The Walking Around Camera

March 14, 2009

One of the things you tell beginning photographers is to “always have a camera on you”.   This is especially important for city dwellers as you never know what strange, wonderful, horrible thing will come walking down the street by itself or enmasse and you will kick yourself if you can’t take a picture.

Dancers, Union Square NYC 2008

I’ve gotten into the habit of wearing a small messenger bag whenever I go out.  I’m very fond of my Timbuk2 bag and its taking on a nice patina from the air pollution, grime, and whatever passes as precipitation in this city.  Known disparingly as the “man purse” in some circles it  has become an essential component of the NYC uniform.  Most people take public transportation and carrying a novel with you ensures that you can retreat into some small semblence of privacy by sticking your nose in a book.

After stuffing your reading material, pens, cell phone, breath mints, snack, or laptop into one’s messenger bag there’s a limited amount of room for a camera.  Most people would find no trouble in shoving a compact digital into their bag but we’re too good for that shit now aren’t we?   We need a camera that’s compact, sturdy enough to stand being jostled constantly, and takes a equally compact, fast lens.

I think most people would agree that 35mm would be the format of choice.  There are 120 folding cameras but you can fit 2  rolls of 35mm into a slightly larger space than a single roll of 120.   72 shots vs. 20-32 shots.  As this is street photography we’re going to have a lot of bad negatives and a few good ones.  Do yourself a favor and give yourself 36 chances to take a good picture.

The next issue is exposure.  I’m generally in favor of full manual control over your exposure but over the years I’ve softened and started to enjoy the pleasure of aperture priority modes.   I prefer aperture priority as your f-stop will most often have far more control over the mood of your shot than the shutter.   Just keep your eye on the shutter speed if you’re shooting a street performer or anyone who will turn into a blur if you’re not careful.

Then there’s autofocus.  I am not a fan of autofocus as I’ve often found it more trouble than its worth.   More expensive lenses and bodies will often have excellent autofocus mechanisms but we’re talking about a carry around camera, not a gargantuan piece of steel and chrome that scares children.  Just learn to twist the lens until you get what you want.

Lastly, let’s talk about a very real concern with a camera that you carry everywhere, cost and durability.   Leicas are immediately recognizable by people who know cameras.   People who know cameras also know what they cost about $5-6k for the body and lens and they maintain their value extremely well.  Very tempting for a thief.  They win hands down on the durability scale but Things Happen.  If you’re going to carry something around constantly and whip it out in a crowd perhaps you’re better off picking something you won’t cry over if its gone.

So we’re generally looking at a 35mm with aperture priority, manual focus, and a slightly wide to normal lens that’s cheap, looks like nothing special, and can take getting smacked into a wall a few times without breaking.

My old favorite was the Pentax ME-Super which is a compact SLR produced by Pentax during the 70′s.   Its primary shooting mode is aperture priority but it does feature a really annoying manual mode.  I prefer to use the compensation dial rather than fool around with the manual  mode which uses buttons to set your shutter speed.   You just set your aperture on the lens and snap away.   They made a million lenses for the k-mount bodies so they’re all available dirt cheap used.

Naturally there’s the Pentax K1000, favorite of students everywhere which lacks the auto-exposure but is equally cheap and easy to obtain.  Its worth noting the early Nikon F series and the Canon AE and FD cameras but they are larger and like the K1000 are manual exposure only.

Next are compact shooters like the Olympus XA and the Minox GL.  These are very small and while they’re still cheap they do have hipster cache these days and their prices on ebay and keh have gone up as a result.   Your best bet is a yard sale if they have such things in your neck of the woods.   I would pick the Olympus XA over the Minox due to the coupled rangefinder.  The Minox uses scale focusing so you must be good at estimating distance (I am not).   On the downside the Olympus sticks you with 100 and 400 ISO only.  So its a fair weather shooter only.   The Pentax ME goes up to 1600 giving you a chance to engage in a little night photography.

Personally I’ve moved past the Pentax ME and taken up with the Voigtlander Bessa R3A as I’m confident I can keep it and won’t break it.  The Pentax does get some use as the lenses are cheaper giving me more options and I have a wonderful russian 16mm fisheye which can produce some interesting images.   The R3A also only goes as wide as 40mm which is fine for me but wide angle shooters will prefer the R4A which features framelines for much wider lenses.

Overall it really depends on your taste, the size of your hands (some might find compact cameras too fiddly for their oversized mitts), and of course, the size of your man purse.

Posted in Technique