The tribes sometimes cooperate

Why would you keep an example of old technology?  And how?

Our photographer, working as he does almost entirely in film, has a number of old cameras.  (There are new film cameras made, but not in anything like the old variety, and anyway he already has these.)  Two of them, in particular, were items of high prestige (and cost) when they first came out.  Part of the pleasure of film photography, for him, is the chance to use these very well-crafted devices that function wonderfully.  It’s not always the most convenient way of getting images.  He can run out of film at an inconvenient time, or have to change rolls in mid-stride, have the wrong kind of film in place, or otherwise be limited by the technology.  But, alternatively, the limitations can themselves provoke creativity, something in the way a proper sonnet can be more expressive than a plain prose paragraph.

And these devices last a long time.  Mechanical structures of robust materials don’t really decay, and if not abused (dropped or scuffed on the lens) work just as well as they always did.  As well, though a Kodak Brownie was never intended to last a long time or be repaired, its simple construction means there’s not much to go wrong.  There are still a lot of these around.

(The main exception to long-life are the bellows.  Made of leather or cardboard, these fall apart over the decades and become riddled with light-leaks.  Our photographer has two cameras he’d dearly love to use again, if he could just find someone to replace the bellows.)

As we’ve mentioned, there is another tribe of people who hang on to old technology: the collectors.  They are not nearly as interested in the functioning or the robustness of film cameras, because they don’t use them.  They keep their charges as pristine as possible, as close to day-of-issue as possible.  The unavoidable wear and slight damage that even a careful photographer inflicts on his tools lessens their value in the collector’s eyes, so they are kept behind glass or otherwise protected.

But there was one instance in which our photographer found a kind of cooperation between the tribes.  For a particular project, he needed a camera with a prewar lens.  It had to be a reasonable quality, though not necessarily outstanding.  There were at the time quite a few candidates in used-camera shops to choose from.  But he foresaw that the project might be a long-term one, and the camera needed to be repairable as well as robust.  The best bet for a technician being interested in fixing an old camera is if it were also collectable.  So the interest of the collectors, although they would push up the price a bit, would also act to make it still usable in the longer term.

But he’s not certain of being able to raid any collection for spare parts.