Author: spqr

Choosing a camera for travel

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Many people buy a camera for taking photographs when travelling. Yeah sure, you could use a smartphone, but it won’t provide you with the flexibility of a real camera. Really. Smartphones are restricted to having small sensors (with tiny photosites), a low-power flash, and uber-poor battery life. While they have improved in recent years, offering quite incredible technology inside their limited form factor, they will never replace dedicated cameras. Conversely, you don’t have to carry around a huge DSLR sporting a cumbersome 28-400 zoom lens.

There are so many posts out there which are titled something like “best travel camera 2022”, it’s almost overwhelming. Many of the cameras reviewed in these posts have never really been tested in any sort of real setting (if at all). So below I’m going to outline some of the more important things to consider when choosing a travel camera? Note that this is a list of things to think about, not a definitive and in-depth interpretation of requirements for cameras used for taking travel photos. Note that this discussion related to digital – choosing a good analog cameras for travel is another thing altogether.

What will you be snapping? − buildings? people? close-up shots of flowers?

① Budget − Of course how much you want to spend is a real issue. Good cameras aren’t cheap, but spending a reasonable amount on a camera means that it should last you years. You want a good balance of the items described below. If your budget is limited, go for a compact camera of some sort.

② Compactness − The first choice from the camera perspective may be whether you want something that will fit in a pocket, a small bag (e.g. mirrorless), or a complete camera backpack (e.g. full-frame, which I would avoid). For a compact, you could go with one that has a zoom, but honestly a fixed focal length works extremely well. Good examples include the Ricoh GRIII (24.3MP, 18.3mm (28mm equiv.) f/2 lens) and Fujifilm X100V (26.1MP, 23mm (35mm equiv.) f/2 lens, 4K video). Because of their size, compacts sometimes have to sacrifice one feature for another. You also don’t want a compact that has too many dials – their real benefit is being able to point-and-shoot.

Mirrorless cameras are smaller than full-frame cameras because they don’t need to fit a mirror inside – they use a digital viewfinder instead of an optical one. They have a compact size, and provide good image quality. The downside is that they generally have smaller sensors, like APS-C and MFT. I normally opt for both a compact pocket camera, and a mirrorless. Some are better suited to some situations, e.g. compact cameras are much less conspicuous in indoor environs, and places like subways – that’s why they are so good for street photography. More compactness = enhanced portability.

③ Resilience − When you travel, there is often very little time to worry about whether or not a camera is going to get banged up. Cameras made of metal are obviously somewhat heavier, but offer much better survivability if a camer is accidentally dropped, or banged against something. A camera constructed with a body made of magnesium alloy is both durable and lightweight. It is both corrosion resistant and can handle extremes in temperature well. A magnesium alloy body has less chance of cracking as opposed to a polycarbonate body.

④ Weather resistance − You can never predict weather, anywhere. Some places are rainy or drizzly, others environs are dry and may have particles of stuff blowing in the air. Obviously you’re not going to take photos in pouring rain, but dust and dirt are often a bigger concern. My Ricoh GRIII is not weather sealed, which seems somewhat crazy when you consider it is a street camera, but there are always tradeoffs that have to be considered. In the case of the GRIII, adding weather sealing would have resulted in less flexibility on lens barrel construction, button/dial layout, and heat dissipation. My Fuji X-H1 on the other hand is weather resistent. Of course you should also choose lenses which are weather resistent. If weather resistance is important, be sure to read up on the specifics for a camera. For example the Fuji X100V is deemed to be weather-sealed, but the lens is not. To achieve this you have to buy an adapter, and add a filter.

⑤ Weight − How much are you willing to lug about on a daily basis when travelling? You don’t want to choose a camera that is going to give you back or shoulder pain. Larger format cameras like full-frame are heavier, and have heavier, larger lenses. If choosing a camera with interchangeable lenses, you also have to consider their weight, and the weight of batteries, and anything else you want to carry. There are even differences between compact cameras, e.g. the GRIII is 257g, versus the X100V at 478g, 85% more.

⑥ Lenses − If you choose an interchangeable lens camera, then the next thing to do is choose some lenses… a topic which deserves numerous posts on its own. The question is what will you be photographing? In general it is easy to narrow the scope of lenses which are good for travelling because some just aren’t practical. Telephoto for example – there are few cases where one will need a telephoto when travelling, unless the scope of the travelling involves nature photography. Same with macro lenses, and fisheye lenses (which really aren’t practical at the best of times). In an ideal world the most practical lenses are in the 24-35mm (full-frame equivalent) range. I think prime lenses are best, but short-range zooms work quite well too. I would avoid long-range zooms, because you will always use the smaller focal lengths, and long-range zooms are heavy.

⑦ Batteries − Camera batteries should have a reasonably good use-time. Using camera features, and taking lots of photos will generally have an impact on battery life. For example using image stabilization a lot, being connected to wi-fi, or turning the camera on and off a lot will run down the battery. There are other things to consider as well. For example most batteries run down quicker in colder environs. Full-frame cameras are bigger, and therefore have a longer battery life than cropped-sensor cameras. Also determine if the camera just comes charging in-camera, you will likely need to buy an external charger. Some battery chargers are also slow. Ideally always carry extra batteries no matter what the manufacturer claims.

⑧ Use − What is the camera’s main use during travelling? Street-photography? Vlogging? Landscapes (for poster-sized prints)? Or perhaps just simple travel snapshots. If the latter, then a compact will work superbly. If you want to have the flexibility of different lenses, then a mirrorless camera makes the most sense.

⑨ Video − Do you plan to take videos on the trip? If yes, then what sort of capabilities are you looking for? Most cameras produce video in HD1080p, and some have 4K capability. Some cameras limit the length of a video. If you plan to use the camera mostly for video, choose one specced out for that purpose.

⑩ Stabilization − Many cameras now offer some form of image stabilization, which basically means that the camera compensates for rudimentary camera shake due to hand-holding the camera, and keeping the camera steady in low-light situations. This is more important for travel photography because it is cumbersome to lug around a tripod, and many places, like the Arche de Triumph won’t allow the use of tripods. Some compacts like the Ricoh RGIII do have stabilization, whereas others like the Fuji X100V do not.

The best way of choosing a camera is to first make a list of all the things you want from the camera. Then try and find some cameras which match those specifications. Then see how those cameras stack up against the considerations outlined above. Narrow down the list. When you have about three candidates, start looking at reviews.

I tend to stay away from the generic “big-box” style reviews of cameras, especially those who use the term “best of YEAR” in the title. I instead pivot towards bloggers who write gear reviews – they often own, have rented, or are loaned the cameras, and offer an exceptional insight into a cameras pros and cons, and provide actual photographs. Usually you can find bloggers that specialize in specific types of photography, e.g. street, travel, video. For example, for the Ricoh GRIII, here are some blog reviews worth considering (if anything they provide insight into what to look for in a review):

Lastly, don’t worry about what professional photographers carry when travelling. Chances are they are on assignment, and carry an array of cameras and related equipment.

Ultrafast lenses – the Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7

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The quintessential vintage ultra-fast camera lens is the Zeiss Planar 50mm f/0.7. It was developed in 1961 for a specific purpose, namely to photograph the dark side of the moon during the NASA Apollo lunar missions. Only 10 lenses were built, one was kept by Zeiss, 6 went to NASA and 3 were sold to director Stanley Kubrick. Kubrick used the lenses to film scenes lit only by candlelight in the movie “Barry Lyndon” (1975).

There is a similarity, at least in the double-Gauss optical design – it is essentially a Gauss front with two doublets glued together and a rear group which functioned as a condenser. (copies of optical diagram). The 50mm f/0.7 Planar was designed by Dr. Erhard Glatzel (1925-2002) and Hans Sauer. It is supposedly based on an f/0.8 lens designed by Maximilian Herzberger (1900-1982) for Kodak in 1937. Looking at the two schematics, they look quite similar. The idea is to take the 70mm f/1, and by adding a condenser, brute-force the lens into a 50mm f/0.7. The condenser actually shortens the focal length and condenses the light – in reality adding a ×0.7 teleconverter that gives 1 f-stop.

But this lens has an interesting backstory. According to Marco Cavina, who has done a lot of research into the origin of this lens (and others), the design of this lens was derived at least in part from lenses designed for the German war effort. During WW2, Zeiss Jena designed a series of lenses for infrared devices to be used for night vision in various weapons systems. One such lens was the Zeiss UR-Objektiv 70mm f/1.0. The design documents were apparently recovered during Operation Paperclip from the Zeiss Jena factory before the factory was occupied by the Soviets and then provided to the new Zeiss Oberkochen.

The design went through four prototypes before achieving the final configuration [1]. The final scheme was optimized on an IBM 7090, which had been in operation since the late 1950s. The lenses were used on a modified Hasselblad camera.

  1. Glatzel, E., “New developments in the field of photographic objectives”, British Journal of Photography, 117, pp.426-443 (1970)
  2. https://wlpa.auction2000.online/auk/w.object?inC=WLPA&inA=20200729_1055&inO=329

Further reading:

the histogram exposed (ii) – highlight-clipping

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This series of photographs and their associated histograms covers good renditions of highlight clipping, i.e. photographs in which there are regions of white pixels, but they either genuinely exist in the image as white regions, or do not directly impact the aesthetics of the image.

Histogram 1: A bright overcast sky

The image was taken on a very overcast day in Montreal. This is a good example of an image with highlight-clipping in the histogram, which is neither good nor bad. The building itself does not suffer from a lack of contrast, although the non-sky region can be enhanced slightly with no ill effects on the sky (because it is already basically white). This is a common situation in outdoor, overcast scenes. In an ideal world, more texture and contrast in the sky would be great, but in reality you have to use what nature provides.

Histogram 2: White buildings

This photograph was taken in Luzern, Switzerland. It is a well contrasted image, with a somewhat indistinct, multipeak histogram. The pixels are well distributed over the range of intensities, except for the spike at values 240-255. Here highlight clipping seems as though it has occurred because there are quite a number of white pixels in the image. However this density of white pixels comes not from anything being overblown, but rather from the white buildings in the image (of which there are many).

Fujifilm X10 (12MP): 7.1mm; f/4.5; 1/950

Histogram 3: A bit of overblown sky

This photograph was taken in Grabs, Switzerland. The histogram is a nonuniform, and basically unimodal in shape, with the exception of a huge spike in the whites causing clipping. But this is a case of the highlight clipping not really affecting the core content of the image, i.e. it comprises the overblown sky in the top-left of the image. On a bright, partially overcast day, this is not an unusual scenario.

Fujifilm X10 (12MP): 7.1mm; f/2; 1/900

Vintage superfast sub-f/1.4 lenses – big light with a side of skepticism

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There are a whole lot of contemporary super-fast lenses, but that is to be expected from modern optical technology. For example the Voigtländer 50mm f/1.2 Nokton E is still a simple 8 element lens, but contains two optical elements each with two aspherical surfaces, helping to reduce lens aberrations. The Nikon Nikkor Z 50mm f/1.2 on the other hand has 17 elements in 15 groups, with three aspherical and two low-dispersion elements (but at 150mm in length, and 1090g it is a true monster). These lenses are now commonplace, but what about their vintage counterparts?

By the mid 1950s, lenses with speeds of f/2 and f/1.4 were commonplace. Lenses with large apertures such as f/1.0 were also available for applications such as radiography and motion-pictures. Sub-f/1.4 lenses for the 35mm “miniature” cameras had also started to appear. The literature of the period, such as Popular Photography, wrote a series of articles over the years, investigating these new fast lenses. Many of these technology reviews were not damning, but neither were they an acclamation of a new era in photography.

The September 1955 issue included an article “The new superspeed lenses – how useful will they be”, by Bob Schwalberg [2]. Schwalberg describes the rumours that superspeed lenses with apertures of f/1.1 and f/1.2 were in the offing from three different Japanese manufacturers. He suggested that although an f/1.4 lens should mathematically pass 100% more light than an f/2 lens, the actual results are more like 50%. Using the pretext that actual light transmission is 50% of that indicated, he surmises that an f/1.1 lens would only be 30% faster than an f/1.4 lens, but maybe even less due to more elements, and an increased number of light absorbing light-to-air surfaces. These tests were made by comparing exposures at different apertures changing nothing else. Schwalberg concedes that the lenses would be good for use with colour film, however doubted whether the same could be said for black-and-white film. One of the reasons was the reduced depth-of-field, although he concedes it is no worse than for the f/1.4 but regardless both require very close focusing for sharp pictures.

Norman Rothschild described the Zunow 50mm f/1.1 lens in a 1956 article [4], putting the lens through a series of tests, and exploring whether the addition of new optical elements would effect the speed advantage of the lens. He used an exposure meter (Norwood Model A) taped to the back of a Leica M-3 to measure light-transmission of the Zunow, and two control lenses (f/2, f/1.8). The findings indicated that the readings for the f/1.1 proportionally higher than those for the f/2. He also performed a number of practical field tests. Colour photos made with the lens were found to be ”warm, or reddish, but not displeasingly so”. Rothschild questioned the practicality of the lens, with its shallow depth of field, but concluded that while focusing was challenging, it is “no more severe than a press photographer using an f/3.5 lens on a 4×5 camera”.

When asking why these lenses weren’t more popular during the period they were developed, there are likely a number of differing factors. Foremost was cost. Lenses such as 50mm f/1.2 may have tested the limits of both manufacturing processes, and price to consumer. Making lenses with apertures larger than this may have been an act of sheer folly, as is testament to the few that were manufactured. Development costs associated with these lenses were likely steep, as was the use of optical elements containing rare-earth metals, and ultra-precise manufacturing techniques. To all but the professional photographer, these lenses were prohibitively expensive (and still are). When these fast lenses started to appear there was as much skepticism than there was praise. In a follow up article in 1956, “Another look at superspeed camera lenses”, Bob Schwalberg made the following points [3]:

  • The exposure gain obtained from f/1.1 and f/1.2 lenses was easier to obtain from additional development of f/1.4 and f/1.5 negatives.
  • Apertures larger than f/2 were seldom used for B&W work, but would be advantageous in colour work.
  • The reduced depth-of-field which limits the usefulness of f/1.4 and f/1.5 lenses at full aperture will further limit the usefulness of the f/1.1 and f/1.2 lenses.
  • The lenses are large and heavy, sometimes obscuring the rangefinder and viewfinder windows.
  • The lenses are “extraordinarily” expensive. A 50mm f/1.1 lens retailed for $3 more than a Leica M-3 with aa 50mm f/2 Summicron lens.
  • Lens apertures greater than f/2 with a small amount of over-exposure can lead to drastic loss of definition and detail resolution. Tests shows that “at f/1.4 as little as 1/2 stop overexposure can kill sharpness”. Three times as much overexposure is required to produce the same ill-effects at f/2.

Schwalberg called it the “super-aperture problem”. He goes on to suggest that what was needed was not faster lenses, but better lenses, citing that film resolution was increasing to the point where lenses were not capable of producing.

In another Popular Photography article in 1956, it was suggested the ultimate value of f/1.1 and f/1.2 lenses was still a matter of conjecture [5]: “Speeds of f/1.4, f/1.5, and f/2, have long been with us and have proven extremely practical. Unless you are in the darkest, blackest, dingiest location, and unless every bit of shutter speed counts because of subject movement, it is highly advisable to limit black-and-white shooting to a maximum aperture of f/2.” The article cited a series of limiting factors that made photographers wary of the usefulness of sub f/2 lenses [5]:

  • Depth of field – this only comes apparent at close distances, but a larger opening will result in a shallower DOF. A 50mm lens focused at 4ft has 3.5” of depth at f/1.5 and 4.75” at F/2. A smaller DOF will require more precision in focusing.
  • The gain in light transmission is often less than can be expected. Light transmission is directly proportional to the square of the f-number. f/2 squares to 4, and f/1.4 to 1.96. Theoretically then, f/1.4 should transmit approximately 100% more light, however tests have shown that it is likely only 50-60%. The reasoning is that the more the diaphragm is opened, the more we depend upon light rays from the periphery of the lens. These rays enter at a steeper angle of incidence than those on the edges at smaller f-stops. There is therefore greater loss through internal reflection.
  • The other issue is that apertures greater than f/2 require exacting levels of exposure. overexposure at f/1.4 can ruin crisp detail. Errors at f/2 are more forgiving.

The other issue was weight – these lenses were heavy. The SMC Pentax 50mm f/1.2 (1975) was 385g, and had a maximum diameter of 65mm. The f/1.4 of the same era was only 266g, meaning the f/1.2 was a 45% increase in weight. When the Nikkor-N 50mm f/1.2 first appeared, its internal mount was problematic, with the mount not really able to support the weight of the lens, causing the mount to bend. In addition, the focusing wheel on the camera could not be used because it could not handle the weight of the lens. The weight of the lens was 425g, in comparison a comparable 50mm f/2 was around 200g.

There were many factors which contributed to the lack of interest in fast lenses. By the mid 1960s colour film was faster, and so there was less need for faster lenses. There were a number of f/1.2 options, but also many more options are f/1.4 at a much lower price point. So why bother purchasing a vintage sub-f/1.4 lens? One reason is for the character it provides, or for shooting in extreme low-light conditions. Why not to buy them? Mostly they are expensive.

Further reading:

  1. G.H. Smith, Camera Lenses: From box camera to digital (2006)
  2. Bob Schwalberg, “The new superspeed lenses – how useful will they be”, Popular Photography, 37(2), p.48 (September, 1955)
  3. Bob Schwalberg, “Another look at superspeed camera lenses”, Popular Photography (April, 1956)
  4. Norman Rothschild, “Meet the Zunow f/1.1”, Popular Photography, pp.126/128 (February, 1956)
  5. “The Versatile 50-mm Lens”, Popular Photography, 39(2) pp.40,41,84 (August, 1956)

The Leica changed photography

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In the October 1936 issue of Fortune, there was an article on the “minicam boom”. It cited there being 100,000 miniature cameras in the US, comprised of more than 30 different makes.

Model E Leica, 1936

“Many a man who had owned a Kodak for years without feeling any impulse to see what he could do with it if he applied himself fancied that in the Leica he was finding a new invention that defied the laws of optics and would give him good pictures with no light to speak of and no effort save that of pressing the button. The Leica didn’t even look like a camera. No bellows, no bulk, no focusing hood; you shot from the hip, so to speak, and got your man.”

“Miniature Cameras”, Fortune, p.125 October 1936

the histogram exposed (i) – unimodal

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This is the first post in an ongoing series that looks at the intensity histograms of various images, and what they help tell us about the image. The idea behind it is to try and dispel the myths behind the “ideal” histogram phenomena, as well as helping to learn to read a histogram. The hope is to provide a series of posts (each containing three images and their histograms) based on histogram concepts such as shape, of clipping etc. Histograms are interpreted in tandem with the image.

Histogram 1: Ideal with a hint of clipping

The first image is the poster-boy for “ideal” histograms (almost). A simple image of a track through a forest in Scotland, it has a beautiful bell-shaped (unimodal) curve, almost entiorely in the midtones. A small amount of pixels, less than 1%, form a highlight clipping issue in the histogram, a result of the blown-out, overcast sky. Otherwise it is a well-formed image with good contrast and colour.

Histogram 2: The witches hat

This is a picture taken along the route of the Bergen-Line train in Norway. A symmetric, unimodal histogram, taking on a classic “witches hat” shape. The tail curving towards 0 (①) deals with the darker components of the upper rock-face, and the house. The tail curving towards 255 (③) deals with the lighter components of the lower rock face, and the house. The majority of midtone pixels form the sky, grassland, and rock face.

Olympus E-M5MArkII (16MP): 12mm; f/6.3; 1/400

Histogram 3: An odd peak

This is a photograph of the statue of Leif Eriksson which is in front of Reykjavik’s Hallgrímskirkja. It provides for a truly odd histogram – basically the (majority of) pixels form a unimodal histogram, ③ , which represents the sky surrounding the statue. The tiny hillocks to either side (①,②) form the sculpture itself – the left forming the shadows, and the right forming the bright regions. However overall, this is a well formed image, even though it may appear as if the sculpture is low contrast.

Leica D-Lux 6 (10MP): 14.7mm; f/2.8; 1/1600

Moriyama on clarity

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“For me, capturing what I feel with my body is more important than the technicalities of photography. If the image is shaking, it’s OK, if it’s out of focus, it’s OK. Clarity isn’t what photography is about.”

Daido Moriyama

The kit of the mid-century photojournalist

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Photojournalism had its origins in the photography of war. Photojournalists are photographers who take pictures that illustrate or tell a story. The first photograph used as an “illustration of a newspaper report”, was a daguerreotype taken by Charles-François Thibault in Paris during the bloody June Days uprising in 1848. Two images were taken at Rue du Faubourg-du-Temple : the scene depicts a barricade on a empty street, at 7.30am on June 25th. On July 8th, the newspaper L’Illustration reproduced the images as woodcuts. Photographic coverage of the Crimean War (1853-1856), and the American Civil War in the 1860s required cumbersome cameras taking long exposures on plates – shots were taken before or after battles because combat coverage was impossible. WW1 brought medium format cameras with glass-plate negatives (these were used by “official” photographers, soldiers used the Vest Pocket Kodak).

Barricades in the Rue Saint-Maur (daguerreotype)
The woodcut from L’Illustration

The Golden Age of photojournalism was considered to be the period of the 1930s through the 1950s, largely due to the introduction of the Leica 35mm camera in 1925. But what sort of kit did the average photojournalist (not including army combat photographers) use in the mid-century period? Being a photojournalist was a demanding occupation. Consider the words of Boris Spremo (1935-2017): “

“I have walked through the wreckage’s of plane crashes and smashed cars . . . knelt beside dying people in Central Africa . . . faced bullets . . . run from tear gas bombs, been chased by angry mobs . . . ridden in a dug out canoe in the sweltering jungles of South America and on dog sleds at 50°C below zero in the Canadian far north . . . ”

Spremo, Boris. Boris Spremo: Twenty Years of Photojournalism. Toronto: McClelland, 1983.

So it is imaginable that a typical photojournalist would want to carry as little gear as possible. In the 1930s, while 35mm had followers, many photojournalists still used large format press cameras. For example Charles Kerlee (1907-1981) in his 1939 book “Pictures With a Purpose – How They Are Made” describes using a 4×5 series D Graflex with a 8¼” Steinheil Cassar lens, or a 40cm Tele-Tessar lens (400mm=135mm, 8¼”=65mm in 35mm equivalency).

Robert Capa (1913-1954), who it is rumoured photojournalist, L.B. “Jeff” Jefferies is based on in the movie “Rear Window” was an icon of photojournalism, covering the Spanish Civil War and WW2. Capa is known for using a Leica at the beginning of his career, including for one of his most famous works, Falling Soldier taken during the Spanish Civil War. But by his coverage of the Chinese resistance to the Japanese invasion in the late 1930s, he had switched to the Contax II series of cameras. In 1944 as he followed allied troops onto the beaches at Normandy (the “Easy Red” sector of Omaha Beach), he carried two Contax cameras. His preference was for 50mm lenses, with a certain liking of the Zeiss 50mm Sonnar f/1.5. When he left on that ill-fated assignment to Indochina in 1954 he carried a Nikon S to complement his Contax.

A Contax II

Horace Bristol (1908-1997) was another American photographer who was best known for his work in Life. After WW2, Bristol settled in Japan, publishing “Tokyo on a five day pass with candid camera” in 1951. Although photographing for a photo-book he describes in detail the type of gear used through the process. It seems Bristol largely used 35mm cameras, typically still known as the “candid camera”. He states that while a telephoto and wide-angle are needed, the workhorse is the 50mm, it will “do almost anything any lens will do”. Photographing for the book, Bristol used an array of cameras, but typically carried a Canon III and Leica IIIc for candid work (likely what we would today term street photography). As to lenses, Bristol carried the following array: Serenar 135mm f/4, Serenar 85mm f/2, Nikkor 50mm f/1.4, Serenar 50mm f/1.8, Serenar 35mm f/3.2 and a Serenar 38mm f/3.5. Of course this sort of photography allowed for greater flexibility (Serenar = Canon).

Photojournalists also typically did not carry the full gamut of lenses. As suggested by Bristol:

“Don’t, however, be lead into the error of thinking that the answer to good pictures is to be found in a complete set of matched lenses. just the opposite is true, for there is a very definite correlation between the number of lenses the average photographer carries, and the worth-while pictures he produces. Unfortunately, this varies in inverse order; in other words, the more equipment to worry about, the fewer pictures of merit!”

Horace Bristol, Tokyo on a five day pass with candid camera (1951)

Many photographers adopted “candid cameras” because they were compact and convenient. W. Eugene Smith (1918-1978) supposedly left Newsweek in 1938 because they wanted him to work with a larger format, but he preferred his Leica. After that he secured a job at Life. Over his career he used many different 35mm cameras, Leica, Contax, Pentax, Nikon. His preference was for 21mm, 28mm, 35mm, 85mm and 135mm lenses. Yevgeny Khaldei (1917-1997), the Ukranian photographer who captured one of the most iconic WW2 photographs of a Soviet soldier raising a flag over the Reichstag in Berlin, used a Leica III throughout his career.

In the end, it is likely that 35mm cameras took over from larger format because they were practical. Practical and efficient, in the fast-paced world that photojournalism was becoming.

Further reading:

Diamonds Are Forever – the Nikon F

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In 1971, two of the villains in the James Bond movie, Diamonds Are Forever used a Nikon F to take photos. The question is why the Nikon F? I mean it’s not like it was a new camera. First unveiled in 1959, it was no doubt an influential camera, but a decade later was it still cutting edge?

It was not the only time Nikon cameras were used in movies. The list is actually quite long, including the likes of The French Connection, Jaws, and Apocalypse Now (here’s another list of cameras in movies and TV shows). Nor was it the only camera used in Bond films – Bond used a Rolleiflex T in From Russia with Love (1963), a in Goldfinger (1964), a Nikonos Calypso in Thunderball (1965), and a Minox subminiature in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969).

The Nikon F was at the forefront of SLR technology in the 1960s, and had a wide audience of users, from photojournalists covering the Vietnam War, to NASA. In March 1968 the Nikon F was laboratory tested by Popular Photography. Reviewers found little to complain about, it was an easy camera to function with, and extremely well built, except for the fact that it was heavy, “like a military tank of a camera”. It had a presence which was hard to dispute.

Choosing a camera for any movie may be a mere factor of chance. A personal preference of the director, or somebody facilitating props. Sometimes it’s product placement, although considering the Nikon F2 was released in the same year as the movie, it’s unlikely that is the case.

further reading:

the image histogram (vii) – log histograms

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Sometimes a histogram is depicted logarithmically. A histogram will typically depict only large frequencies, i.e. histogram intensities with limited values will not be visualized. The logarithmic form helps to accentuate low frequency occurrences, making them readily apparent. In the example histogram shown below, intensity level 39 has a value of 9, which would not show up in a regular histogram given the scale, e.g. intensity 206 has a count of 9113.