Saturday, January 14, 2006

Shutter down on Film Cameras

Nikon, a major camera maker is going to end making traditional film cameras and focus on digital cameras. Other major camera makers, Cannon & Kodak have already announced their intention to stop making traditional film cameras. Very soon, traditional film cameras will only be found in museums and special collections.

My association with film cameras started with Yashica TLRs and black & white photos. In fact my first earning / salary came from photography. I used to be a side kick to my brother-in-law who was a photographer. After a year of changing batteries, rolls and running errands, my BIL graduated me to take photos in a marriage which brought me my first earning of INR 200. I continued my freelance photography with him for several years till my departure from Chennai. Of course, by then we had moved from Yashica TLRs to Nikon SLRs and from B&W to color photography.

Since then, several cameras have passed through my hand, but I still fondly remember the Yashica TLRs and the sharp B&W pictures it used to produce.



Related Articles
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2 comments:

  1. Didn't know about your Photography days.! Interesting.!

    The whole word is going digital..and Nikon couldn't help it I guess..considering their falling sales.!!

    I heard this news in NPR last week and was surprised.

    That said..I think it would be a good idea to save all our Film SLR's. Who knows..during the days of our Grand children..they might be antique items.!!

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  2. Narayanan

    Oh yes.. I used to do marriage photography for quite a while. This gave me the 'extra' income / pocket money badly needed in those days. Also, I used to do 'studio rounds' with my BIL. He used to be a regular contributor to the cine magazines like 'Pesum padam', 'Bommai' & 'Gemini Cinema' and the likes.. It used to be fun but long hours mostly waiting for the stars discouraged us from continuing that after a while.

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