Whenever we use a camera to record a scene, we are transforming analog signals. Each element introduces yet another error, albeit small.
The perfect is the enemy of the good
It’s an apt saying. The followup is
What is good enough in a complex system?
Errors propagate in complex systems. Redundancy has its benefits. It’s natural. And there are optimal settings to achieve reasonably accurate results.
The following is in the style/format of a screenplay. Ok, let’s face it. Not the sort of thing that would be picked up by Netflix. But… there are precedents. Consider the oyster… Lewis Carroll [aka Charles Lutwidge Dodgson] wrote Alice In Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass. He was a polymath – author, poet and mathematician. While ostensibly written for children, his books also include philosophical discussions on such topics as logic, philosophy and the ambiguity of language. And they delight people of all ages.
Leica rather missed the boat when digital came along so of course I’m talking about the best film Leica. And no, its not another “the M3 is the best camera ever made” review. But to begin, a bit of background.
My first ‘camera’ was a 4×5 I made with my father’s help, and a loaned lens from my uncle who worked at Taylor Hobson in Leicester, UK. The wooden box camera used glass plate negatives – remember those? Focusing was hit and miss, manually sliding the fat projector lens in and out until infinity seemed as good as it could get – then stopping down with a cardboard cut-out sleeve over the lens. I was a teenager and was making the camera for a single purpose – to photograph a comet which was easily visible stretching across the sky.
Photographers who remember the Petula Clark 1967 hit single that’s paraphrased in the title will also probably know what it’s talking about! Regardless of how much one might love the above highly respected lens (and others of its era), try to resist sleeping with them under one’s pillow! You may also want to avoid hanging them on cameras around your neck for extended periods.
They’re radioactive. And I thought it would be good to share this story with the growing band of younger photographers who are even now discovering vintage camera equipment.
The seperate exposure meter was an indispensable accessory in the time before built-in and through the lens meters became the norm. Nowadays, when the attractions of old, all mechanical cameras has taken hold, exposure assessment often has to be made by the photographer in some way. In the past, a photoelectric meter could be had but a cheaper option would be a calculator like the Johnson of Hendon range, all I could afford at first, or you could just rely on the film instruction sheet. Granted, tolerances were not tight (e.g. ±30% for shutter speeds) and film could tolerate some variation so we can be moderately relaxed on the subject.
