Uncle Jonesy's Cameras: How "GAS" Made Me a Better Photographer

Note - Today's blog comes from the photographic adventures of Kelley Lane

Ok, let me clarify that title. It probably should read “How the Acquisition of One Particular Camera Made Me a Better Photographer.” If you have spent any time with a film photographer, you would have learned that most of us suffer from this condition known as “Gear Acquisition Syndrome,” or “GAS” for short. To put it simply, when I am out and about in flea markets, antique shops, or thrift stores and I come across a film camera that I do not already have in my collection, I have to actively battle the urge to rescue (purchase) the camera from its lonely and dusty surroundings, and give this fine piece of machinery a new home where it will be used, cared for, and appreciated. Sometimes it is all I can do to make myself walk away from the table and not look back at the sad and orphaned camera still sitting with its price tag reading $10.00. “All it needs is a good home” I think to myself as I deal with that special kind of quilt brought about by abandonment. Kinda like visiting the dog pound on Adoption Day when you know the last thing you need is another mouth to feed. “Why do I do this to myself,” I ask as I do an about face, head back to the table, and fork over the $10.00 to the smiling lady who looks as if she is saying “I knew you would be back.”

A while back, however, I did purchase a camera from an antique mall that has really made a difference in my growth as a photographer. The camera was a Kodak Retina 1B. The Retina line was a series of cameras made be Eastman Kodak in their German factory. A few of these models turned out to be really nicely made cameras with excellent lenses and exceptional build quality. The Retina 1B is one of these with its Schneider 2.8 50mm lens and Compur leaf shutter. But what really was special about this camera was the two things it didn’t have.

Kodak Retina 1B

When I first started taking photos many years ago, I understood little about exposure technique. My first really good camera, a Minolta XG-1 had an exposure meter and an auto exposure mode that I relied upon totally. This was fine except that I always wanted to be able to look at the lighting and be able to set exposure without any help from a meter. Of course I could have done that with the XG-1, but the auto exposure mode had become a crutch, and I didn’t have the knowledge or the confidence to go my own way. This Retina 1B, is a fully manual camera with a full range of exposure settings, and though it has a light meter on board, it no longer is functioning. So, when I first began to shoot with this camera, I carried a hand held light meter with me . . . again, no confidence in myself. But using this light meter proved to be a complete distraction in my picture taking work flow, and I thought to myself, “Why can’t I just look at the light and make a judgement about the exposure?” I had heard of “Sunny 16,” but never felt the need to use this simple formula to set my exposure. Maybe it was time I ditched the light meter habit and truly get in touch with how light and exposure works.

Sunny 16 is a simple rule that goes like this. If you are shooting on a bright sunny day with the sun behind you, simply set the aperture to F16, and the shutter speed to the setting that is the closest match to the speed of your film. For example, if your film ISO is 100, set the shutter to 1/125 of a second. Your camera is now ready as long as your subject is direct sunlight. This part of Sunny 16 is easy . . . just shoot in bright sunlight. But the real magic of this simple rule of exposure comes when the lighting is anything but sunny. If you understand that each setting of the shutter or the aperture increases or decreases the amount of light reaching the film by multiples of two, then you now have a real guide to setting your exposure. For example, if I’m shooting 100 ISO film and my subject is in bright sunlight, my shutter would be set to 1/125 and the aperture would be set to F16. However, if my subject decides to step into the shade, I now have to increase the amount of light reaching the film. How much, you say? If I open my aperture to the next setting at F11, I have doubled the amount of light reaching the film. If I go on to F8, the light has been increase by a factor of 4. Each “stop” on my aperture going down from F16 doubles the amount of light. I can now use this information to make a judgement on exposure now that my subject is no longer in bright sunlight, but now in the shade. How much I actually increase the light that enters the lens depends on the subject (light or dark) and the background (reflective or non-reflective), but my basic rule of thumb is to increase the aperture by two stops (F8) when shooting in the shade. If the background is dark, I might go three stops down (F5.6). The key point is that I am now looking at light and, using Sunny 16 as a guide, I now can make an educated guess as to what my exposure setting should be. In other words, I have now become my own light meter. All I had to do was start paying serious attention to the amount of light illuminating my subject and decide how much (if any) I needed to increase the light reaching the film from the bright sunlight setting of F16. It only took a few rolls of film to practice this method, and as it turned out, my “educated guesses” were more correct than incorrect. This gave me the confidence to shoot away in all manner of lighting conditions without relying on a light meter. Now I could use the many old cameras that I have collected that have no light meter.

Kodak Retina 1B - Tri X 400 - Marietta, GA

I owe this renewed confidence as a photographer to this little Kodak Retina 1B. If I had never purchased this camera, I would probably still be shooting 35mm SLR’s and totally relying on the auto exposure mode. There if nothing wrong with this, of course. Sometimes it is nice shoot pictures and not thinks about exposure at all. But being a good photographer means understanding how light works, just like being a good cook means knowing about ingredients and how much to use in preparing a meal. When I look at a photograph I have made that came out really good, I get a great feeling knowing that I made the decision about exposure based on how I saw the light with my own eyes. This makes my photos a more personal expression of how I saw my subject. This is what “art” is all about. So next time you see an old camera at a flea market or thrift store looking sad and lonely and begging to be taken home, try to be open to the possibilities of what this old camera might teach you about photography. It could be the best $10.00 you have spent in while.

Next time, I'll tell you about the other thing this camera taught me. Till then, "Let's get some pictures."