[unixrevolution]

Ok, but how many grandmothers were like yours? How typical is this experience? Was this typical outside your country, do you think?

It may well be that P&S shooting took off earlier in US and then my description of dedication and passion is off - it was based on my experience where even though simple P&S cameras existed, I still didn't see them used often and most people either had no camera at all or had a rangefinder/slr type of camera that required knowing a bit about aperture, iso, etc.

My grandfather had several cameras over his life, but it was all for taking snapshots. He didn't even use them all that often. Two of his that we still have are a Kodak Duaflex he bought for taking pictures of the family, and the Polaroid 800 that he got as a christmas present in 1959, Both of which were used to just take pictures of family and snaps of vacations.

This is an ENTIRELY typical thing in the US from the late 1800s with the first Kodak all the way through the nineties. People with ansco, argus, brownie, and other box cameras, and later the 35mm automatic-everything and plastic-cam series of cameras, using them to just document their lives, not create art.

To say that everybody who ever took a picture before 1970 was a dedicated hobbyist is absurd.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

My grandfather had several cameras over his life, but it was all for taking snapshots. He didn't even use them all that often. Two of his that we still have are a Kodak Duaflex he bought for taking pictures of the family, and the Polaroid 800 that he got as a christmas present in 1959, Both of which were used to just take pictures of family and snaps of vacations.

This is an ENTIRELY typical thing in the US from the late 1800s with the first Kodak all the way through the nineties. People with ansco, argus, brownie, and other box cameras, and later the 35mm automatic-everything and plastic-cam series of cameras, using them to just document their lives, not create art.

I think that the statement you made here - "using them to just document their lives, not create art" - shows that our disagreement is merely due to the fact that we are talking about different things.

I wasn't talking about creating art, whatever that is. I was talking about the dedication to use tools that weren't as easy to use as today's Powershoots or iPhones for taking pictures of your kin or whatever else interested you. Taking photos today is a much more common practice than it was in any decade of the past two centuries - this is true all over the world. It is also true, like you said, that in US people had easier access to P&S style of cameras (by which I mean inexpensive cameras that had simplified controls or fewer features compared to the state of the art of the day) than in other parts of the world, but still, those P&S cameras weren't good enough for them to be used to the extent to which P&S and phone cameras are used today.

To say that everybody who ever took a picture before 1970 was a dedicated hobbyist is absurd.

Fortunately, no one actually said that.

It looks like the passion and dedication I mentioned earlier were misunderstood as such absurd statements. I just meant that I think that those people that used film cameras in the past had a stronger interest in taking photos than most people that take photos today. And this is based simply because photography, as a market, has grown a lot in the past decades - even to the degree where professional photography is affected and is forced to redefine itself. Why do you think this happened? Is it because people gathered more passion and dedication to deal with a high learning curve for using photographic equipment or is it because the learning curve dropped to meet the interest of people and other factors also made photography seem cooler (sharing images on facebook, for example, which in turn required a lot of other technologies to come together)?

Let me remind you that this line of discussion started from my statement that "a manual focus camera is not a P&S" and then through reformulations and comments we ended up discussing this interesting, but secondary aspect of how widespread the use of photography equipment was in the past. It is so easy to get off track picking on statements.

[jheu02]

Let me remind you that this line of discussion started from my statement that "a manual focus camera is not a P&S" .

So, let's rename it a "Compact Camera" competition, eliminate "professional-style" equipment, but recognize that, prior to roughly 30 years ago, it was either manual focus, or a fixed-focus lens, in which the "mindset" of "Point and Shoot" did require that intermediate step of focusing. Today's scene recognition, AF zooms, even of the PnS category should have nothing to fear from a 35mm fixed-lens rangefinder, or a cardboard-box Brownie.

No Large Format or camera typically requiring a tripod to use.
No Interchangeable lens cameras with an equivalent sensor size (film or digital) > APS-C (i.e. no 35mm (D)SLR, MF, etc)
No camera weighing over 1kg

These rules open up the contest to lots of different cameras, yet keeps things compact.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

So, let's rename it a "Compact Camera" competition, eliminate "professional-style" equipment, but recognize that, prior to roughly 30 years ago, it was either manual focus, or a fixed-focus lens, in which the "mindset" of "Point and Shoot" did require that intermediate step of focusing.

Compact is fine, but let's steer away from Point and Shoot, because focusing breaks that mindset.

Here's the Wikipedia definition (and believe me, I didn't edit it prior to this post):

"A point-and-shoot camera, also called a compact camera, is a still camera designed primarily for simple operation. Most use focus free lenses or autofocus for focusing, automatic systems for setting the exposure options, and have flash units built in."

[Anton Magus]

So, let's rename it a "Compact Camera" competition, eliminate "professional-style" equipment, but recognize that, prior to roughly 30 years ago, it was either manual focus, or a fixed-focus lens, in which the "mindset" of "Point and Shoot" did require that intermediate step of focusing. Today's scene recognition, AF zooms, even of the PnS category should have nothing to fear from a 35mm fixed-lens rangefinder, or a cardboard-box Brownie.

No Large Format or camera typically requiring a tripod to use.
No Interchangeable lens cameras with an equivalent sensor size (film or digital) > APS-C (i.e. no 35mm (D)SLR, MF, etc)
No camera weighing over 1kg

These rules open up the contest to lots of different cameras, yet keeps things compact.

Y-E-S-!
Simple, effectively levels the playing field and easy for any entrant to understand. As far as I can see there are now 3 or 4 of us who are quite happy with these rules. Maybe more?

[unixrevolution]

So, let's rename it a "Compact Camera" competition, eliminate "professional-style" equipment, but recognize that, prior to roughly 30 years ago, it was either manual focus, or a fixed-focus lens, in which the "mindset" of "Point and Shoot" did require that intermediate step of focusing. Today's scene recognition, AF zooms, even of the PnS category should have nothing to fear from a 35mm fixed-lens rangefinder, or a cardboard-box Brownie.

No Large Format or camera typically requiring a tripod to use.
No Interchangeable lens cameras with an equivalent sensor size (film or digital) > APS-C (i.e. no 35mm (D)SLR, MF, etc)
No camera weighing over 1kg

These rules open up the contest to lots of different cameras, yet keeps things compact.

Agree!! That just about covers everything we'd want to allow, and eliminates anything with an obvious advantage.

Compact is fine, but let's steer away from Point and Shoot, because focusing breaks that mindset.

Here's the Wikipedia definition (and believe me, I didn't edit it prior to this post):

"A point-and-shoot camera, also called a compact camera, is a still camera designed primarily for simple operation. Most use focus free lenses or autofocus for focusing, automatic systems for setting the exposure options, and have flash units built in."

MOST, but not all. I still don't think scale-focus cameras that require focusing or small rangefinders are excluded just because you have to manually focus.

Honestly, should we eliminate cameras with slow AF systems because you have to *wait* for them to focus before you shoot? That breaks the "point and shoot" mindset too.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

I am fine with those rules too, btw. Should have said so earlier, more clearly.

MOST, but not all. I still don't think scale-focus cameras that require focusing or small rangefinders are excluded just because you have to manually focus.

Can you give an example of a scale-focus camera? I don't know what that means.

And if you allow rangefinders, by what reasoning would you disallow SLRs?

Honestly, should we eliminate cameras with slow AF systems because you have to *wait* for them to focus before you shoot? That breaks the "point and shoot" mindset too.

Do you have any clear examples in mind?

[jheu02]

I am fine with those rules too, btw. Should have said so earlier, more clearly.
<SNIP>
And if you allow rangefinders, by what reasoning would you disallow SLRs?

Interchangeable lens with sensor > APS-C

IF the 35mm rangefinder has interchangeable lenses, then it is disqualified.

If it's a fixed lens rangefinder then it qualifies.

I really don't know why the hangup with manual focus lenses. It will now be a compact camera contest. None of us just "point and shoot" anyway as if we were gunslingers in a quick-draw at the OK Corral. So, whether the camera does the focusing, or whether we do, who cares?

EDIT: As to scale focus or zone focus cameras, you can change the focus on the lens, but have no confirmation in the camera. So, if you have a tape measure, or can estimate distances by eye, you can get a decent focus. I imagine, one would use these sorts of cameras at hyperfocal distance for a given aperture and just shoot knowing that anything in the range that your HF setting covers will be reasonably sharp. For instance: though SLRs are out, I could set my 28mm lens to f/16, turn the focus ring til the little 16 is lying under infinity, and know that everything from about 2.75' to infinity should be reasonably sharp. I can then just "point and shoot", the meter takes care of the exposure and I've already prefocused the camera.

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

Interchangeable lens with sensor > APS-C

I wasn't asking about how your proposed rules would apply.

Unixrevolution had referred to rangefinders in the past in a general way, which would include 35mm film rangefinders with interchangeable lenses. I am just curious why he thinks of them as being somewhat more P&S than 35mm film SLR cameras.

[Anton Magus]

At LAST we have a set of rules everyone seems to agree on.

No Large Format or camera typically requiring a tripod to use.
No Interchangeable lens cameras with an equivalent sensor size (film or digital) > APS-C (i.e. no 35mm (D)SLR, MF, etc)
No camera weighing over 1kg

Now, can we add one more rule?
"The judge of the contest may only change these rules with the agreement of the contestants".

[audiobomber]

No Interchangeable lens cameras with an equivalent sensor size (film or digital) > APS-C (i.e. no 35mm (D)SLR, MF, etc)

So a micro 4/3 MILC like Olympus PEN or Panasonic GF is OK? That seems wrong to me. Those cameras are DSLR-like in their abilities.

[unixrevolution]

I am fine with those rules too, btw. Should have said so earlier, more clearly.



Can you give an example of a scale-focus camera? I don't know what that means.


And if you allow rangefinders, by what reasoning would you disallow SLRs?



Do you have any clear examples in mind?

A scale-focus camera is a camera where the lens has focus adjustment of some kind, but there is no focus confirmation device. You simply set the lens to the lens-to-subject distance you estimate with your eye. They generally have slow lenses to aid in getting correct focus. The very first Leica was a fixed-lens, scale focus camera. So were most folders and box cameras that weren't focus-free, as well as notable examples like the Kodak Duaflex, higher-end models of the Kodak Tourist II, the Agfa Isolette, Rollie 35 and the Kodak Retina I. All had focus adjustment with no confirmation, you just go "eh, looks like 10 feet", focus and hope.

As for RFs, I was always an advocate of "no interchangeable lenses", so I did only mean Fixed-lens RFs, like the Yashica Lynx, Konica C35, Argus C3 and C4, Yashica Electro 35, and Kodak Retina II. Rangefinders were the de-facto "serious" point and shoot for those who thought a brownie or similar was just not good enough, but didn't want to pony up for a pro 35mm or Medium Format Interchangeable lens camera. The Argus C3 is probably the best known example of a rangefinder for the masses.

The reason I'd allow rangefinders over SLRs has two answers:

1. Rangefinder mechanisms were the all-mechanical, pre-autofocus way of putting a focus confirmation system on a camera that does not have TTL viewing, much as autofocus was the default way in the late 80s through today. It just happens to be an optical/mechanical way of finding focus, rather than an electronic one. Just like the VF window on an autofocus camera, the framing and focusing are not done through the lens, which means you aren't completely sure what will be included due to the VF and actual lens seeing a different amount of the image, and the parallax of having the two systems on different axes. Just like in an AF, camera, too, you only know that the camera has focus at one specific point; you really aren't sure of your Depth of Field because you can't confirm it visually like an SLR. An SLR is much different in that you can, in most cases, confirm not only focus on a particular point, but also confirm what else will be in focus, and you have a MUCH more accurate idea of what will be included in frame.

Summary for the TL;DR crowd: fixed lens RFs and fixed-lens autofocus cameras are both cameras that view and focus through something other than the lens, meaning they BOTH only confirm focus at one specific point and don't let you check DoF or give a 100% accurate idea of what the final image will look like.

2. I, personally, wouldn't mind allowing SLRs under the same standard as rangefinders: fixed lens only. However, I can only think of a very few fixed-lens SLRs: The Minolta 110 SLR, the Polaroid SX-70, Yashica Samurai series, and a group of fixed-lens 35mm SLRs by Mamiya (the Auto-Lux 35, Family, 528TL, and 528AL).

I wasn't asking about how your proposed rules would apply.

Unixrevolution had referred to rangefinders in the past in a general way, which would include 35mm film rangefinders with interchangeable lenses. I am just curious why he thinks of them as being somewhat more P&S than 35mm film SLR cameras.

I almost always meant fixed-lens Rangefinders, rather than Interchangeable Lens RFs. I'd really hesitate to call even an Autoexposure Leica M7 a point and shoot. Same with a Mamiya 7.

[RoxnDox]

Geez, you guys have blasted 200+ posts at each other - some of them nice discussions, but many of them just plain old arguments - about how to define a fuzzy, nebulous, ever-evolving category of cameras. While it's kinda interesting to see the arguments, it seems to me like y'all are going to be as successful at defining this as the old-timers arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin!

Jim

[Laurentiu Cristofor]

As for RFs, I was always an advocate of "no interchangeable lenses", so I did only mean Fixed-lens RFs, like the Yashica Lynx, Konica C35, Argus C3 and C4, Yashica Electro 35, and Kodak Retina II.

Thanks for the information and detailed explanations. I understand your point of view better now.

[Anton Magus]

No Interchangeable lens cameras with an equivalent sensor size (film or digital) > APS-C (i.e. no 35mm (D)SLR, MF, etc)

So a micro 4/3 MILC like Olympus PEN or Panasonic GF is OK? That seems wrong to me. Those cameras are DSLR-like in their abilities.

OK. We all seem to be in rough agreement but audiobomber makes a good point in that micro 4/3 should maybe be the cut-off point for interchangeable lenses instead of APS-C.
To sum up:

"Compact Camera" Contest Rules

No Large Format or camera typically requiring a tripod to use.
No Interchangeable lens cameras with an equivalent sensor size (film or digital) => micro 4/3 (i.e. no INTERCHANGEABLE LENS 35mm (D)SLR, MF, etc)
No camera weighing over 1kg
These rules can only be changed by mutual agreement of all contest entrants

Is that now acceptable to everyone?