Reader's Comments - Index of - Free

Camera
$3000 and sold to collectors, and various Chinese-made inexpensive toys (e.g., the Seagull for about
$130). Used Mamiyas, Rolleiflexes, and Yashicas are common, however, and quite inexpensive. They
are great for people taking darkroom classes who don't have much money but want a larger easier-tohandle
negative.
Rangefinder and lens-shutter cameras
The simplest lens-shutter cameras are like my Fuji 617. Fuji took a view camera lens, with its shutter,
and glued it to a rigid body that holds roll film. You lose the perspective control of a view camera but
the result is a much simpler and more compact camera. Focusing on the simplest lens-shutter cameras is
done by "guestimation"; the focusing ring on the lens is marked in feet and meters. You try to figure out
how far away your subject is and then turn the ring accordingly.
Most SLRs have focal-plane shutters. After all, if you're going to buy 10 lenses and one body, it makes
more sense to put an expensive shutter only in the body. But if you've got a camera with a permanently
affixed lens, it makes just as much sense to put the shutter in the lens. In fact, if a lens is very small, as
with a consumer's point and shoot camera, a between-the-lens shutter can often be very small and
therefore cheaper and faster than a focal-plane shutter that must cover the entire exposed film area.
With a lens-shutter or rangefinder camera, you can't look through the lens. You view the image through
a separate optical viewfinder. As with the TLR, the image on film will be a bit different than what you
viewed due to parallax: the viewfinder isn't exactly aligned with the lens.
It turns out that people aren't very good at estimating distance precisely. So companies began putting
military rangefinders into lens-shutter cameras, coupled to the lens and the viewfinder. The
photographer turns a ring on the lens until two superimposed images are aligned in the viewfinder.
Modern lens-shutter cameras tend to have some sort of autofocus mechanism.
Without the mirror and prism, lens-shutter cameras can be much lighter and more compact than an SLR
using the same film format. Mamiya and Fuji roll-film rangefinders are actually lighter than the big
Nikon and Canon 35mm SLRs, despite the fact that roll-film cameras produce a negative that is four
times the size.
With no mirror to slap, lens-shutter cameras are also much quieter than SLRs. The United Nations, for
example, requires that photographers use Leica 35mm rangefinder cameras to record events.
Panoramic Cameras
Any camera can be a panoramic camera. You need only take a negative to a professional laboratory and
say "make me a long skinny print from this portion of the negative". Or take a negative to any lab and
http://www.photo.net/making-photographs/camera (6 of 9)7/3/2005 2:22:21 AM