I didn’t think I was providing new information or new experiences talking about film cameras, as that’s what I grew up with it and the equipment that I discovered and learned photography with.
As time went on, I discovered that many people — an entire generation in fact — were more familiar with digital photography than analog photography. Their first camera was a digital camera, and through deeper discovery into photography, had uncovered photography’s roots in silver halide emulsion.
The huge benefit of the digital photography boom of the past 15 years is that many people are unloading their film-based photo equipment and transitioned over to digital. This caused a glut of analog cameras in the second-hand market, causing this equipment to go for a fraction of their value. Some cameras retained their value, like Hasselblad and Leica, but many popular cameras could be had for a paltry, but reasonable, sum.
Many manufacturers were caught out in the digital photography gold rush with no resources to invest coming up with digital solutions for their brand, and ended up merging (Minolta, Konica or going out of business or shuttering their brand (Bronica).
Many brands continued on with their film camera offerings. Leica didn’t introduce a digital version of their flagship M series rangefinder cameras until 2006, and to this day, still offer the M7 and MP rangefinder film cameras.
In the last few years though, there has been a rediscovery, and to an extreme, a pushback against digital cameras, mainly because it has become a megapixel race between the two dominant manufacturers, Canon and Nikon Some would say that the megapixel race has stifled innovation in other areas to the detriment of the consumer. Instead of pouring resources into R&D in other areas, they have focused their energies on sensors and auto-focus within their existing camera line-up, but have done little in the areas of lens quality or build, or introducing revolutionary camera designs. They have adhered to the single lens reflex (SLR) design for their flagship cameras, which has a limitation of functionality, weight, and size due to the use of a mirror box design, size of the mirror box, and the size of the sensor.
In my opinion, the most revolutionary designs have been the mirrorless interchangeable lens cameras (MILC). The designs have eschewed the mirror box, and is essentially a hybrid of a rangefinder camera and an SLR. It has the minimalist structure of a rangefinder without the coupled, optical rangefinder eyepiece, but provides through-the-lens (TTL) viewing capabilities with an electronic viewfinder (EVF).
Camera manufacturers such as Fujifilm, Panasonic, Olympus, and Sony have made their top-of-the-line cameras as MILCs, where Nikon, Canon, and even Leica have dipped their toe in the waters of MILC, with the latter two having a single model of MILC, though it appears that neither Nikon nor Canon are entirely ready to devote a lot of resources into MILC designs as part of the camera lineup targeting enthusiasts or pros. Fujifilm, Sony, and Olympus are clearly emphasizing the benefits of size and weight of the MILC with quality sensors and new quality lens builds to entice long-time Canon and Nikon users away from their heavy and bulky equipment.
While the benefits of MILCs are clear for the consumer looking for an interchangeable lens camera, the price factor is preventing wider adoption in North America and Europe. Entry-level MILCs are priced almost the same as DSLRs, but would need to be lower for wider adoption.
The consumer has had as many options as ever when choosing a camera — from smartphone cameras of varying features and megapixels but not much in the way of quality optics, to compact cameras, to zoom lens reflex, to MILCs, to DSLRs — as there have ever been in the history of photography.
The focus on digital photography has allowed me to acquire a lot of the film cameras that I coveted when I was younger, but could not afford on a meager photography student’s budget.
So, thanks to digital photography, I’ve rediscovered photography in some way, but more so I’ve reminisced about a past chapter of my life…and that’s what this blog is pretty much about, as well as all the equipment that I’ve been acquiring along the way.
