By Fred Steiner
The Wall Street Journal headline read: "Kodak Teeters on the Brink." Reading this, my mind did a long, fast reverse. It stopped somewhere in 1970, inside the Bowling Green State University journalism dark room.
There I heard Jim Gordon, our photo professor, tell our Photojournalism 201 class, "There will always be film." Professor Gordon wouldn't lie. He may have even suggested we buy Kodak stock, but I'm not certain about that.
As my mind absorbed that Kodak-moment headline I visualized all the cameras of my past, sort of like guys do with old girl friends.
I learned to take photos with a BGSU-owned Yashica Mat 124 viewfinder. The film size was 120 and film choices were 12 or 24 exposure per roll. You didn't want to screw up with only 12 chances. If you were lucky you might get 13 shots on the small roll. When you did, you felt you cheated Kodak.
I believe the film speed was 200 ASA, and yes, that - ASA film speed - is becoming a foreign-sounding term. With the Yashica you looked "down" into the viewfinder to see your image, which was "backward." That's because it wasn't a "through the lens camera."
The first 35 mm camera I ever owned was a Mamiya Sekor 500 TL with a removable 50mm lens. Manual focus, but you could choose whether to match a dial inside the viewfinder with the shutter speed or the f-stop. Like the model stated: the fastest shutter speed was 500th of a second. Pretty impressive. I showed the camera to Lynn Carmack. He told me that the auto dial kept a photographer from thinking. He preferred a total manual camera. A photographer had to "think" to use it.
On the Mamiya Sekor I could push film to 800 ASA. Amazing! Then came an Argus of some type and a 1.8 50 mm lens. Really fast! And the Argus pushed film to 1600 ASA.
My first venture into Nikons came with a Nikon EL. I purchased a $250 motor drive that was an extra attachment. It allowed me to shoot up to 4 shots in 4 seconds. The EL lasted for a very long time. The battery was tucked away behind the mirror. The body was solid metal, heavy and sturdy. The owner's manual was a small notebook that fit in your shirt pocket.
A couple other Nikons came and went - a Nikon F, F2 and an F3. These offered ASAs of 3200, a hot shoe for a flash, and a shutter speed as low as 2 seconds and as fast as 2000th of a second. All these, however were manual focus. Total workhorse cameras that could do anything you asked them to do.
The first digital camera I ever owned for serious photography was a Nikon D70. I wasn't entirely convinced I was an artist any longer. There was something wrong with not having film to load. Plus, the camera included a "fake" shutter sound so you felt as if you had film. Weird. The memory card was twice the size of the card I use today and was very limited in the number of photos you could take.
Then came a Nikon D80 and later a D90, boasting enormous megapixel sizes. Each owner's manual had more pages than the previous one.
Then, in December I purchased a Nikon D7000. Two memory cards, megapixels who knows how many times the size of the D70, auto-focus video capability... and a 326-page owner's manual. I'm one quarter of the way through it. Lynn Carmack might have liked this camera because you have to think to use it. There are so many choice that thinking is necessary.
I have a couple rolls of film in a drawer, somewhere. Doubt if I'll never use them.
My dad once told me that when his father bought his first tractor, he kept one horse for a while, because, "there are some things you can do with a horse that you can't do with a tractor."
I suppose, like a horse, there are some things you can do with film that you can't do with digital. More than likely, I'd like to think there are some things I can do with film that I can't do with digital.
Well, this is a long way from the BGSU darkroom. I understand the room is now a large closet.
And, I also understand that Kodak teeters on the brink.
I really must push these negative thoughts aside and continue reading my D7000 owner's manual. Negative thoughts? What's a negative?
