Get A Grip Week - Day One - The Murky Past

 

This is the week when you get a firm grasp of getting a firm grip - when you go from the ridiculous to the sublime and then back again.

We promise ridiculous, and the heading image might suggest it, but if you were shooting a medium format TLR camera 20 years ago, you would have a different opinion. Because TLR cameras were made to be particularly hard to operate...and that was deliberate.

Think I'm joking? Pick up a Rolleiflex and hold it in your left hand. See how your finger falls on the shutter button? And your right hand holds the film winding handle? All good? Now focus the camera...

Yeah. Gotcha...

You might just get away with a Minolta Autocord or Flexaret with the focusing lever under the lens stage, but you're still going to be juggling things and I'll bet you'll eventually drop it in the mud...

Now try attaching it the camera to this ( no-name ) grip from the 70's. The big base takes the square base of the camera. The big hand grip lets you hold it firmly and the hand strap firther re-inforces the steadiness. There's a flash shoe - admittedly plain but then the flashes of those days used PC synch cords. Unfortunately the cable release that feeds out from the bottom of the grip is missing but that was the ideal way to trigger the camera - from a mechanical trigger under your finger. Focus, wind with one hand, shoot with the other. Then take your films to the chemist and wait a fortnight...

Oh, and look at how neatly the thing folds into itself for storage in the big leather camera case -the one with the paisley strap. 1970 was good.

 

Okay, joking aside, this grip is well thought-out. Like the Hasselblad grips of the same period - and the equally smart right-handed Bronica winding handles - it balances the camera function wisely between two hands and lets the shooter function far better than with a bare camera. And that is what the digital grips you'll see later in the week do for modern times.

Side note: The Rollei TLRs only made ergonomic sense when you did as Mr. Franke, the owner of the Franke and Heidecke company, did. He suspended the TLR from a neck strap off substantial lugs on the side of the camera, held it out in front of himself with his stomach, and then had both hands free to twiddle the focus and winding controls.

Next post: Olympus grips everything in sight!

Being Left Out By The Designers

I must preface this column with the statement that I am right-handed when writing and using power tools. I am also right-eyed while shooting a rifle or shotgun. Shooting a revolver involves closing both eyes and waving it about until the noise stops. This is really only effective if if am inside a barn and the doors are shut - I can then hit the barn at least once out of six shots.

I wear my wristwatch on the right arm because no-one ever told me not to. It does not seem to affect the passage of time. Round here at 4:30 it drags slower and slower...

But I am aware that there are many people who are left-handed and who are disadvantaged when it comes to operating things designed for the right-handers. The dear old Exakta film cameras are long gone - at least they gave Lefty a button to push to fire the thing, even though they still made him wind on with the right thumb. No-one since has been kind to them at all.

There are particular perils for the left hander who has a weak right eye - if the camera has a viewfinder window on the left of the body his whole face will be across the camera and if it has a central viewfinder window his nose will be so far over that his thumb will be in it. No wonder that people who try to do photography under these conditions might well consider moving back to the older SLR or TLR that has a waist-level finder and a hood to shade it.

If you wish to introduce the question of large stomachs or chests at this point I will withdraw to the back of the monorail 4 x 5 camera and look at the ground glass screen. You may join me under the black cloth. If you are claustrophobic I suggest you give up landscape photography and purchase postcards. I can do no more.

Uncle Dick

A Little Rough Around The Edges But...

Never mind building models of the Taj Mahal or Neuschwannstein. If you're reading this column you really want to build one of these!

Brought back from Japan by our managers and assembled with great precision and his tongue stuck out of the corner of his mouth by Domenic, this little Nanoblock camera has the familiar shape of a...including the ASA reminder dial on the back of the body.

Please feel free to fill in all the pixelation, f:stop, interchangeable lens jokes you care to invent here:


We can only hope that these appear in the toy stores here in Perth - and can we hope as well for TLR's and DSLR's to further grace our display shelves?