Camera Exhibition.

The community cafe in the Town Hall had an exhibition of cameras today, this is just a small selection those on view. They were supplied by three members of the local photographic club, and some may actually be the property of the club.

There was quite a lot of reminiscing going on, there were quite a few models that I remember from my youth, and several that I have actually owned and used. The two 5x4s on tripods at the back have the full range of movements, the lens able to move laterally and vertically while both the lens and film plane can skew on two axes. I met someone (an old cycling friend) the other day, who claimed that it costs £10 to press the shutter release on one of these beasts which makes one concentrate wonderfully on setting up the picture before actually taking it; he was lying, of course, it only costs about £4 if you're shooting B/W, £6 for colour. This same friend still uses film, but then scans the images so that he can use Photoshop; he produces some very good pictures but I can't help thinking he misses out somewhere.
Back when I used to use it, the resolution of a medium speed film (125 ASA, my latest camera doesn't go that low) produced the equivalent of a 4 Mega-pixel negative in mono (colour film was a heck of a lot worse) and I couldn't afford lenses that could use that resolution over the full frame; my modern, cheap micro four thirds camera produces 12 Meg colour images with no loss due to the zoom lens quality - that's better than a Hasselblad from the '70s could achieve.

I wonder how good the modern films are.