rant the second

needing authorisation on some medium format cameras, i volunteered after all ubirajara and edevergio have been with me since the time of student railpass awaydays. got a mamiya rz and a 645af, found some place quiet to show the workings of the cameras so that they could be checked out and used.

it seems that the idea of multitasking doesn’t only apply to humans. i don’t think that they was anything on the cameras that had only function. after the film was loaded it took a good five minutes to work our ways through all the fail-safe systems to actually make a snap.

the rz looked like a pretty straight forward camera but every dial had another one around it so that one wouldn’t fire the camera by mistake. what it achieved was slowing down the photographic process to the point by the time that we were ready to actually make a photograph we were exhausted. multiple choice locks around the shutter release, multi -exposure locks, mirror locks, camera back locks, rotating back locks. there was one nice option where the shutter would actually fire but at 1/400 of a second - the default setting - for someone photographing on mercury.

at least there was a shutter speed dial. the 645af went with buttons bringing the level of complication to yet another level.

i knew that i hated digital cameras as every button, every dial has a half dozen functions making the cockpit of a 767 seem relatively simple. i had forgot that in the last years of film most manufacturers had already started to hide functions within others.

looking at the lads, that i use wonder why i rarely had problems with them for so few safety features. with the blads, there was a dark slide and two windows and i cannot remember when the camera went off by mistake or when i double exposed. i also realised how i took the process of making a snap for granted for all i had to do was look down see f stop shutter speed and distance - if i were really ambitious i could turn the camera on its side and see how many exposures i had left. didn’t have to turn it on. didn’t have to make sure that everything was colour coded.

if i am manic now i cannot imagine how worse i would be using cameras where i would have to run through a litany of tests while trying to calmly carry on a conversation with someone that i have said that i would photograph because they have spoken to me.

the student seemed unfazed.