The camera I have most memories traveling around the
world hanging from my neck, out of dozens of vintage film cameras I have, is
the 1960 Nikon F. Not only has this camera redefined photojournalism, but its
ruggedness has been proven unequaled by war zone photographers. I have had the
camera for more than 40 years, ran miles of film through it, never needed
repair, and the Photomic light meter still works perfectly.
The camera I have no memories by is the Nikon FG. A
friend gave it to me in the 1990s when his father passed away and he found it
in the attic. It is the most unattractive Nikon film camera in my opinion and
by “Nikonians”. It is plastic, too small for my hands, too light for staying in
focus when I need to turn quickly for a street moment, and it needs batteries
to function – a non-no for me! Plus, it has the most uncomfortable rewinding
lever, made of two folding pieces that resembles a broken finger.
So, I decided to load the most loved Nikon F and the
least loved Nikon FG with 100 ASA B&W film and go to the July 4th
Frontier Arts Show and the street parade in downtown Prescott.
Here are the two cameras
The lens on the Nikon F is the venerable Nikkor-S
Auto Non-AI 50mm 1.4 1950’s version.
The lens on the FG is a 1967 Nikkor-P Auto 180mm 2.8, originally Non-Ai but factory upgrade to AI. I wanted to see how the Aperture Priority of the FG metering will work with the primitive coating on that 60 year old lens.
… I saw a friend downtown, a connoisseur in arts who
knew about my proclivity to ignore parades and look for photos of people.
“Any photos of the parade?” he asked.
“Not yet” I said.
Photos
with the Nikon F and 50mm 1.4 Nikkor-S Auto Lens
On My 13 2024, a memorial structure was erected for
the Granite Mountain 19 Hotshots, firefighters who died fighting the June 2013
wildfire. Given the hot weather of the desert, Arizona is constantly at risk
for fires that spread quickly and firefighters have a special place in the
hearts of the residents. The memorial
consists of a beautiful statue immortalizing firefights, as well as the names
of the fallen Hotshots carved into two huge granite slabs.
The sun was positioned to display a perfect shadow
of the statue on the granite and I wanted to test the Photomic meter’s ability
of capturing the tonal progression between the statue, the shadow and the
bright white granite.
Just as I was pressing the shutter, a woman sat
behind the statue and her face was beautifully framed by the curvature of the
statue’s legs. Plus, there were artists’ kiosks in the background placing the
shot in the context of the July 4th Art show and parade.
When I developed the roll of film, I was delighted
by the lens and light meter – the photo has that vintage feel, the soft tonal
transitions yet sharpness of the lens, all bringing back memories of photos I
have taken on four continents.
The second photo I chose from The Nikon F is
actually from the parade, again testing the light and shade transitions via the
50mm lens. I waited till the group of women wearing frontier day attires bass
by and get into the bright light to focus on the man, again following them holding
a shotgun. And the result was as I had hoped – pleasant bokeh and depth of
field, a lot of action, and a body posture by the man in black one can see in
19th century photographs from the Southwest.
Photos
with the Nikon FG and Nikkor-P Auto 180mm lens
The main reason I opted for the 180mm lens is that
is long and heavier (880 grams) than any Nikon 180mm lens made after 1970. I
felt that I could stabilise the light and small FG camera better and maintain a
good focus. I was wrong – the plastic Nikon never fit well in my hands and
rewinding the film with that “broken finger”, two piece winding lever did not
allow for quick follow up shots.
However, I saw a painter working on a new work in
front of his kiosk on the other side of the road where the parade was taking
place. He was about 35 meters away (as I gauged by the focusing ring of the
lens) and he was not moving. He was in total shade so I opened the lens wide to
f2.8 to test the Aperture Priority metering of the camera.
When I looked at the developed pellicule, I could
see the painter was very dark, there were flaring corners on the left side of
the frame, but I liked the composition. So I did quite a bit of dodging to bring
the painter out, and burning to lighten out the canvas he was painting on.
While the metering is not the greatest and the tonal
transitions are rough, the finished photo (atop the page) is a tribute to Nikon’s
lens. Even at f2.8 and not being multi-coated, the sharpness and definition of
the lens produced a photo of the painter that looks, well, almost like a
painting!
This second photo is about the parade, taken at an aperture of f8. Again, the two ladies were too dark and the street and horses too bright. Not only I did not enjoy handling the FG, I found the metering not conducive to variable light transitions hence creative planning. And the poorly dampened mirror flap is louder than a 1950’s Soviet Kiev medium format camera!
A bit of darkroom work on this frame as well, and
again, the beauty of the lens came through. The focus on the lady’s patriotic cowboy
hat yielded perfect sharpness and the blurred foreground is smooth and captures
the movement of parading horses.
Concluding
Thoughts
I learned photography when there were no batteries
small enough to fit into the frame of a camera. When the top shutter speed was
1/250th of a second, and when lenses were not coated. With such “primitive”
light boxes, the focus was on the creativity of the photographer in using a few
adjustments to fit the moments’ challenges regarding light, shade, and
movement.
I still used such tools, even when they got more
sophisticated and versatile in the 1960s. The Sunny 16 Rule for synchronizing between lens
aperture and shutter speed is all one needs for street photography with B&W
film. Of course, microphotography and taking photos of the moon need the wonder
tools of today.
And in all this, perhaps in part because of
nostalgia for the golden years of B&W photography (1940-1970), the vintage
feel one gets from old lenses and ASA 60-100 B&W film is unduplicated with
modern lenses and all the AI assisted manipulations of digital pictures.
Yes, I cannot erase pictures and keep on clicking
more with a film camera. I have to think and anticipate knowing I have one
chance to capture what I have in mind. And then will work in the darkroom, mix
chemicals, and use a dim red light to develop and print a few photos.
But it remains a pure joy to recall the shutter
sound of a 1969 Nikon F when squinting my eyes to focus the frame on
photographic paper, under a 1950’s enlarger!
And when the white paper metamorphoses into a
photograph in the developing tray, I know it was a the result of a collaboration
between the photographer and his camera.
July 8, 2024
©
Vahé A. Kazandjian, 2024
