Roger W. Hicks

Photos © 2004, Roger W. Hicks, All Rights Reserved

The 90mm f/2.2 Leitz Thambar is one of those few lenses that is always prefixed "legendary." Designed primarily for portraiture, it was introduced in 1935 in Leica screw fitting, 39mmx26 tpi. It seems to have been discontinued during World War II, although there are scattered reports of...

Few people realize that photographic spot meters date back some 2/3 of a century. The very first was built by Arthur Dalladay, editor of The British Journal of Photography, in about 1935; he described it in the BJP Almanac of 1937 on pages 127-138. This meter still exists, in the possession of a...

Limited production, exquisite fit and finish, and usability, too: how much more does it take to qualify a camera as a classic, or a collectible? Maybe a good dash of eccentricity; and the NPC 195 qualifies on all counts.

The fortunes of NPC (Newton Plastics Corporation) rose and fell with those of Polaroid. They were probably best known to most photographers for their Polaroid proofing backs using the late Marty Forscher’s patents for optical-fiber transfer of the image, though they also made a superb tripod head of unique design (the Pro-Head), a microscope camera, and more. They did a lot of government work, including for NASA, but a few years ago, after decades of success, they closed their doors.

Photos © 2004, Roger W. Hicks, All Rights Reserved

Nikon (www.nikonusa.com) deserves near-unbounded praise for the D70. Not only is it an excellent camera, it also integrates extremely well into an existing Nikon system. This means you can put all kinds of wonderful things on the front. I have absolutely no...