Before we came to Vancouver in 1975 I had only two cameras, A Pentacon-F which I had purchased in 1958 when I was in high school in Austin, Texas from Adorama and a used Asahi Pentax S-3 I had purchased used in 1962 at Foto Rudiger in Mexico City.

Just before we left I was doing a booming business taking family portraits of wealthy Mexicans. I would process the b+w rolls at home and print them in my little darkroom. I dry mounted the photographs on good cardboard.

Once we were in Vancouver I upgraded (I hate that word!) with a couple of newer Pentaxes. Once my career was established with magazines, particularly because I had bought a Mamiya RB-67 from Adorama, I would buy cameras when I saw that they had features I needed to remain competitive.

But there is another reason why I have many cameras which I do not call a collection. In Vancouver it was the kiss of death to fail an assignment. When I went to do them I had two of everything. I have three Mamiya RBs. Why? I always took two to the jobs. The third one was for parts in case the other two had to be repaired.

Because I emulated Annie Leibovitz’s American Express campaign with portraits taken outside at sundown with synchronized flash I bought a Nikon FM-2 which synced at 1/250 of a second. The second FM-2 was just in case that first one failed. And of course my Mamiya’s synched at 1/400 for my synchro/sunlight (that’s what they were called) shots.

The real prize in my camera equipment (note I am not using the  term collection) is a140mm (equivalent to an 85mm in 35) Mamiya lens that is particularly sharp because its floating elements.

Lenses are designed to be sharp at infinity and the image begins to deteriorate as you focus closely. Close focusing lenses(only very few of the very good ones) and true macro lenses (more on this later) are built to focus closely and the image deteriorates as you focus towards infinity. A true macro lens is defined as a lens (as an example) that will record a 1 inch stamp (as an example) as one inch on the film (or in a digital camera) or sensor plane. The RB has bellows between the lens and the camera body. With these bellows I am able to focus my RB on my thumb nail and record it actual size. In photographic lingo this is called 1 to 1 reproduction. That's how you define a true macro lens.

Werner Herzog  & the 140 mm lens

 

Some cameras before you want to upgrade have features that sometimes are not replicated. I have a compact and well-used Pentax MX (its flash synced only at 1/60sec) which I use frequently. Pentax for their MX built what they called M-Lenses. They were compact and very sharp. The 20mm wide angle that I have pretty well permanently mated to my MX is a wide angle lens that if used carefully you would never suspect it is such a wide angle.

Those gearheads who collect pristine cameras, they mostly never use, would eschew my black MX with all its brass showing as it has been well-used.

My proof to the pudding is this photograph I took of Bronwen in my Kerrisdale garage inside my Chevrolet Malibu. I had the MX loaded with Kodak Portra800 colour negative film. I was sitting right next to her on the driver’s seat. Can you notice any wide-angle effect/distortion?

No, I am not a gearhead.