Jeff's Favourite Cameras

Argus C3, 1939 sensor: 35mm film focal length: 50mm lens speed: f/3.5 shutter: leaf viewfinder: tunnel focusing: rangefinder metering: none used: 1971-1973 "The Brick" was low-priced and produced in huge numbers, making it one of the most popular cameras in history. My mother took one with her to college in the '50s. In 1971, that camera became my first. Two tiny peepholes run through the stout plastic box; one is a cloudy viewfinder, the other an even dimmer rangefinder. The shutter has to be cocked independ-ently of advancing the film, so it's easy to make double exposures inadvertently. It lacks any kind of light sensor/meter so you have to use the Sunny-16 rule to calculate exposure. Looking back, it was a perfect learning camera because with all these operations split apart, it offers a master-class in the mechanics of making an exposure.	Zeiss Ikon Contaflex II, 1954 sensor: 35mm film focal length: 50mm lens speed: f/2.8 shutter: leaf viewfinder: thru the lens focusing: split screen metering: manual, uncoupled used: 1973-1976 My father's navy camera. It took pictures of Puerto Rico and the Panama Canal and then all of our family's baby/birthday pictures. In 1973, I was taught its ways. This is a beautifully machined camera with an outstanding lens, but what I like most about it are the sounds it makes: the purr of its leaf shutter, and the slap of its reflex mirror. Also the soft ratchet of its film advance which is accomplished with two and half stiff turns of a knob. Stiff, because turning that knob also cocks the shutter, and lowers the mirror back into place so that you can see through the viewfinder again. Take your picture and "whacka" you're done, the view-finder goes black... until you take the camera away from your face and work your wrist to turn that knob.	Olympus OM-1, 1974 sensor: 35mm film focal length: 50mm* lens speed: f/1.8 shutter: focal plane viewfinder: thru the lens focusing: split screen metering: manual, coupled used: 1976-'83, '98-2002 The first camera I could call my own. I saved my earnings as a paperboy and bought it new, in 1976, for around $425 Canadian dollars if I remember correctly. That's about $1,900 in 2021 dollars! The OM-1 was state-of-the art. Actually, that moniker belonged to the OM-2 because of that camera's advanced auto-exposure system, but I couldn't afford an OM-2 and actually preferred the simplicity and robustness of the OM-1's fully manual design. The OM's were revolutionary for their small size, and large, bright viewfinders. I also liked that, unlike all other contemporary SLRs, the shutter speed dial is on the lens barrel rather than on top of the camera.
Olympus Pen EE, 1961 sensor: 35mm half-frame focal length: 40mm lens speed: f/3.5 shutter: leaf viewfinder: plain focusing: fixed metering: programmed used: 1988, 2009-2010 The germ of my collection of half-frame cameras. I wasn't collecting classic cameras yet, that would come much later, but this camera certainly started me in that direction. I bought it from a pawnshop in Vancouver, 1988. I was working far from my home in Ontario for the summer, living out of a backpack, in a tent, planting trees in northern BC. I hadn't packed my OM-1 out west. Too big. Too precious. On a whim, I bought this camera and a few rolls of slide film to document my adventure. I was pleasantly surprised by the resulting photos: sharp and well exposed.	Canon PowerShot S110, 2001 sensor: 2.1 MP focal length: 35-70mm lens speed: f/2.8-f/4 shutter: leaf/electronic viewfinder: tunnel/screen focusing: auto metering: program/AP/SP used: 2002-2007 The sexiest camera of the early digital age. Barely bigger than a credit card. My first digital camera. I loved its tiny size. I slipped it into my pocket every time I left the house. This suited —and accelerated— the observational shooting style I was fond of. In the early 1990s, I'd experimented with the matchbox-sized Minolta-16 so that I could always have a camera with me. That experiment failed, but the S110 revived it. I started shooting voraciously. In 2002, I stopped adding photos to my shoebox of prints and negs, and began filling my computer's iPhoto library instead.	Canon PowerShot SD1000, 2007 sensor: 7 MP focal length: 35-105mm lens speed: f/2.8-f/4.9 shutter: leaf/electronic viewfinder: tunnel/screen focusing: auto metering: program/AP/SP used: 2007-2012 2007. I don't remember why I retired the S110. Digital sensors and image processors had continued to evolve. Perhaps I was seduced by the numbers. Not that the image quality of the S110 was bad. I didn't print my work. I only shared it on the "World Wide Web," so sensor size wasn't an issue for me. And truth be told, I think the dynamic range of the S110 is as good or better than the SD1000's. I think the even tinier form factor of the SD1000 captured my imagination. And it had a much bigger screen. The tiny tunnel viewfinders of each Canon are unusable. I had long since shifted to arm's-length shooting, and the SD1000's screen really helped this.
Olympus OM-2, 1975 sensor: 35mm film focal length: 50mm* lens speed: f/1.4 shutter: focal plane viewfinder: thru the lens focusing: split screen metering: aperture priority used: 2009-2011 In 2009, I was working in a 1-hour photo lab. This gave me discounts on film, processing and printing. Also, a discount on classes at a long established photography school. I signed up for a course in street photography and decided to return to shooting film. Street shooting would require a livelier camera than I owned, one with auto-exposure AND a snappy shutter button. I knew that film cameras were more responsive than all but the most expensive digital cameras. They were also now dirt cheap. I found an OM-2 with a few lenses, TTL flash, and motor drive on Ebay for $200 —a kit that would have cost thousands in its day, for 44 of those 1976 dollars.	Olympus Pen EED, 1967 sensor: 35mm half-frame focal length: 45mm lens speed: f/1.7 shutter: leaf viewfinder: plain focusing: scale metering: programmed used: 2009-2011 I loved shooting film again. Not only was it more fun, the small cost of each exposure enforced a discipline to making exposures which strengthened them. The bloat of my digital photography was revealed. I had tried using my old Pen EE for street photography, but its slower lens wasn't up to the task of shooting in all lighting conditions. I delved into Ebay again in search of other classic cameras. The next camera I tried would turn out to be one my favourites. The Pen EED let me shoot in low light, save money on film, and it has a brilliantly sharp lens. Something about this camera is special. It's so capable, so simple to use, and just the right size in my hands.	Olympus Pen FT, 1966 sensor: 35mm half-frame focal length: 56mm* lens speed: f/1.4 shutter: rotary focal plane viewfinder: thru the lens focusing: micro prism metering: manual, uncoupled used: 2009-2011 As you can tell, I'm infatuated with Olympus cameras. They are technically innovative, beautifully designed, well built, and a joy to use. To my growing collection of cameras, I next added what many consider to be the most beautiful camera ever made, the Olympus Pen FT. This Pen combines the best characteristics of all the cameras I had previously used: small size, fast/sharp lenses, interchangeable lenses, through-the-lens viewing, quiet shutter, and half-frame economy. Pen F lenses were harder to come by than OM lenses, but I bought a few. I also found the FT/OM lens adapt-er which was a boon because, by this point in time, I was forming a small collection of OM lenses too.
Olympus 35 RC, 1970 sensor: 35mm film focal length: 42mm lens speed: f/2.8 shutter: leaf viewfinder: full indicators focusing: rangefinder metering: shutter priority used: 2010-2011 In 2010, I finally found a good copy of this tiny marvel. It packs all the punch of a full-sized camera: automatic exposure, manual exposure, full settings indicators in the viewfinder, and rangefinder focusing. It also has a fast, sharp lens. Olympus made several interesting small rangerfinders in the '70s, some of them with faster lenses than the RC, but none were as tiny or as versatile as the RC. My father was a "serial collector" of compact range-finders in the '70s. He would own one for a while, then trade it in and buy another. I got to experience the famous Canonet G-III and Konica C35 during this phase of his. I suspect he owned an RC for a time too, but I can't definitively remember this.	Olympus 35 SP, 1969 sensor: 35mm film focal length: 42mm lens speed: f/1.7 shutter: leaf viewfinder: EV indicator focusing: rangefinder metering: programmed, spot used: 2010-2011 This is a big camera. Not really; just big by Olympus' standards. But its size allows for a legendary lens, and some fancy metering. The SP includes a spot meter, the holy grail of light meters. A spot meter lets a photographer dig a proper exposure out of difficult lighting situations. Sophisticated and so handy. The SP's larger body also allows for a very bright rangefinder. The SP focuses quickly and more easily than the RC. Some think it focuses more easily than a Leica, the most famous of all rangefinder cameras. For some reason I didn't use the SP as frequently as I did my other cameras. I think I preferred my smaller cameras for my long photo rambles. The SP became my "assignment" camera, the one I grabbed for discrete events such as roller derby bouts or cycling races.	Olympus Pen D3, 1965 sensor: 35mm half-frame focal length: 45mm lens speed: f/1.7 shutter: leaf viewfinder: plain focusing: scale metering: manual, uncoupled used: 2011 In 2011, I added the final camera to my collection, one last Pen. During my collecting years, I bought and used several other cameras not shown here, including: an Olympus Trip 35, Olympus Pen EES, Olympus Chrome Six III (medium format), and a Yashica 44 (twin lens reflex). I also used an Olympus Infinity Stylus I in 1991 to document a cycling adventure in NWT. The D3 is an early Pen design. Once the experimental Pen EE became a wild commercial success —the Kodak Instamatic of its day and place— Olympus expanded the Pen product line with fuller featured models. I relish the full exposure controls and very fast lens of the D3. Now I could (and did) "pen" in low light!
Canon PowerShot S95, 2010 sensor: 10 MP focal length: 28-105mm lens speed: f/2-f/4.9 shutter: leaf/electronic viewfinder: screen focusing: auto metering: program/AP/SP used: 2012-2019 In 2011, I moved from the big city to a rural area. My daily street photography ceased and so did my film photography. In 2012, my girlfriend and I travelled for three weeks in Italy. I decided to buy a new digicam instead of packing the RC or EED and two dozen rolls of film. I was still using the SD1000 for general photo-graphy but it was showing its age. I bought the Canon S95, a premium compact with a slightly larger sensor and slightly faster performance than the budget SD1000. It was a good choice for the "vacation street photography" shooting style I'd developed since leaving the city: keep camera in hand, power it on in photo-rich areas, and shoot with one hand while walking and trying to keep up with my GF.	Fujifilm XF10, 2018 sensor: APS-C, 24 MP focal length: 28mm lens speed: f/2.8 shutter: leaf/electronic viewfinder: screen focusing: auto, snap metering: program/AP/SP used: 2019-present Digicams have a short lifespan. In 2019, the S95 became hobbled by dust sucked into the internals of its zoom lens. Sigh. Time to buy another camera. Despite its small size, the XF10 is not a digicam; it has a large, APS-C sensor. It is a dream for an old street shooter like me. I have it set to function like one of my beloved zone focus cameras. I tap the screen to focus, and it holds that focus until I tap again. Why didn't I buy the X100, Fuji's model that simulates a classic rangefinder in every way? I just couldn't afford it, and the XF10 works better one-handed, like the S95. As much as I love bringing a camera to my eye, I've become an arm's-length guy.
		© Jeff Hohner, January 2022