Most people are vaguely aware that shutter speeds aren't always as fast as they are marked, that ISO speeds can vary, and that overall, photography isn't that precise a science. What they often don't know is just how far-out things can...
Anyone who reads Shutterbug regularly will know of my enthusiasm for modern Voigtländer cameras. I'm also extremely fond of the postwar Prominent 35mm leaf-shutter rangefinder camera, and I have a great (though guarded) admiration for its prewar 120 namesake, one of the most...
Robots are probably the most underrated and underpriced world
class cameras on the used market today. They are built to at least the same standards as Leicas and Contaxes--actually, they're tougher and more reliable--and yet you can...
Just hold a Pentax. That was the slogan, 30 and more years ago--and very clever it was. The light, svelte, elegant SV (also sold as the H3V) was so lovely that if you did hold one, you wanted it. Next to its...
Mechanical precision has an almost sensual pleasure of its own. Think of the buttery wind-on of a 1950s Leica M3, or the way that the lens panel of an Alpa 12 glides into place, then fits solid as a rock. Recently...
"Contrast" means a surprising number of things in photography: at least six. Made to do so many jobs, it is not surprising that confusion reigns, plenty of contrast is a Good Thing in some...
One of the joys of classic cameras, indeed, of classic anything--is the absence of "me-too" design; and the Nikonos II illustrated is about as far from "me too" as you can get.
The Bessa-R2C and R2S are both variants on the superb R2. Instead of the Leica bayonet mount of the R2, however, the new cameras have the original 1932-1961 Contax mount (R2C) and the original 1948-1963...
Let's be honest: tripods are worthy but dull, so I'll dive straight in with the Weird Stuff--that is, with the products that defy ready categorization, but are either highly desirable or extremely unusual or sometimes both. Let's start at...
Bob Shell was covering medium format cameras and high-end digital; Peter Burian got 35mm SLRs and point-and-shoots; Joe Farace had other digital cameras. And I was the one who got lucky, with rangefinder cameras, large format, and Weird Stuff. ...