Saturday, August 29, 2009

Design (updated)

There's a likkle discussion on Mike's site about camera design and "wunderplastik".

It can be small things that make a difference. For instance the two versions of the Nikon F2 Photomic below probably looks the same to most people, but to me the lower version is far better looking.
I mean, to me it makes such a difference that I bought the second one on eBay just for pleasure of having it on my desk, but I wouldn't have paid a cent for the first one.



Steve White said...
"The plain prism F2 (no built in light meter) was the most beautiful of this series."

I have a weakness for the huge light-meter finders, but I can certainly see the argument for the other side. Very pretty too, and a more elegant beauty whereas the big-finder version is kinda "brutal".


By the way, below is the F6, the film-model which amazingly came out as late as 2004, well after it was clear that film is moribund. (I'm sure it had been in development for many years, and probably Nikon saw it as a status thing to bring out a new pro film camera, to show they still take the old pros seriously.) I think it looks nice, and I'm sure it's an awesome camera.


4 comments:

Alex said...

Oh, no no no no no.

See, I believe that you should have both. Then you can set up your web cam, and talk us all through how the two cameras are different.

See, I agree the lower is nicer looking, that gentle texture versus the stripes, but really a collection is about completeness, not pleasantness.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I guess I'm not a collector then, I could never get into the completeness thing, not when I bought comics either. If a series got a poor artist, I dropped it like a hot potato.

Steve White said...

The plain prism F2 (no built in light meter) was the most beautiful of this series.

Eolake Stobblehouse said...

I have a weakness for the huge light-meter finders, but I can certainly see the argument for the other side. Very pretty too.