoying layers of menus to swim through.

Composition, focus, and exposure are the three things that you need to control to take a good shot, there is nothing else to worry about until it is time to turn that light information on your film or on your SD card into a physical photograph. Manual film cameras give you the best hands-on control of these three things. Watch the needle on a simple meter move up and down while you turn the aperture ring and the shutter speed knob and the relationships between aperture, shutter speed, and exposure exposure stop being an esoteric concept.

My D90 is great, but it is a poor substitute for an actual manual camera for shooting manually, so I usually end up just using it in AF with one of the idiot modes.

Most classic 35mm film SLRs have the same controls in pretty much the same place (and when they don't they are easy enough to find) so, if you know how to use one, you can pick up another and start shooting with very little time looking it over. This common control layout is finally making a return on gorgeous, compact, digital camera bodies now, such as the amazing Fujifilm camera lineup...if you are ready to spend $1,000 dollars on a new camera body, that is.

Film makes you think a little differently. Don't try to compete with the fidelity offered by digital, unless you are shooting large format. Instead, try a black and white film with a cool grain structure or silky tones, or a color film with a vintage, romantic look. Having black and white film in your camera forces you to look for black and white shots. You are challenged to ignore the color information in your mind's eye, to look for light, shadow, texture, to "see" in black and white.

You only have 36 (or 24) exposures per roll, so you want to try to make each shot count for something. I go out and try to take one photo a day. Sometimes I don't even get that one photo because I don't see a shot on my walk every day. That's fine, though because going out and looking is what counts.

You have a real glass viewfinder, not an LCD. You don't have a rear display, and I find that to be a good thing. We are all looking at little, tiny screens all day. I find my smartphone distracting enough. I'm a social media addict. Right now, as I type this piece, I am fighting the urge to check Facebook for the 200th time since I woke up this morning. With film, you can't check your shot after you take it. You need to move on and hunt your next photo. It keeps you inside the world that you are shooting, not observing it on a computer monitor. The very mechanical-ness of film cameras make them very satisfying tools for the photographic craft, and when you find the right one for yourself, you will hate leaving your home without it.