JPG Magazine: Stories: My Precious: A Few Too Precious

My Precious

A Few Too Precious

Nikon and Canon vintage cameras by Canon and Nikon

By Diane Peterson

28 July 2007

Until about six months ago I used small digitel cameras for shooting

anything that caught my eye. Two or three mega pixels, nothing fancy. Small enough to put in your pocket or slip into your backpack. On my trips to Europe, I brought along a

couple of cameras just to see the differences in the results using a different digitel at different settings, sometimes shooting in black and white and choosing different options trying to liven things up a bit. I recorded all my traveling adventures on my virtualtourist.com site. I enjoyed sharing the pics I downloaded with family and friends. I used two different Canons and one Sony which had actually been my first experience with a digitel camera..And then I received an 8 mega pixel Nikon that really excited me..I thought it was my ticket into really great photo taking. I felt very accomplished with the results of all these cameras. I had worked a lot with photoshop building websites so now I was ready to have a go at using the program to edit my photos and to heighten the effects and try to bring out the best possible results.

I made cards, printed out great pictures to be framed..all in all it was a terrific way to savor the memories of my travels. However, the idea of a DSLR was starting to intrique me...that was to be next. And then I read a wonderful story under the "My Precious " heading in the "stories" theme of JPG Magazine which was published in issue #9. The article by contributor Valerie J. Cochran really caught my eye ..what is this

great little camera she talks about? Not digitel?, a camera from the '80's?..used? Wow, and it looks pretty cute in the shot she does as a self portrait. The story was written in such a way as to grab your interest and pull you in. The accompanying photos were great, terrific color values in black and white. And she did all this using only one lens?I must have read that article 25 or 30 times. I was very taken with Ms. Cochrans explanation of how simple it was to operate this guy and the extraordinary photos she was taking really excited me. Her passion for the camera was certainly contagious. Ok I thought, I need one of these babies.Totally made me want to run out and buy one. Well, since it was vintage I decided the obvious conclusion was ebay. I was truly amazed to find about eight pages of the Canon Ae-1's listed on the online auction site. Where had I been? This terrific little number had been out there all the time and I (the person who always thinks they are up on the latest trends) never heard of it? But wait a minute..It uses film? I know nothing about using film. How do I load the film,how does the lens work, black & white or color, shutter speed, aperture? Maybe I need to re-think this. I quickly found an email address for Ms. Cochran and hoped she would respond..I had many more questions than I dared to ask.. The one thing that really peaked my interest was in knowing how or if she developed her own film. It took about a day and I received a very polite note explaining she had her film processed to a disk so it still went on the computer and from there I started to explore the idea of actually working with film. I can do this I thought! I read every book, magazine article, user manual I could get my hands on. ( this is what I do when I find something new to obsess over). Finally I found a terrific price on one of these Canon's and within a week I was at the post office with my yellow mail delivery notice eager for the doors to open so I could claim my prize. And then I happened to notice a listing for a Nikon F90 (referred to as an N90 in this country) a professional camera from the early '90's. Very smart and sleek, with all sorts of options that I can only hope to master.I bought it from a pawn shop out of L.A. My most recent aquisition is a Nikon N2020. This has to stop somewhere! But gosh, they are all so handsome, feel comfortable to work with and everything responds so well to my touch. I took pictures with all three cameras using different types of film at different speeds, apertures, color film, black and white.My passion really is black and white photography and the difference of shooting with film over digitel in this realm is amazing. Alot more definition in the shadows. I am also now hooked on two photography magazines (other than JPG, of course!) Black and White Photography out of the U.K. and B &W Magazine.I go to bed at night dreaming of producing something worthy of actually being published..I am really getting carried away! Even made custon neck straps for two of these little beauties..They now have that south of the border flair with their genuine Guatemalan webbing to show them off. You get the picture. (hmmmm) Actually I just got my first disks back from the photo finishers and I am thrilled with the results. Needless to say I am hooked on film and my selection of vintage SLR's. I am not sophisticated enough yet regarding cameras to really have an opinion on whether Nikon is best or if Canon is number one. I am in the process of trying to decide which camera I prefer. I must face the reality that it is truly "not the camera but the photographer". So,the moral of the story is this...always keep your mind open to other options, you just might learn something..The only problem I see at this point is I have "four precious" cameras and only one set of eyes.

Thank you Ms. Cochran for

enlightening me!

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