Dear J-
Arguably, I have a quick one-word answer for “useless junk bought” — everything. I find myself attracted to obsolete technology because of the useless need to have the cutting edge of 1985 (yes, I owned an Amiga 1000 that dust settled very gently and nicely upon). But as my secondary focus lately has been photography, photography it is today.
My first digital camera, supplanting, for the most part, the F3 – FM2/T duo I used to carry around, was a Sony DSC-D770. By the time I bought it, the originally-$2000 camera was down to $200 (sensor resolution makes everything obsolete — would that we treated sensors more like film, interchangeable, and bodies would retain their value more …). A number of features made it quite appealing — a true, through-the-lens (TTL) optical viewfinder, thanks to a beam-splitting prism in the optical path; a mechanically-linked zoom ring, manual focussing option, un-dumbed-down autoexposure (e.g. aperture or shutter-priority, not program or scene), a real hotshoe, and external controls/displays. In manual focus, response was reasonable, but I gave up the camera because I could never reliably focus it (there’s no real ‘ground glass’ to use, and being a eyeglass-wearer, that viewfinder was flat-out terrible).
I replaced it with a Kodak DCS 620c (and eventually, a 660c stuck at ISO 80), which was a minor step up in resolution and a major step in performance, weight, bulk, inconvenience, and pain. Finally, I could focus reasonably well. Being a pro-level Nikon (F5-based) body, controls were good, and it’s still the only digital body I can think of with interchangeable finders, if that’s something you need. And the Kodak sensors did wonders with light, something far more beautiful than the small-sensors have chugged out. You have to remember that as film companies, Kodak and Fuji both understand tonal response and gradation in a way that consumer electronics companies do not. I know that Fuji is a member of the Four Thirds consortium, and I would love to see a sensor design from them. The cameras are magnificiently responsive, and I regularly found myself at well over a hundred pictures every time I went out.
But the original batteries were already failing when they came into my hands, and more than once I had to resort to the 9V trick to get them revived. The cameras are nigh-impossible to repair; Kodak has stopped most support, and Nikon won’t touch them. Most damning, though, the F5 body, never a lightweight, grows into something far more monstrous once Kodak is done with it. The Kodak back adds at least half an inch of thickness to the overall package, and if your hands were too big for the F5, you might need to get your pituitary glands checked. Me, my hands are relatively small and so I was never able to operate the numerous dials and switches effectively, always having to shift my grip and juggle with both hands.
So both Kodaks are on their way to being sold; I admit to being frustrated by the handling to the point where it did get in the way of seeing the picture. That’s what photography boils down to, anyway — it’s the seeing and the framing, and to a much lesser, more technical degree, nailing the exposure and focus. Having worked with both all-manual iron (Nikon F/F2) and all-auto wizardry, I can’t say that one is necessarily better than the other for photography — yes, the manual process slows you down, but it makes you more deliberate; it’s like thinking about tripod photography — you envision, you compose, you shoot, rather than shooting without regard to thought.
What’s next? You know, Kodak makes the sensors for three modern large-sensor cameras: the Leica M8, Olympus E-1, and Olympus E-300 (and there’s some disputable evidence about the E-400 as well). Kodak sensor … modern handling … affordability … well, you know where I’m going with this, right? To be honest, even with the large investment in Nikon glass (focal lengths ranging from 15 to 600mm, all manual focus primes), the Four Thirds system just makes sense from a useability standpoint, and even something like an E-410 (compact, quiet) could be amazing …
Mike
