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Sometimes people and I suppose of my sort of age, can reminisce about the “Past” and how it was all “so much better then”. It is not a view I have ever shared, some things may have been better, others worse and if today we have lost the “better” and are only left with the “worse”, then I suspect that is probably our own fault. The reality of course is that today, things are very different from “then” (whenever that may be) and sometimes it is interesting to have a “window” into those differences so that we can judge present day reality better.

My love of photography is well known so, a friend of mine gave me his old wet film Nikon camera and lenses which he hadn’t used for many years and he thought that perhaps I could find a use for them. Nikon of course is a great brand and much beloved of serious professional photographers over the years so much so that I believe both Nikon and Canon (the two top brands), still have one or two top end wet film cameras in limited production for that market.

I had been a serious wet film enthusiast, went through a divorce and therefore stopped both because of cost and time but came back to taking pictures in 2000 when I was living and working in the States and have been with digital photography ever since. I had given all my old wet film gear away keeping back only one, a Yashica roll film camera which, I keep meaning to use again… so, the chances of me using this Nikon are slim.

So Much Better Then…

I unpacked the Nikon and although the kit wasn’t dirty, after years of not being used, it needed a freshen up which is a pleasure to do because I love well engineered kit, there is a tactile pleasure in handling stuff that is beautifully made and well assembled. This stuff was 25 years old and for some years had been used often no doubt, but everything still fitted today without any slop, it was precision engineered, built to last and has, brilliant !

The mechanical quality of those lenses with their all metal construction, put today’s lenses which are heavily dependent on high quality plastic mouldings, to shame. The clockwork shutter release mechanism for self/group portraits, ticks its countdown with a proper “clockwork sound” that is completed by the satisfying “clunk” of the mirror flipping which makes the bleeping electronic pulses of today’s equivalents seem so insignificant, rather like replacing the canons at the end of the 1812 Overture with Party Poppers under “Elf & Safety Regulations” !

Yes indeed, things were clearly better then and here lies the evidence and yet and yet…

The Reality of Then…

If I think back to my “photographic then” as a younger man with 4 children and a wife at home, a mortgage to be paid and so on, my biggest wishes/dreams were for a camera with a Polaroid back so that I could see if my ‘settings’ were right at the time for the shot I wanted and then, my very own darkroom to process and print ‘my work’.

Of course none of this happened, there was never the spare money for such an “indulgence” nor for that matter the physical space to have a dedicated darkroom. My compromise was to switch to shooting in Kodak’s ‘Ecktochrome’ the home develop version of ‘Kodachrome’ which means shooting colour transparencies rather than film negatives which also meant that I could see in full colour, the pictures I had taken on that day by developing the film at home. Then, if any were that good, I could get them printed commercially.

Bull Shit…

Let me now look at ‘digital’ in comparison to ‘wet-film’. What I wanted was immediate visual feedback via a polaroiad back which you get on a digital camera by default and can enhance via ‘histograms’ plus, on screen see what you have got and decide whether to re-shoot on different settings, keep as is or delete on the spot.

Guess what, the Polaroid back is out !

My own darkroom hmm… So I have Adobe Photoshop and have done every upgrade since 1996 and, it is the “digital darkroom” without the need of a dedicated physical space decked out with red bulbs, chemicals which must be kept at specific temperatures and so on. Looking at my computer screen and especially if I shoot in the RAW format, I have far more control in the processing of images than ever could have been achieved under “conventional” wet film processing terms.

In addition digitally, I can do non-destructive processing and cock it up however many times I like without destroying my original and having the ability to start over again.

So the dedicated darkroom is out !

Cameras…

I had actually taught my son Michael how to use an SLR on kit similar to this Nikon but it took me a good 10 minutes or so to remember how the “mechanical system” works in terms of you making all the settings in manual mode. Yes every lever and mechanical movement still works perfectly but, each adjustment has to be made exactly that way too and I hate to admit it but, digital is both easier and more immediate.

The Bottom-Line

I have to give up all of this beautiful and precisely engineered photographic equipment plus the joy of taking exposed rolls of film to the local Boots just for the simplicity and elegance of digital photography where I can ensure that I got the picture correctly exposed moments after releasing the shutter ? Not only that, I also have to sacrifice the wait involved for the alchemy performed on my behalf to process negatives and deliver to me a multitude of strange en-prints that I barely recognise.

The reality is that most likely the traditional physical quality has gone, the intricate hand assembled lenses replaced with high quality moulding and machine assembly but perhaps that was inevitable. At Christmas 2000, I bought my first digital SLR body, a Canon D30 which cost over £2,000 and had an output of 3.2 mega-pixels, today an equivalent 10 mega-pixel DSLR camera from Canon with far greater capabilities costs £700 – go figure !

Conclusion

In this as in most things, the Past was not better and neither was it worse, it was just different. You lose some things over time and gain others but, it is never a like for like swap, personally I am happy with today and moving forward. Unlike wet film where the camera will still be working 25 years later without problems, digital cameras do not last nor are they intended to.

The canon 350D I bought in Spring 2005 requires replacing but not because of its mechanicals being worn out, just because its electronics are now dated and later models have faster processors. My Yashica camera is purely mechanical, you can take it apart and put it back together again. Digital cameras are just ‘light wave computers’ and it is their processors that become dated quickly so bullet proof camera builds become rather pointless.

The past was better but only when it was the “present” – think about it.