[Nesster]

Mike, here's one you might find interesting:

Honeywell Strobonar on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

And I didn't know Honeywell sold Agfa back in '75:


Honeywell Agfachrome on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

No Pentax camera ads in this issue, as they were in between the screw mount and the K.

[Blue]

Heh heh heh. . . .

This particular issue had a lot of talk about 110 film. Pentax hadn't yet come out with the SLR.
. . .

Would you be kind enough to post the 110 stuff?

[vinzer]

Heh heh heh. Yes the C35 is reviewed in the issue. And there's an ad I'll post...

I read through the mag, and it's about the same - give or take - as today's Pop Photo. A lot of thinly re-formatted promotional stuff. Pros giving advice. How to articles that sometimes are excellent, sometimes astoundingly amateurish. And pontification about current trends. So mostly fluff, but with a handful of good, useful sentences mixed in. Back in the day I subscribed to Modern, got my basic photo education that way. When the articles started to repeat too much (ie. about 1.5 years) I eventually let the subscription lapse.

This particular issue had a lot of talk about 110 film. Pentax hadn't yet come out with the SLR.

Sometimes people wonder - and we forget, those of us who were somewhat around back when - how people learned about the equipment back when.

Well, the mags had a bit more character in the front-of-the-book columnists. We all know about Keppler. Well, Norm Rothschild was in a similar vein - pointing out curmudgeonly things... There was a long-running vintage camera column... and the magazines gave at least some coverage to photo shows and books. And specific brands had their own clubs and newsletters. The kind of stuff nowadays is mostly online.

Oh, and while Shutterbug was THE used equipment resource, the big mags had enough used ads to get a sense of the market.

I never got to experience mail-order shopping, which I reckon was the method of choice when buying stuff that's not available in local brick-and-mortar stores.

I also got a better understanding of photography by buying magazine back-issues and noticed later on that it's more of the same as time passes. Only the equipment reviews and news change.

[Nesster]

Blue - sure thing. There was an editorial about the 'Japanese view' of the 110 market, and an one pager of a Kodak range finder Instamatic.

Here's a Kodak ad - I just love that fake wood grain ... ooops ... fake plastic leather covering.

Kodak Pockets on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

[séamuis]

I really want that Auto Strobonar.

[ChrisPlatt]

For many years before they became one, Popular Photography and Modern Photography
were competitors, and probably the biggest selling monthly photo magazines in the USA.

IIRC Pop Photo never reviewed a product it didn't like. I preferred Modern, which was
slightly less uncritical, and devoted a little more copy to photographers and technique.

Chris

[k100d]

Blue - sure thing. There was an editorial about the 'Japanese view' of the 110 market, and an one pager of a Kodak range finder Instamatic.

Here's a Kodak ad - I just love that fake wood grain ... ooops ... fake plastic leather covering.

Kodak Pockets on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

when i was a kid in the late 80s, i thought these were the coolest cameras ever ... at least from the choices out of the catalog

[8540tomg]

Cool! I still have a K2 camera and it works just fine. I doubt I will be able to say the same of my K10 34 years form now. Come to think about it I probably won't be working all that well in 34 years.

Tom G

[Blue]

Blue - sure thing. There was an editorial about the 'Japanese view' of the 110 market, and an one pager of a Kodak range finder Instamatic.

Here's a Kodak ad - I just love that fake wood grain ... ooops ... fake plastic leather covering.

Kodak Pockets on Flickr - Photo Sharing!

Thanks Nesster!

[Blue]

when i was a kid in the late 80s, i thought these were the coolest cameras ever ... at least from the choices out of the catalog

I still have the Pentax Auto 110 and it is pretty cool, especially the 70mm lens.

[stevebrot]

For many years before they became one, Popular Photography and Modern Photography
were competitors, and probably the biggest selling monthly photo magazines in the USA.

IIRC Pop Photo never reviewed a product it didn't like. I preferred Modern, which was
slightly less uncritical, and devoted a little more copy to photographers and technique.

Chris

Your memory is correct regarding Pop Photo and their reviews. Modern, however, had a pretty good test methodology for lenses and cameras thanks to Keppler.

Steve

[Blue]

If IRCC, Modern Phot had some really neat "how-to" type projects.

[Nesster]

Modern was my favorite as well.


I was thinking yesterday, back in '75 I was shooting for the yearbook, a senior in high school, and using a Pen FT. Had a little darkroom in the basement.

Supposing it had occurred to me I needed a full size slr? What would I have bought? And I've come to the conclusion: OM1 or a KONICA

Why? I read the photo mags. I absorbed their biases, perhaps less vehemently expressed than on the net these days, but there nontheless.

I'd rule out Nikon and Canon as too expensive and too obvious. the German cameras, still being referenced as top of the heap, way too expensive. At the moment, Minolta was a bit old fashioned with the SRT. And Pentax, with the SPF, the ES II, and the SP1000... screw mount, old fashioned, man.

So you see, my two favorite cameras I'd have passed right by.

So why OM1? First, the lens mount etc is very familiar to someone used to the Pen FT. Second, it was the 'it' camera of the moment, the smallest, Olympus wrote great ads... photo schools (including my college) used OM1's to teach with. The OM1 was a bit Whole Earth, you know?

So why Konica? It's those damn magazines. The way they insinuate a pecking order, nothing too explicit, only the asides and examples they'd throw in, you know, casually. I note that Leica, Contax... and Konica were mentioned as the 'in the know', cognoscenti, sort of way. The mags were selling Konica as the insider camera. (I think this was left over excitement over their pioneering the EE system. I have a Konica now: amazingly the 'leather' hasn't shrunken, and it's a shutter priority camera. ugh.)

10 years later I came to the same conclusion: I bought the OM2s, considered the Minolta, didn't even look at Pentax. Now of course the OM2s is still the most feature rich of my cameras, and works great... only the vf is still a bit dim even with a brighter screen, and it eats batteries. The Program Plus from the same era simply works.


Goes to show something...

[Jonson PL]

Modern was my favorite as well.


I was thinking yesterday, back in '75 I was shooting for the yearbook, a senior in high school, and using a Pen FT. Had a little darkroom in the basement.

Supposing it had occurred to me I needed a full size slr? What would I have bought? And I've come to the conclusion: OM1 or a KONICA

Why? I read the photo mags. I absorbed their biases, perhaps less vehemently expressed than on the net these days, but there nontheless.

I'd rule out Nikon and Canon as too expensive and too obvious. the German cameras, still being referenced as top of the heap, way too expensive. At the moment, Minolta was a bit old fashioned with the SRT. And Pentax, with the SPF, the ES II, and the SP1000... screw mount, old fashioned, man.

So you see, my two favorite cameras I'd have passed right by.

So why OM1? First, the lens mount etc is very familiar to someone used to the Pen FT. Second, it was the 'it' camera of the moment, the smallest, Olympus wrote great ads... photo schools (including my college) used OM1's to teach with. The OM1 was a bit Whole Earth, you know?

So why Konica? It's those damn magazines. The way they insinuate a pecking order, nothing too explicit, only the asides and examples they'd throw in, you know, casually. I note that Leica, Contax... and Konica were mentioned as the 'in the know', cognoscenti, sort of way. The mags were selling Konica as the insider camera. (I think this was left over excitement over their pioneering the EE system. I have a Konica now: amazingly the 'leather' hasn't shrunken, and it's a shutter priority camera. ugh.)

10 years later I came to the same conclusion: I bought the OM2s, considered the Minolta, didn't even look at Pentax. Now of course the OM2s is still the most feature rich of my cameras, and works great... only the vf is still a bit dim even with a brighter screen, and it eats batteries. The Program Plus from the same era simply works.


Goes to show something...

Fun stuff. When I read them mentioning Photokina, I got excited as well; it immediately felt like news

[Ratmagiclady]

I really want that Auto Strobonar.

Things like that do turn up on the 'bay pretty often, fairly cheap.