Friday, 4 November 2016

Out of the mouth of babes...

About this time last year I acquired a camera that had been lying around The Brother's garage for a few years - a Nikon N80, complete with a Sigma 28-80 zoom and a part used (colour) film.  Recently I got round to putting fresh batteries in it and lo-and-behold when I put the switch thing to 'on' (What's all that about, then?) the thing came to life.  It's auto focus, has P mode (Program) as well as an S mode (Shutter Priority), an A mode (Aperture Priority) and an M mode (Manual, presumably).  There's an LCD screen and loads of other buttons dotted around -  it's one of those cameras you'd really need to read the manual if you want to know what they all do - not like the rangefinder, or the Franka, where you have about 3 things to fiddle with (focus, aperture and shutter speed).

Anyway, as we headed off for a forest walk yesterday I happened to mention to Missy that she might like to take the N80 with her and capture some of the autumn colours on the last couple of frames of the film.  She looked at the camera a bit sceptically and asked what she needed to do to use it.  I explained it was pretty much auto-everything and all she had to do was turn it on, lightly press the shutter release to focus and then all the way down to take the snap.  Her reply was interesting...'That's not a proper camera, then, is it?'.  She did take it with her but she elected to leave it in the car while we walked.  I didn't push it.

One of Missy's masterpieces, from the OM-1 and some Ilford film.

While it was a funny comment straight from the hip, it got me a little worried - have I brain-washed her with all my talk of film, f4 and 1/125th of a second?  I don't think so - I think it's just that she sees me use 'proper' cameras every day.  She uses her phone to take a lot of snaps, of course, like a lot of others her age do.  But from time to time, when the mood takes her, she'll dust off her OM-1 and take it out for some old-school.

It will be interesting to see how things pan out over the next few years - I'm looking forward to watching from the sidelines, deo volente.
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2 comments:

  1. Roy Karlsvik4 November 2016 at 15:34

    Judging from even further away I would say the girl seems to know real well what a decent camera looks like when she sees one. Nothing wrong with the easy to use N80 of course, but you know at least as good as I that as long as she got the OM-1 somewhere she probably feel that's more the real thing. And right she is, of course.
    You need to get her into the darkroom to teach a few things from your deep box of knowledge as well, some day. If she got any interest at all, that is.
    And a nice snap from the OM it is with lots of nice lines and stuff. I like it :)

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    1. Michael McNeill4 November 2016 at 19:33

      Thanks Roy you are not wrong - she knows what she's about, that one. I'm sure you you know all about that too.

      The darkroom will come, in time - I'm playing the long game there.

      And yes, she has an interesting eye for the thing, methinks. I know I'm biased - I can't help it. Hopefully she'll teach me a thing or two on the way :)

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