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"And, of course, carrying and using a camera in the 1970s took a lot more effort than it does today." Taking pictures did not take more "effort" back in the 70

by larrys 13y ago

"And, of course, carrying and using a camera in the 1970s took a lot more effort than it does today." Taking pictures did not take more "effort" back in the 70's. Cameras were small and lightweight and if you wanted to take pictures you could easily bring a camera to work and take pictures. We are not talking the 1920's here. What was different was you had to get the pictures developed and obviously with the roll size (24 or 36 exposure) there was less impulse shooting unless you had a polaroid camera (Kodak also made an instant camera). You would certainly be less likely to take casual pictures which is why pictures would typically be posed and setup.

WalterBright 13y ago
> Taking pictures did not take more "effort" back in the 70's. Yeah, it did. I had (and still have) a Canon AE-1 in the 70's, and it's enough of a pain that it mostly got left on a shelf. You couldn't put it in a pocket, it was easily damaged, and would swing around on your neck strap. You weren't going to take it skiing, to a club, or on a date.
- dded 13y ago
  You just prompted me to Wikipedia the AE-1 (my father had one). Apparently it was made for eight years. Hard to imagine one model of camera on the high end of consumer market being made for 8 years today. Camera technology was amazingly stable till about the mid 80s, when uprocessors coupled with sensors started driving rapid progress in AE, AF, and of course eventually digital imaging.
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    The AE-1 really hit the sweet spot of design vs cost at the time. I used it for 25 years, finally replacing it with an Elf because the Elf fit in my pocket and took far better pictures than the Minox (but I still dusted off the AE-1 for the quality pix). The Elf lasted about 5 years before I bought a digital camera, and that was the end of film for me.
- larrys 13y ago
  See now I had an AE-1 as well, which I no longer have but boy (for nostalgia) I wish I did. I don't even remember what happened to it. I loved that camera. But I also had smaller cameras. And I would take the cameras everywhere and enjoyed doing so. I also had a darkroom. That said I will agree that often I was the only person with a camera. As far as not taking it skiing well it wasn't waterproof and I don't recall if you could find an inexpensive waterproof housing for it or not. Agree you wouldn't take it to a club or on a date but that was more a cultural thing than because of the size of the camera. I mean if you had a tiny minox camera you wouldn't have taken that to the club or on a date either, would you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minox
  - WalterBright 13y ago
    I had (and still have) a Minox. It would fit in a pocket, and I'd take it many more places. Running it through airport security checkpoints was always entertaining, as the inspectors would never believe it was a camera, and figured I was up to some sort of deviated preversion. Unfortunately, it took crappy pictures.
    - larrys 13y ago
      "Whipping out the AE-1 was all OMG he's got a camera!" Agree 100%. And that's interesting because I find that to be the case today and why I use an rx100ii (excellent camera by the way) vs. using a large DSLR. I can do so much more with the rx100ii simply because it doesn't scream "I'm taking a picture". And taking video clips obviously (which rx100 does a great job with) is possible in places you wouldn't even think of taking a larger professional camera regardless of the weight or the size. (That's the "cultural" part.) http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Cyber-shot_RX100_II/ http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Cyber-shot_RX100_II/ One thing I will tell you though is that using an iphone to take videos is great on the sly. Most people if you hold the iphone correctly don't even realize you are shooting a video. (Next to your body and if nothing special is going on.) So you can get things that you would never be able to do with something that looked like a camera. What would be even better is if you could somehow disable the display (black it out) while you are shooting.

by larrys 13y ago

WalterBright 13y ago

> Taking pictures did not take more "effort" back in the 70's. Yeah, it did. I had (and still have) a Canon AE-1 in the 70's, and it's enough of a pain that it mostly got left on a shelf. You couldn't put it in a pocket, it was easily damaged, and would swing around on your neck strap. You weren't going to take it skiing, to a club, or on a date.

dded 13y ago
You just prompted me to Wikipedia the AE-1 (my father had one). Apparently it was made for eight years. Hard to imagine one model of camera on the high end of consumer market being made for 8 years today. Camera technology was amazingly stable till about the mid 80s, when uprocessors coupled with sensors started driving rapid progress in AE, AF, and of course eventually digital imaging.
- WalterBright 13y ago
  The AE-1 really hit the sweet spot of design vs cost at the time. I used it for 25 years, finally replacing it with an Elf because the Elf fit in my pocket and took far better pictures than the Minox (but I still dusted off the AE-1 for the quality pix). The Elf lasted about 5 years before I bought a digital camera, and that was the end of film for me.
larrys 13y ago
See now I had an AE-1 as well, which I no longer have but boy (for nostalgia) I wish I did. I don't even remember what happened to it. I loved that camera. But I also had smaller cameras. And I would take the cameras everywhere and enjoyed doing so. I also had a darkroom. That said I will agree that often I was the only person with a camera. As far as not taking it skiing well it wasn't waterproof and I don't recall if you could find an inexpensive waterproof housing for it or not. Agree you wouldn't take it to a club or on a date but that was more a cultural thing than because of the size of the camera. I mean if you had a tiny minox camera you wouldn't have taken that to the club or on a date either, would you? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minox http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minox
- WalterBright 13y ago
  I had (and still have) a Minox. It would fit in a pocket, and I'd take it many more places. Running it through airport security checkpoints was always entertaining, as the inspectors would never believe it was a camera, and figured I was up to some sort of deviated preversion. Unfortunately, it took crappy pictures.
  - larrys 13y ago
    "Whipping out the AE-1 was all OMG he's got a camera!" Agree 100%. And that's interesting because I find that to be the case today and why I use an rx100ii (excellent camera by the way) vs. using a large DSLR. I can do so much more with the rx100ii simply because it doesn't scream "I'm taking a picture". And taking video clips obviously (which rx100 does a great job with) is possible in places you wouldn't even think of taking a larger professional camera regardless of the weight or the size. (That's the "cultural" part.) http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Cyber-shot_RX100_II/ http://www.cameralabs.com/reviews/Sony_Cyber-shot_RX100_II/ One thing I will tell you though is that using an iphone to take videos is great on the sly. Most people if you hold the iphone correctly don't even realize you are shooting a video. (Next to your body and if nothing special is going on.) So you can get things that you would never be able to do with something that looked like a camera. What would be even better is if you could somehow disable the display (black it out) while you are shooting.