What really matters when choosing a camera?

Twenty years ago I used three cameras most of the time.

A Leica M3, a Rollei 35 and a Rolleiflex 3.5F. You could not find three more different pieces of equipment, with fitness for purpose dictating that there should be three rather than one.

While I’m not that sure about the level of objective analysis which went into the buying decision, now that I think it through there were just five criteria dictating the choice of each. Those same five criteria apply today, though now I manage to get by with two cameras rather than three.

They are:

• Speed
• Bulk
• Noise
• Definition
• Price and it’s bedfellow, fear.

British and proud of it, 1976. M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX.

It’s useful to keep these in mind when making the buying decision.

Speed means speed of operation. Back then the Leica was the street shooter without equal. A flip of the thumb advanced the film, the shutter was quiet (if not as whisper quiet as blinded Leica worshippers would have you believe; for that listen to a twin lens Rolleiflex), lens changes were fast and you were generally unobtrusive thanks to the blisteringly fast manual rangefinder focusing.

Bulk is an issue if you travel a lot and for that the Leica, small as it was, was simply too bulky. That’s where the Rollei 35 came in, with its collapsible lens, silent shutter and barely larger than a film cassette or two. Mine traversed the world many times and served me well, after the obligatory breakdown out of the box. Rollei’s Singapore craftsmen had yet to learn about quality control.

Noise and unobtrusiveness go hand-in-hand for the candid photographer, so the Leica’s quiet shutter did the trick.

Definition and freedom from grain became issues with any Leica enlargement greater than 8″ x 10″. For large smooth areas of sky or skin you had go to the next negative size, which came with the Rolleiflex 3.5F, maybe the finest camera ever to leave the factory of Franke & Heidecke. 16″ x 20″ (that was ‘big’ back then) was no problem with the Rollei TLR.

Price and fear are bedfellows. The Leica was expensive, the lenses more so, and you were always scared of getting mugged, whacked or otherwise resented or abused. Once the Japanese SLRs took over the 35mm market the fame of the Leica – and hence the ability morons had to recognize it – faded and with it the Fear quotient. But it was always there. Not for one moment did I care if someone pinched my Rollei 35 and the 3.5F was pretty much a studio camera.

These thoughts came to mind in discussions with a friend whose Canon Digital Rebel finally gave up the ghost and for which an urgent replacement was needed. Now this friend does the occasional wedding – surely there can be no field of photography more greatly imbued with the fear of failure – yet reliability simply did not come up in our talks, any more than it features in the list above. Bottom line is that all the better cameras from the big names are reliable in all but combat conditions. Rather, the focus of our discussion was on noise. You simply cannot have a DSLR machine-gunning away in a quiet church where a sacred ceremony is underway. When all was said and done, my friend opted for Canon’s 40D which would both take her existing Canon lenses and offers a ‘silent mode’ in Live View whereby the mirror is moved out of the way and the LCD becomes the viewfinder. Not ideal as LCD viewfinders are genuinely awful, but when you hear how quiet the shutter is in this mode you might well conclude that the trade-off makes sense.

When buying my 5D I was much more studied about what I wanted than in days past. And because I no longer wanted to mess about with clunky medium format gear, I wanted the best possible definition out of a smaller package. On the other hand, I realized that small size was not consonant with that dictate, so my choice was pretty much limited to full frame digital. Further, I wanted my wide lenses wide, not cropped. Cropped sensors have improved greatly since then but 30 months ago the difference between Canon’s cropped and full frame sensors were significant, not least in their ability to hide noise at higher ISO settings. One look at the definition of the images, aided by some good, realistically priced lenses from Canon, suggested that the 5D could replace both 35mm and medium format film, and such proved to be the case. The ease of use of a 35mm SLR with the definition of medium format film. Sweet. I bought one. It was only one of two full frame DSLRs available, the other being Canon’s very expensive 1Ds.

And I was no longer particularly fixated on street snaps which, in any case, had become much easier to make as cameras became ubiquitous. No one cared if you pointed a camera at them.

So my priority order for the Five Criteria had changed.

Originally it was as listed above. Now it was:

• Definition
• Noise
• Price and it’s bedfellow, fear.
• Bulk
• Speed

Definition was A Number One and Price now mattered – it irked me to have so much capital tied up in a hobby and I resolved to avoid that when changing equipment. Fear was not an issue – I stick black electrician’s tape over the obnoxious ‘Canon’ logos and go on about my unobtrusive way. Noise still mattered. The 5D is hardly ideal but it beats a Pentax 6×7 or a Rolleiflex 6003/6008, which sound like one of Krupp’s finest when they go off. Bulk worked out well. The 5D is not small but any time you get medium format film quality in a 35mm SLR package, buy it and run. Price never mattered. It’s not that I’m Rockefeller but judicious buying and a disciplined approach to life makes the price shock that much less noticeable. This is one of my key interests after all, not a passing fling. And as with Porsche drivers, you get two kinds – those who love the gear and those who can drive. I’ll let you decide which camp I am in.

But I still need two cameras. When it comes to something pocketable which can go anywhere I use the Panasonic LX-1. Sure, it has lots of limitations (needs a viewfinder, shutter lag, grainy/noisy images) but so did the Rollei 35. But it more than suffices in those times when you simply cannot haul the 5D around.

My two cents worth of advice suggest that you make a like list prioritizing your needs then choose the camera which is the best match. Forget about brands. The major makes offer so much choice that it does not have to be Canon or Nikon – just choose something that scores most on your short list of essentials. That way the noise of brand loyalty (a dumb idea if ever I heard of one) is silenced. And do not discount the idea of more than one camera. Horses for courses and all that.

Antiques, 2006. 5D, 24-105L, IS on, 1/30, f/6.3, ISO 200. Processed in Lightroom.

Not pretty.

Money quote “I can’t think of any camera – or for that matter any electronic device I have recently used – that so thoroughly fails to live up to its potential and its heritage.”

If the name was not disclosed, you would be hard pressed to tell whether the author – who strikes me as experienced and credible – was talking about Apple’s wireless technology or …. well, read it and see.

Click the picture to read the article.

My vote is for Apple’s rushed-to-market, shoddy and undebugged wireless technology, but this photojournalist might differ.

Finally an eyeball-to-eyeball competitor for the 5D.

Nikon has announced a full frame DSLR, the D700, priced at $3,000.

Like the 5D, this model drops the extra battery grip and bazzillion frames per second feature for realistic specifications that will work for all amateurs and all but sports-oriented pros.

It will not be lost on Canon that the D700 has sensor dust removal – the only gripe I have with the 5D. Oh! and a better LCD screen. And a built-in flash.

Will I upgrade to 5D Mark II which will have like specifications? Naaah. I would rather keep using the sensor cleaner and save the $1,500 the upgrade would run me.

Now let’s hope that the forthcoming full frame Sony DSLR (probably with the same sensor they sell to Nikon for their D3/D700 models) will drop the price to $2,000.

We are all guilty of it.

There’s a car that is one of the fastest in the world. It is exceptionally affordable. It is supremely reliable, has very high engineering standards and comes in red, if you want. It’s possibly the fastest production car made yet the manufacturer cannot give them away because the brand is wrong. It connotes nothing so much as beer-bellied ol’ boys at the ball park on a lazy Sunday afternoon. Not the image you quite want for something that is meant to advertise “I am single, available and sexy”.

That car, of course, is Chevrolet’s Corvette. A Ferrari with like performance and looks (OK, like performance) is five times the price.

A branding failure, no matter how much GM tells you it’s there to reinforce the message of Chevy excellence. I wouldn’t be seen dead in one.

It’s the same with watches. We have all been told a thousand times that a quartz Timex keeps time as well as anything, and that is correct, yet I have two manually wound timepieces in the desk drawer which cost egregious sums to acquire and are anything but accurate, not to mention needing constant, costly maintenance. I wear neither so there they are, waiting for …. I know not what. But the makers, unlike Chevy, got the branding dead right. Low production volumes, word of mouth advertising, scarcity, exclusivity. That’s what makes a brand.

It used to be that way with cameras.

The esteemed brands which shared the qualities of those watches were few. In the ’50s the Speed Graphic (crude and effective) and the Linhof (anything but crude, and equally effective) ruled, but only one was a brand in the sense of this piece. It was not the Speed Graphic.

Rolleiflex has always been a brand and remains so to this day. Any number of great photographers used waist-level Rolleis, ungainly as they may be, and some great studio work is being done to this day with their ne plus ultra medium format, single lens reflexes. I owned one of these nuclear deterrents many years (a 6003 Pro) and it was as easy to use as any medium format camera can ever claim to be easy to use. And it was a real Brand. When you locked that Zeiss Planar or Distagon lens on the body you were not the sort of person to be messed with.

In the ’60s there was really only one 35mm brand. The Leica. Cartier-Bresson used one. That’s all you had to know and no advertisements were needed to remind you of that.

The final years of great brands were the ’70s. A fading Leica gave way to the Nikon F which is to the Leica like Hulk Hogan is to Audrey Hepburn. Neither breaks easily, but one also doubles as a blunt weapon. Thanks to an America which appears yet again to have invaded the wrong country, Viet Nam gave the Nikon F its baptism. Thereafter there were no excuses needed for its Far East provenance. It had become a brand.

Then something funny started to happen to the whole brand idea. Maybe taking a leaf out of Chevy’s book they reasoned “We have the Corvette. Why not make some econoboxes. The brand might wear off.” So Canon, Nikon et al started making genuinely horrid consumer cameras, emblazoned with their name in a prominent, contrasting shade on the front. Now Aunt Maude could make sure everyone knew that she too, like Donald McCullin, used a Nikon.

Others came at it from the opposite direction. So desperate was Olympus to be seen that they gave British birdman Eric Hosking several sets of gear to displace his aging Zeiss Contarex. It worked. The former maker of toys was suddenly being taken seriously. Pentax did the same with David Bailey and Sam Haskins while Minolta did it with David Hamilton. More recently, new brands have piggybacked on their reputations in other fields. Ricoh and Casio make great copiers, so why not cameras? Samsung of TV fame? Why, cameras of course. And there’s no need to go on about Sony and HP.

So brand identity, in a strange way, lost its elitist leanings. First, counterculture chic dictated that the rich be seen wearing Swatch watches and using disposable cameras (for their equally disposable photographs). Second, who was to know whether your Leica was the cheapy Panny from China with the red dot, or the more-money-than-sense M8 (probably also from China but they aren’t telling)? Labels, in other words, had obsoleted brands. If you can get millions to buy your Benetton emblazoned T shirt so that you can go motor racing, then clearly the label means more than the brand.

So rather than further rue the demise of Great Brands, let me just let you gaze at some of the finest, most of which I have been fortunate to use and exult in.

Much anticipation leads to a failed product.

My primary interest in the Sigma DP1 was as a street shooter – meaning minimal shutter lag.

Well, I’m afraid they blew it, as the always objective DP Review reports.

Looks like I will be sticking with the Panasonic LX-1 for now.

What a disappointment.

Still, it never hurts to be curious:

Bert the Border Terrier checks out Mr. Lizard.