Jason Schneider - The Camera Collector

Jason will have surgery tomorrow December 30 2024 for a painful back injury. Godspeed Jason.

The best model for you depends on your priorities and pocketbook! by Jason Schneider When did digital imaging supplant film as the primary image capture medium? There’s no definitive answer to that question, but it happened a lot sooner and faster than many imaging experts had predicted. By the mid to late 1990s the process was well underway in newsrooms and other venues where fast turnaround is essential. And by about 2004 digital had clearly overtaken analog overall, and many photographers were swiftly dumping their fancy film cameras (other than Leicas and twin-lens Rolleiflexes) at giveaway prices. Meanwhile Leica aficionados were anxiously awaiting the long-rumored digital Leica M, the camera that would triumphantly transition...

How Long Will Your Pictures Last? It all depends on you, your successors, and whether anyone else cares. By Jason Schneider Analog aficionados like me are excruciatingly aware that shooting pictures on film is considerably less convenient and a heck of a lot more expensive than shooting equivalent images with a digital camera. We do it because we love the leisurely pace of the traditional shooting experience, the distinctive esthetic qualities of images shot on film, the vintage rendition of our ancient cameras and lenses, and the astonished expressions on folks who watch us loading our cameras with strange metal cartridges or cylindrical rolls of paper-backed film. We’re also amused by the quizzical looks we get when we explain that...

The Rise & Fall of the Kodak Empire: Part 2: How the Colossus of Film was broken by a disruptive technology By Jason Schneider Kodak did not “snatch defeat from the jaws of victory” as many have claimed, but the company did miss many opportunities by not having a clear and consistent strategy. This would have helped, but it wouldn’t have prevented the eventual collapse of film, and its dire consequences. Kodak’s Electronic Still Camera Prototype of 1975: A secret until 2001! Back in 1974, Gareth Lloyd, a supervisor at the KAD Research Lab, creatively challenged Steve Sasson, a newly hired engineer from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), to investigate the imaging potential of Fairchild’s newly developed 100 x 100-pixel...

The Rise & Fall of the Kodak Empire: Part 1: How Kodak came to dominate the photographic industry By Jason Schneider Everybody knows the sad story of the Eastman Kodak Co., the formidable Rochester N.Y- based enterprise founded by George Eastman in 1892 that grew to dominate what was then known as the photographic industry for well over a century before running aground on the shoals of the Digital Revolution in the early 2000s. Kodak, the once mighty behemoth that held a 71% share of the U.S. film market, and an astonishing 50% share of worldwide film sales was forced into Chapter 11 (a reorganizational bankruptcy) on January 19, 2012 to settle outstanding debts, with the goal of emerging as “a lean world-class digital imaging and...

Film fanatics freak out as Kodak Alaris is sold to venture capitalists! Is Kodak film now an endangered species? As they say, it’s complicated. By Jason Schneider On August 1, 2024, Kodak Alaris, the worldwide distributor of Kodak film, announced that it had been acquired by Kingswood Capital Management, an L. A.-based private equity firm, following “strong growth and performance by Kodak Alaris.” The press release caused an instant panic among film shooters who assumed that Kingswood Capital were typical “vulture capitalists” who would break up Alaris, and sell its component parts to the highest bidder, putting continued production of Kodak film in jeopardy. And with Kodak film out of the picture, Fuji, Ilford, Agfa, et al might also...

Kodachrome: Gone Forever, Or……? What would it take to bring it back? You don’t want to know! By Jason Schneider It’s now been 15 years since Kodak stopped making Kodachrome color transparency film in 2009, and nearly 90 years since Kodak first introduced it to the market in 1935, but it’s still regarded by millions of photo enthusiasts and professionals as the finest color film ever made. Invented by two friends, Leopold Mannes and Leopold Godowsky, both talented musicians with a passion for science and photography, the manufacture and processing of Kodachrome is probably the most complex system of color photography ever invented. The fact that it was literally cooked up (at least in protype form) by two scientists in a home kitchen...

The Pixii Max: The first real competitor to the Leica digital M’s Adding a full frame sensor and matching range/viewfinder ups the ante! By Jason Schneider The French have a penchant for doing things their own way, especially when it comes to designing cameras. Examples of their defiantly idiosyncratic approach include the long-running Foca line of un-Leica-like interchangeable lens rangefinder 35s and the extensive range of spartan yet sophisticated Semflex 6x6 cm twin lens reflexes. All these beautifully made, high-performance cameras were fitted with superb French-made optics. It’s therefore hardly surprising that when Pixii (PIXII SAS), a French company located Besançon France unveiled its first digital M-mount rangefinder camera...

(Almost) Everything you wanted to know about Black Finish Leicas. Here’s what we could find without poring over the records in Wetzlar. By Jason Schneider To say one could write a book about the staggering variety of beautiful black finishes that have been applied to Leica cameras over the last century and precisely how they were done is a vast understatement. It would require a tome, and even then, there would be some significant omissions because some important questions simply can’t be answered by people still living, and not every detail was recorded, even in the meticulous production records of E. Leitz Wetzlar. Production Leica I (Model A) No. 47138 has nickel hardware, glossy black enamel finish. Note brassing on optical...

The Pentax Papers, Part 3, from the Super A of 1983 to the *ist of 2003 The last Pentax 35mm SLRs: great shooters that are often overlooked. By Jason Schneider In a way, all the analog Pentax SLRs that came after the glorious pro—level Pentax LX released in 1980 live in its shadow, and none surpassed it in terms of overall performance, construction and elegant design. However, the succeeding Pentax A-series, three models that debuted in 1983 and were in production for 4-5 years, all included noteworthy technical advances. They added a programmed autoexposure (P) mode to what were basically M-series bodies, and that required a new KA mount that allowed in-body control of the lens aperture. The KA mount was backward compatible...

The Pentax Papers, part 2, K-mount 35mm SLRs, 1975 to 1980. From the first K-mount K2 to the magnificent pro caliber Pentax LX. By Jason Schneider The M42 screw thread mount served Asahi Pentax very well for 16 years, from the brilliantly basic Asahi Pentax (AP) of 1957 to the impressive autoexposure Pentax ES II of 1973. It even became the de facto “standard mount” adopted by Ricoh, Fuji, Mamiya, Petri, Chinon, Cosina, Edixa, Kalimar, Zeiss—even Alpa (the Si 2000) and Olympus (the short-lived FTL). But by the time 1970s rolled around it was clear that a quicker changing, more precisely seating bayonet mount with additional flexibility for configuring mechanical linkages to control aperture and metering was the wave of the future. The...

The Pentax Papers, part 1, 1919 to 1973: From the founding of Asahi Optical Co. to the last screw-mount Pentax By Jason Schneider In 1919 Kumao Kajiwara founded the Asahi Optical Joint Stock Co. in Otsuka, Tokyo as a “town workshop” turning out wearable eyeglasses and binoculars. By 1923 the company, by then known as Asahi Optical Co., introduced the first movie projection lens made in Japan. Now, more than a century later, the company that subsequently became the Pentax Corporation, was later merged into Hoya Corporation, and is now a wholly owned subsidiary of Ricoh Imaging, still makes superb Pentax branded eyeglasses and binoculars in addition to a full line of Pentax digital SLRs and lenses, and a popular range of digital...

The Voigtlander Vitessa: Most elegant rangefinder folder 35 of all time The “Mercedes 300SL” of cameras it was doomed by its brilliant design! By Jason Schneider The Voigtlander Vitessa was introduced in 1950 in a bid to challenge the wildly popular German-made Kodak Retinas, specifically the Retina II (type 014) of 1949-1950, the first folding Retina with a combined range/viewfinder. But Voigtlander was determined to come up with something special to knock the Retina off its exalted perch, and they sure did. The Vitessa replaced the conventional single-side-hinged folding bed with a pair of “barn doors,” hinged on both sides, that fold very flat when closed, and snap open to support the extended lens board on 4 robust spring-loaded...

What Were They Thinking? A compendium of classic camera design blunders and omissions By Jason Schneider Over the past 180 years or so, a vast amount of talent, effort and thought has gone into designing cameras, and the best ones of any era are masterpieces of ingenuity and craftsmanship that enable photographers to articulate their vision seamlessly, often at a high level of technical excellence. However, nothing created by humans is perfect, and even the best cameras are beset with everything from minor foibles to inherent limitations imposed by their basic design parameters. Some older camera designs (such as the Canon 7 of 1961 to 1964 with its huge clunky built in selenium meter) were limited by the technology of the day, while...

A mysterious black Leica IIIf outfit with a U.S. Navy connection? Yes, and it’s for sale at the Ostlicht-Auction in Vienna on June 5, 2024! By Jason Schneider My ears perked up when my longtime friend and fellow camera fanatic Stephen Gandy tipped me off to a unique black Leica IIIf being auctioned off at the prestigious Ostlicht-Action headed up by esteemed Leica expert Peter Coeln. I knew there were about 125 black finished Leca IIf’s and IIIg’s produced on special order for the Swedish military from around 1956 to 1960, many engraved with the Swedish “three crowns” logo and fitted with black finished 50mm f/3.5 Elmar lenses. I’d also heard the story of one lucky LeicaRumors reader who had purchased a rare factory black Leica IIIg...

A Breed Apart: Leaf shutter 35s wth lenses faster than f/1.7! Two are rare, two aren’t, and two are easy to find and quite affordable! By Jason Schneider During the “Golden Age of Rangefinder 35s” that peaked in the ‘60s, there were literally dozens of Japanese-made, non-interchangeable-lens 35mm rangefinder cameras fitted with fast normal (45-50mm) lenses in the f/1.7 to f/2 aperture range. All had leaf shutters, most featured range/viewfinders with parallax-compensating field frame lines, and many had built-in CdS-cell meters, providing non-TTL autoexposure and/or metered manual exposure. The reason this type of camera was able to flourish is that, at the time, it offered photo enthusiasts something akin to the Leica shooting...

Compact Fast Lensed Rangefinder 35mm Cameras, part 2 Rrangefinder 35s pack maxi picture power into mini form factors! By Jason Schneider I wish there were a less ponderous term than “noninterchangeable lens” for describing cameras lacking lens switching capability, but “fixed lens” gives the wrong impression, so I guess we’re stuck with it. The acronym, NIL, doesn’t thrill me either, but I will use it for concision going forward. NIL rangefinder 35s have a noble history going back to the late ‘30s (though some were based on earlier roll film models) and several were offered with f/2 lenses. The species continued in the early postwar years, mostly with light revisions to prewar designs, but now fitted with coated lenses in MX sync...

Compact, Fast Lensed 35mm Cameras, Part 1 Pocket-sized scale-focusing 35s: Maxi performance in Mini packages! By Jason Schneider For some strange reason, sellers of vintage 35mm cameras often list scale-focusing models as “rangefinder cameras” which they assuredly are not. Although many would benefit by mounting a separate, uncoupled rangefinder in their accessory shoes (an inconvenient solution employed by many Leica I (Model A) shooters back in the day) scale focusing 35s are a separate species with a fascinating history of their own. Indeed, the best ones are superb, pocketable shooters even though few full-frame models are fitted with lenses faster than f/2.8. In the beginning, all 35mm still picture cameras were scale focusing...

12 Great Buys in Vintage Film Cameras: These superb user-collectibles offer real value for users and collectors. By Jason Schneider One of my great pasions is shooting pictures on black-and-white film with vintage cameras. Based on my 50+years of doing just that I’ve checked out the prices and formulated value per dollar estimates of some of the best vintage shooters currently posted by camera dealers and on the major online selling sites, and have come up with the list below. It don’t pretend that my list is exhaustive (I’m sure many of you could come up with alternative lists), but it has the advantages of being hearfelt and based on extensive hands-on experience. I hope you enjoy it and find it useful—please let me know. Original...

The Rambunctious Life & Times of Jason Schneider, Part 1 How an eccentric English major became the editor of 2 top photo mags. By Jason Schneider The car not driven to Woodstock. Maybelline, my '56 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, looked as good as this one, but I didn't trust her cooling system. Back in 1969 I made two fateful decisions that were destined to alter the course of my life. First, I wisely decided not to make the trek to the Woodstock Music Festival because my only vehicle was Maybelline, a great white 1956 Cadillac Coupe de Ville, and I wasn’t about to take the chance of getting stuck in an overheated land yacht on the NY State Thruway. Second, I decided to present my idea for a series of articles on camera collecting to my...