I was hired once to take some portraits of a young woman. I asked her to give me a few portrait examples that she liked. To my surprise, she said that she liked “The Afghan Girl.” I suspect most of us know that image well. It appeared on the cover of National Geographic in June …
Nikon FM2 Review – Its significance and modern appeal since 1984 Read More
Sometimes, in the world of photography, certain cameras hold a special place in our hearts that goes beyond their technical specifications. They become vessels of cherished memories and artistic exploration. The Nikon D80 is one such camera that debuted 16 years ago and holds a special place in my heart. Recently, I was lucky enough …
Nikon D80 – Rekindling the Magic with a Nostalgic Homecoming Read More
In 1973, the year of the Minolta XM’s launch, Minolta had been serving the consumer market very successfully for several years with the SR-T . There, it was a hard-to-beat queen. In total, about 3.6 million cameras of the SR-T series were sold. The SR-T was a cash cow for Minolta. Despite different versions and further developments, it was basically always the same camera. virtues of extreme robustness, high reliability and simple operation, were important to millions of photographers. No matter what the condition, an SR-T can almost always be triggered, and reliably. It and the outstanding Rokkor lenses were the basis for the success of the Minolta brand, which lasted for a good three decades. Why did Minolta dare to take the risk of entering the pro camp with the XM in 1973?
Like many millennials I grew up in the 90’s with family point-and-shoots, quickly watching them disappear for digital compacts in the 00’s, and then those being ditched for the latest iPhone onwards. Like many of you I also preferred to be behind the camera, it gave me a sense of social purpose when I was feeling anxious to fit in at parties or events. For a while I was interested in photography along with my music obsession, but both fizzled out as I took on adult responsibilities. However, recently I’ve been more interested in connecting with hobbies again, and discovering ‘a sense of self’ that I felt I had lost.
I sold my last film SLR in the late 1990s before my flirtation with digital, which quite quickly lost its appeal and I drifted back to film, continuing with digital mainly as a practical necessity in this modern age. That last film SLR was a Nikon F601 and one of the best cameras I had used up to that time. A few years ago I found a Nikon F801 in a local auction, a model reputed to have been one of the best pro quality models below the later top of the line F90/F100/F4 and so on. Now going from an F601 to an F801 may seem like a step up but is in fact a step backwards. The F601 came later in the time line and incorporated many features from the F801 plus a few improvements of its own. Nikon’s model numbering was somewhat confusing at the time, so bringing the prosumer range back in line with the, still not in date sequence, 301/401/501 numbering probably made sense from a marketing point of view.
