Which Camera to settle on?

FTb

I’ve been pondering this question for a while now, as I begin to take stock of the cameras I own. I intend to cull the herd, as it were now that I have landed squarely on the line of lenses (Zeiss) I like and want to build upon and invest in. I mean, I like cameras just as much as the nect guy, maybe more, as objects to be enjoyed for their peculiarities and beauty. But enough is enough. Now I am carefully evaluating the bodies upon which I can mount those beautiful Zeiss lenses. Below I’ll just ‘think out loud’ about various cameras I own and how they fit into this long term plan of mine.

Detail Note

I love manual focusing lenses. I love to manually focus when I shoot. It feels like I’m actually working the camera,  maintaining control, and getting closer to the heart of the image. Not that I don’t use auto-focus, I have and often do, but when the circumstances allow it, manual focus is my first choice. I spoke about this a bit with Mike Peters, who shared with me a personal tidbit: he has a specific prescriptive right-eye lens in his set of ‘photography glasses’ that help him manually focus. I’m gonna do that, I think, especially because as I get older, achieving accurate focus is more and more challenging (especially with narrow DOF apertures). I’m having a harder and harder time with viewfinders that don’t provide me with some kind of focusing assistance in their design. The most accurate focusing for me is with a Rangefinder, which does split the image, which you align as you focus. I can use those viewfinders consistently to achieve the focus I desire. Thus, my ideal camera should have a split-prism viewfinder, but as you can see below, not all have them. This is becoming more and more of an issue as I refine and hone the kinds of images I want to make.

On to the cameras I have used or own:

FTb

Canon FTb

Pros:

1. Feels like home, it’s the make and model I cut my teeth on.
2. Easy to use; there are a minimum of controls, and they are easy to adjust.
3. Simple to maintain; give it a cleaning every few years and it will last. If the light-seal foam goes, there are kits you can buy on the internet to replace the old foam. It takes a beating; I’ve dropped mine a couple times (it’s dented) and it works fine.
4. Lenses are cheap and plentiful plentiful on eBay, but their price has risen with the adapters that allow them to be used on micro 4/3 cameras.
5. Because you can switch out lenses, you have options
6. Small enough not to attract attention on the street

Cons:

1. Obviously discontinued, I own two copies so I have parts for repair. But these bodies are 40 years old.
2. Relatively low highest shutter speed (1/1000th), which matters if you wanna shoot f/1.4 or f/2.0 outside (which I often do)
3. Sometimes a little clumsy to handle; ergonomics are not the best
4. Cannot use different focusing screens
5. Cannot mount Zeiss lenses

Canonet

Canon Canonet

Pros:

1. Small, easy to carry around
2. Easy to use; there are a minimum of controls, and they are easy to adjust.
3. 40mm focal length, great for the street
4. Split image focusing; even though the finder isn’t the clearest, I still find it easy to focus.

Cons:

1. Obviously discontinued, brittle. But cheap to replace
2. Sometimes a little clumsy to handle; ergonomics are not the best
3. One fixed lens
4. Good for the street, but little else
5. Really just a specialty camera. Quirky.

5D

Canon 5D

Pros:

1. Digital, which gives me options with every image
2. Great image quality; plenty enough megapixels for me
3. Uses all EOS lenses, which means I can shoot pretty much everything I wish
4. Uses same set of accessories as my 10D and my wife’s 40D, so I get bang for my buck.
5. Zeiss makes a line of lenses, so I get access to the best
6. Does give focus confirmation for manual focus

Cons:

1. Digital, so some day the innards will fail, and the whole system will probably not be worth fixing.
2. Ergonomics are not the best, but they ARE familiar to me
3. I use it for landscape quite a bit, but this model is NOT waterproof (sigh)
4. Too big and attraction-generating to use on the street; the camera is HUGE on the street
5. Almost impossible to manually focus without a specific focusing screen, and that particular screen  has been back-ordered from Adorama since June of this year. In other words, Canon may have stopped making it.

EOS 3

Canon EOS 3

Pros:

1. Controls are familiar, Canon’s cameras all work alike
2. Uses the EOS lens line, which means it has access to the Zeiss ZE lenses and all the lenses I have for my 5D and my wife’s 40D
3. Has focus confirmation when lens is ‘in focus’ (sometimes not very accurate, though)

Cons:

1. Discontinued, so finding parts (like remote releases and, um, focusing screens, is difficult or impossible)
2. Sometimes a little clumsy to handle; ergonomics are not the best
3. Hard to focus manually even with confirmation.
4. A little on the big side for street work

I really want to like this camera, btw.

Nikon F100

Nikon F100

Pros:

1. Ergonomics are outstanding; this is, by far, the best modern camera I have used. Canon, you should be ashamed of yourself in this area to have the best modern camera I have used be a 10-year old Nikon film camera.
2. #1 is why I keep coming back to this beastie
3. It is still available, so, in theory, parts are still available, like remote shutter releases and focusing screens
4. Zeiss makes lenses for this camera, the ZF line.
5. It has focus confirmation, but it is a little more clumsy to use than Canons’ system. A little.
6. You can still buy focusing screens.

Cons:

1. It’s not a Canon, so nothing I have works with it. I have actually never shot this camera with a modern Nikkor lens. I only have older Nikkor manual focus lenses.
2. When shooting with older manual focus lenses in manual exposure mode, it is very hard to know whether your exposure is spot on, because the aperture must be set manually and the coupling doesn’t register the current aperture, so the meter doesn’t read accurately. Or, on the other hand, I might be using the bloody thing wrong. Footnote: I just discovered over the weekend that the F100 I bought used from Craiglist in Sept. ’09 is BROKEN, and rhus the trouble I have had with metering it is not the camera. Big Sigh. This camera is now off to KEH for repair, because if I ever want to sell it, you know, it has to work.
3. Almost impossible to manually focus without confirmation with the default screen, and the confirmation registers by a dot in the finder, but if you’re looking at the dot, you’re NOT looking at the image. At least with Canon’s focus confirmation, the confirmation registers in the frame, not outside the frame.

I love the way this camera feels in my hand. If I had unlimited funds, I’d sell all my Canon EOS gear and switch entirely to Nikon. But that is not my current situation. But this camera draws me in for a film SLR.

Rio, March 2010, Bessa R2a

Voightlander R2a

Pros:

1. Light, handy, easy to use, easy to carry.
2. Ideal for the street. Unconscious for me to use.
3. Easy to focus.
4. Zeiss makes lenses for this camera, the ZM line.
5. Oh, yeah, and some company named Leica makes lenses this camera can mount.
6. Perfect for the street.

Cons:

1. It’s a rangefinder, so you can’t effectively do macro, telephoto, or use a polarizer. It’s a street camera, that’s it, and if I didn’t do street photography, I wouldn’t use one.

Contax RTS II, Zeiss 50mm 1.4

Contax RTS II

Ok, so this was the camera I used for the post the other day where I was a little ‘cute’ about what I was shooting. This combo is an experimental replacement for the FTb in my bag.

Pros:

1. Ergonomics are very good; handles well and focuses easily.
2. Uses Zeiss lenses manufactured specifically for the camera.
3. These lenses can be used on Canon EOS gear with an adapter.
4. You can still find focusing screens, even though the camera is discontinued.
5. The bodies are inexpensive and seemingly plentiful
6. This would sit in my bag along with the Bessa to get the shots I couldn’t get with the Bessa and be able to use Zeiss glass.
7. Electronic shutter, which allows for higher fastest shutter speed.

Cons:

1. The Zeiss lenses are available but a bit pricey.
2. It is, after all, discontinued

So, do I even invest in Zeiss ZE lenses if I can’t use my 5D to manually focus? And if I can’t manually focus with the 5D, does being able to use the Contax lenses on that camera even matter?

There ya go.