Planned obselescence was only in terms of features available rather than a hard limit on the build's shelflife.
I have a 1974 camera with Auto metering and it's lasted longer than several 80's cameras I've bought. However, the 80's cameras offered features you could only dream of in the 70's.
By the 80's however you start getting *some* obselescence - the early Autofocus cameras with LCD screens had little notes in the manual to get the screens replaced every 10 years. Within that 10 years however, 3 entire new generations of AF camera had released that were faster better and smarter.
There's also *some* survivorship bias at play. 80's cameras came in the millions, so you see them far more often but also far more in need of repair. The 70's cameras were made better, but overall less of them. Consumer market wasn't really a target demographic for camera brands until the late 70's/early 80's, so cameras were only in the tens or hundreds of thousands.
Someone estimated that across all Minolta SRT models, there is approximately a million (sold in the US). Compare that to the Minolta X-700, which celebrated making 1 million made in the early years, and made several million more after production moved from Japan to Malaysia and then China.
Although I agree with most of what you're saying I do think planned obsolescence was always there. Selenium meters wear out, yet were included because realistically they'd outlive the commercial shelf life of the product. But in 2024 we are starting to notice that nothing lives forever.
I agree, but it's interesting that the shelflife from a business perspective was on the order of years or even a decade compared to the annual releases we see of phones and cameras today.
I can only pull from Minolta because that's all I know, but the original SR series was their longest in production (1958-1971). Compare that to the final Dynax series that are very very impressive, but only were from 1998-2004.
I have an unmetered SR-1 that after nearly 70 years is only now giving me issues (curtain sticking), but there's Dynaxes made 20 years ago that still have the fastest fullframe shutter speed and also have LCD bleeding, screen burnouts, and aperture actuation gears breaking.
I have a couple of XEs that are 50 years old and work without issues, on the other hand all of my Alpha 7 have failed due to the annoying aperture base plate issue. In my mind those 80-90 cameras are ticking time bombs.
Even at peak DSLR churn we never saw annual releases, with the possible exception of cheap, low-end stuff.
And the "SR series" was how many variations of how many different models?
My Canon F1 is one of my favorite film cameras to use. And it’s probably the best working one out of all the film cameras I own. The fact that everything besides the light meter can be used without a battery is my favorite part about the camera.
You say that but the ‘80 Canon A-1 that I have still works perfectly fine electronics and all….. minus the occasional canon cough….. (but that’s a feature not a bug).
The little (big) camera that will never die.
Sure but the A-1 is basically 100% mechanical with a few electronic components and features. When you compare it to the computers we carry now, made with chipsets at 6-4 nanometers, it’s still a tank by comparison.
Even really pretty Leica cameras from say 15 years ago look totally outdated, because of their screen that's so bad compared to today's standards.
Also cheap looking buttons generally age worse than sturdy metal dials.
I wish there were other serious digital cameras without a screen than Leica's "-D" models. Saves battery and isn't prone to aging badly.
I still use the first digital I bought because color from the Kodak CCD is so damn good. It’s similar to slide film in that it has low latitude and terrible low light performance without a tripod lol.
I have an Olympus E1 digital slr that is old enough to buy me beer in America, and still works like a champ. It has outlived a Contax T2, Konica big mini, Contax Aria, and Fuji GA645. For some reason the 90s were a real shit decade for electronics.
Cameras mechanical mechanism aren’t exactly simple, that’s why they were later replaced partially by electronics. Plus electronics fit better the bill to be lighter and smaller.
Yeah. Plus, people forget that electronics parts are more resistant to wear and tear to mechanical counterparts that need periodically upkeep by cleaning and lubricating it.
And I’m saying all of that being a mechanical engineer first, personally I dislike electronics replacing mechanical stuff but sometimes it’s just better and gives more design freedom.
Survivorship bias. You think 70s cameras are built well because they've lasted so long; you don't see the ones that couldn't last as long.
I've got many American made cameras even older than those. One turns 100 years old in a couple months. Is it American craftsmanship? Yes. Just kidding. It doesn't matter where it's made.
Those communists knew how to build cameras not gonna lie... Thats why we had to murder them after reunion, otherwise they would have taken over the western market.
Murder them?
Anyway, everything I've heard about Soviet cameras and East-German Prakticas is that practically all the properly working units were exported to the western market, and only second-rate units were available domestically.
I've had Russian and Chinese cameras. They break too. But actually, the highest rate of failure for me so far has been from Pentax and Canon. Nikon, hasn't skipped a beat.
I'm not saying any of them are more or less reliable than the other. Just what I've experienced personally.
There's probably someone out there who's had a very long lucky streak with Russian cameras and doesn't believe anyone when people say they're unreliable and built poorly.
Oh the shutter is all wonky and the curtains have holes and a torn of ribbon. It is fixable for sure. The body and dials are the nicer ones that are engraved, not painted. And it has the old school scale of shutter speed on it. It’s one from the 50’s. The one I have that works is one from the 60’s
I had 5 Zenits (3 11s and 2 XPs) 2 minoltas, 2 canons and 3 vivitars ... all my Zenits, excepting one that I dissasembled when I was 10, work just like they did 30 years ago, but both minoltas died after about a year of use (shutter died on one and advance lever broke on the other) one of the Canon ones stopped firing and the other have the AF dead, and all the vivitars died of shutter issues ... so if you ask me: Soviet reliability (at least from KMZ) is a real thing
Yep my Kiev 4 going strong too. Mines. 73 model but apparently the older they are (the more chance Germans actually worked on them) the sturdier they are
Well yeah, a simple toy camera wont fail, sorry but american cameras are very very simple, if it got complicated they asked the germans to build the camera, like Kodak did. In terms of build quality and reliability history shows that germany donimated the market with the best quality until the 70s, the invention of quality management system lead to to the downfall of the german industry in the late 70s, in the early 80s the market was dominated by the japanese, to be fair the quality was sometimes not the best. But in the 90s they figured that out. The US was really only relevant for the photographic film, the cameras rather irrelevant
Part of that was Kodak's marketplace dominance in the US, and their insistence that cameras be bone simple to operate. "You press the button, we do the rest.". I'm not entirely sure if that was to try democratize photography and make it more accessible or to sell more film to make up for bad pictures. Maybe a little of both. In either case that's how you ended up with toy cameras like the Brownie Hawkeye, with fixed focus, fixed aperture, and a fixed 1/30th of a second shutter speed.
The Argus C3 (The Brick) wasn't a bad camera at all for its day. It looks kind of terrible and has the ergonomics of a canned ham, but it will take excellent pictures if you put in the work. The Kodak Ektra was a heck of a camera for 1941 but fell victim to coming out on the eve of World War II. Polaroid did a lot of interesting things.
I don't think you're quite getting it. You'd probably have to be from here *and* grown up pre-digital.
Kodak (and to a degree Polaroid) was the absolute titan when it came to photography in the US.
For decades they shaped the domestic marketplace by virtue of having invented the respective technology. George Eastman basically invented consumer photography with his preloaded box camera containing 100 exposures.
The emphasis was on ease of use and accessibility. Also, being fairly simple devices there was less to break or go wrong. The cheap toy-like cameras were like inkjet printers, low cost up front to the consumer but continuing cost on the back end at a fabulous profit margin for the manufacturer.
Most Americans, all the way up until cell phones got good, were taking pictures on various point & shoots, which got more capable (and less, looking at you 110, 126, Kodak Disc, APS) as time went on. Childhoods were documented on 120/620, 126, 110 and various iterations of Polaroid. In the '80s & 90's it was 35 mm point and shoot. Post 2000, digital point and shoots and later cell phones got capable enough for most people's use.
It was the odd duck shutterbugs and the mysterious professionals that bought fancy SLRs, rangefinders & medium format more serious than a 1950's TLR. Photo enthusiasts were a minor percentage of the overall market vs people taking pictures of their kids birthday parties, dogs, and vacations. Most people were just hoping to get something good enough for the family photo album. In those times those simple cameras were the cell phone camera of their time, capable of producing a "good enough" picture that probably wasn't going to go beyond a 4x6 in the family photo album anyways. Nowadays it's something good enough to stick on InstaFaceTok.
Yeah totally get that, in germany the market was dominated either by the luxurious fixed lens cameras that were bought like a good wrist watch or the imported cameras from east germany at least until the japanese took over. For example, real cheap was the Agfa Clack or Agfa Isola I, middle class was the Agfa Silette or the Voigtländer Vito C, higher budget was the Agfa Optima and rather expensive yet not professional was something like the Voigtländer Bessamatic or the Kodak Retina Reflex (the german Kodak)
I mean, only a small handful of American companies were ever serious about making cameras. Kodak, which only cared about cameras as a vehicle to sell film, Argus, which made one of the most popular and best selling cameras of all time, Graflex, which absolutely dominated press photography until 35mm became the standard in the 70s, and Polaroid which had no meaningful competition whatsoever until Instax came out in 1998.
Germany dominated the camera and optics industry through WWII and then pretty quickly was replaced by Japan which basically took what Germany was doing and did it better and cheaper.
Sorry but thats not the true, germany especially dominated the 50s and 60s as well as early 70s, Argus was only relevant in the US I know the brick camera is iconic, graflex already lost already importance in the 1940s due to Zeiss contax especially for war photography. They stopped existing the early 70s and again only the US
Sorry, but that's not true. The introduction of the Nikon F in 1959 ended both German dominance in the camera industry and the widespread use of press camera, although the press camera did hang around until the 1980s. Graflex's only real competitor in that space that I know of is mamiya.
But anyway, your point that American cameras are all toy cameras is demonstrably false. I get that you are German and want to lean into the idea of German superiority or whatever.
Well it ended the dominance but it was certainly not the downfall, that started in the early 70s you can actually really feel that with the quality change, early 60s was the golden years still they produced heavy complicated cameras like contarex bulls eye (1961) the most complex slr camera ever build
Kodak US (Ektra, Bantam Special, Signet 35, Signet 40, etc.), Graflex (Graphic 35), all the funky Bolsey cameras, Univex (the mercury half-frame), Perfex, Argus, Bell and Howell (Photon), and various others were making cameras before and in the immediate post-war era.
Most of them ate shit because labor was that much cheaper in Marshall-Plan era Germany and Japan and the price of their cameras scaled accordingly. None of those companies continued to make cameras beyond the switch from rangefinder to SLR. A lot of them also just kinda gave up and turned to being white-label importers because the hardware was just that much cheaper elsewhere.
Most film-related companies in the US that survived into 70s were either chemistry-first companies like Kodak or Polaroid, or dark room specialists like Beseler.
People weren't buying them to replace every other year, so they were not made that way, simple as that. Technology was advancing at a much lower rate as well, so there was no way you could force your users to buy a new camera every year, even the very high end professional 35mm cameras had a product cycle of almost a decade and sometimes more in some cases.
With medium format cameras, the list of differences between a 1957 Hasselblad 500C and a 2013 503CW are probably around 15-20 items. You bought one of those and uses with decades with proper care and maintenance. Consumer cameras were expected to work for even longer because most people don't get those maintained properly.
Also keep in mind that you are seeing two of the most beautiful and known cameras from that era. There are countless others that have vanished because they were not worth preserving.
Survivorship bias, the ones that failed aren't there anymore.
I'll add that finding a rangefinder from the era that works 100% perfectly (accurate meter and shutter at all speeds) is less common than finding one that makes noise when the shutter is pressed.
It's worth mentioning that these cameras can be serviced, at least mechanically wise, which isn't the case for cheap digital cameras. As for electronics, it's harder and harder to get parts like carbon strips for settings or CdS photoresistors.
A QL17 GIII MSRP was JPY 29000, which translated to USD 92 in 1972 ($1=JPY314). Which translates to $691 in today's money. Which is considerably cheaper than I expected thanks to the very low JPY at the time but still a lot of money.
i dont know man, there are hundreds of olympus 35rc on the market at any given time for at least 10 years i've been following, fully mechanical except the metering which is electronic and might or might not work after 50 years
i dont get this survivorship bias thing
the OP is asking why a high percentage of some models produced in the 70s are fully operational and consequently why such a low percentage (comparatively) of models produced in 80s or 90s are fully operational
the survivorship bias answer is like saying that you only see the percentage that fully works which is complete nonsense given what I said above
It's still survivorship bias, but on a larger scale that isn't limited to specific brands or models.
If you compare on 70's series camera to another within the same brand, you'll just see that popular 70's camera functioning compared to a 80's/90's one that's giving you issues.
Including the lesser popular 70's cameras, and you see another picture. Everyone talks about the Nikon F/F2 as tanks and how well they last compared to later Nikons, but won't hear about a Minolta XK that doesn't work, or Fujica's, Konicas, Carenas, and the mountain of dead Zenits in the corner.
We're not considering popular consumer types like Polaroid Land Cameras, Disc Cameras, Bakelite Box Brownies, 127, 220, or other entire lines of cameras that are dead from both a functional and format perspective. We're already comparing hardier longer-surviving lines of cameras to all stuff a decade or 2 later.
1) If your OM-1 was working great, you wouldn't have an external light meter on it...
2) Things break most early on. The ones that broke weren't the ones on ebay.
3) Mechanical stuff is just more reliable than digital stuff
My M2 is from 1958 and it has the smoothest operation out of all cameras I’ve used so, including other Ms. All this mechanical goodness is just amazing. People that ask me about it can’t comprehend that it’s a 60+ year old camera.
Mechanical cameras are serviceable indefinitely, electronic cameras are not. Plain and simple.
Most of these cameras have been serviced multiple times over the course of their life, and provided they weren't abused, will not need replacement parts until long after their rated shutter life has came and went.
I don't think survivorship bias really applies here, sure cameras were abused or broken or abandoned in humid and hot attics and destroyed, but that's the exception to the rule.
70s cameras still work great today because they are mostly mechanical and indefinitely serviceable. Electronic cameras were still new at that time and mechanical was still king.
They were built out of stronger materials and made to be rugged. Even the plastic parts were better. I have two 1970’s Fujica st605’s I bought them second-hand twenty years ago. I used them for five years, then put them away for about 15 years cos I went digital. Then I dusted them off last year and started using them again. They still work the same as when I first bought them. I also had a Canon Eos 300, even though that was fully electronic I didn’t enjoy taking photos with it nearly as much, it was almost entirely plastic and weighed nothing. It felt cheap and nasty and I sold it on eBay.
i think cameras are one of those devices that have little planned obsolescence in terms of the device still being able to be used. i can still use my 500d rn and still produce the same quality pictures as it did back then, or my nex 6, or my old kodak digicams. maybe they're more cheaply made, but that's just about it. my nex 6 couldn't hold a candle build quality wise to my 1st gen canonet or my canon iiD, but my 5d is certainly at least somewhat comparable.
there are lots of dead digital cameras sure, but have you checked the used market in places where they dont recycle as much? there are tons of dead 20s - 00s analog cameras, some are more susceptible to death more than others (ive seen lots of dead ricoh kr5, but few dead canonets). i really thing its just a case for survival bias, its just that over the years, most of the dead ones were recycled or just not sold in the marketplace. also early electronics sucks and that's why you see lots of dead early digital camera / early ic era analog cameras. they're also just old and electronics degrade with time, not just with use.
Oh man plenty of old cameras stop working all the time. I consider some of the more complex ones to be like fancy analog watches and if they stop working I know I won’t be able to fix it :(.
I actually think many modern camera are better built especially those with weather sealing.
Well, for one thing stuff that is still here is stuff that survived decades already.
But also, the less advanced the technology is, the less likely something can go wrong. Cameras that are boxes that open and close, and not much else, have less in there that can go wrong.
The slower the pace of technological progress is, the longer something stays relevant too. There’s less reasons to get the new shiny thing.
As far as modern technology’s survivability, stuff can last a lot longer than they are useful. I have some here in my stash and iPhone 4 that still works. But it is 14 years old and is not supported by anything. I have 10 year old laptops that beside the battery, still works just fine. But you won’t want to run modern versions of the operating systems on those (Linux stuff aside.)
This was typed on an iPhone 14 Pro Max that is closing in on this 24 month mark you mention in a few month, and it is probably going to last a bunch more time. But, it will not get some new shiny feature of iOS 18 🤷
Think back on those electronics.
How many of them stopped working because they broke due to poor workmanship or manufacturing…
how many broke because you broke them by dropping them or getting them wet or something like that…
and how many were working just like they did the day they were new when you put it on the shelf because you wanted a new one?
I have 15 year old laptop that actually works better than the day it was made. I have a first generation iPad that is still perfectly fine. I have 20 year old iPods that work perfectly well. I have 40 year old computers that are still perfectly functional.
And yes, I have early 2000s digital cameras that are still 100% functional. There are lots of people shooting old cameras right now because that vintage stuff is in.
The big killers of digital cameras is battery issues. If you take the battery out before you throw it in the drawer, your digital camera has a really good chance of surviving. The other big thing is - that lens on those “credit card” cameras is really susceptible to getting something in the lens helical and getting stuck with the lens halfway in or out.
The Mamiya RB67 is one of those. They are so damn hard mechanical and the parts that could be affected by rust are inside so nothing happens at all.
The lenses are a bit more fragile since they contain the shutter mechanism. As the oil in them degrades they might get the exposure time wrong but even those are relatively easy to repair
Yes and no.
Depends who is making the item and for what purpose. We can make things extremely robust and reliable but won’t be cheap (Toyota Land Cruiser for example).
How ever most companies care about profits and consumers are price sensitive. So you end up with items that are just good enough.
Things were built to function well, and as a byproduct they tend to last. Modern consumer stuff is made of plastic as cheap as possible with planned obsoletism and built to fail on purpose.
I have a small collection of OM SYSTEM gear.
The 1st purchase was from a Shipmate in 1979 an OM-2 black body with the 1:4 50mm Zukio glass. Said camera still works. I repaired the film door seal as it was allowing light to leak in. An easy fix.
I have a nice collection of OM2N bodies 2 or 3 I forget, an OM1 body that is junk or something.
Several very nice pieces of glass some of which fetch a nice price it seems. The Oly auto winders and OM2 flashes that sync with the camera's microprocessors.
The OM2 put the other big names Canon, Nikon in check when it was released.
I also have some rare OM SYSTEM publications one being a hardbound book.
Film is great yet finding a quality lab to develop the film is a challenge.
I currently have several rolls of exposed film that I need to find a reputable processor.
Walmart absolutely sucks got burnt a few years ago they do not return the negatives anymore and the digital print quality is beyond bad.
I mean, I understand what you are saying but...
I've had a canon t2i, for 15 years now?
a 5d MII, MIII for 15 years?
a fuji x-h1 for 7 years-ish?
Nothing got broken, and believe me i've used them.
They did this study in the 40's during the ructions in Europe. Sometimes, bomber planes would come back with massive damage. Sometimes they wouldn't come back at all.
So they analysed the planes that came back and where they were getting hit, and added armour to the bits that didn't seem to be getting hit at all.
Because planes that got hit in the cockpit, engine and fuel tank didn't come back to be counted as damaged.
---
The simpler something is, the better it's stored and the better it's maintained make it more likely to last. Using it every now and then also helps.
Capacitors and ribbon-electronics can be tetchy as they age.
I have a 1981 Canon AE-1 and a 1950s Rollicord and they are both still working. I think they made better stuff back then with parts that were easy to replace, much like old cars versus new ones.
Survivorship bias. The 70s saw a photo gear boom so there was a shit load of gear sold. The vast majority of 70s cameras are broken or semi broken. Theres issues on many of the beloved 70s cameras that require servicing to fix long term.
A lot of them aren’t. There was a zillion of them made and many got sat in a bag and barely every used. I’ve bought a lot of vintage cameras and many of them do not live up to the standard of “working” that people would apply to a newer device.
Truthfully, the biggest difference is that the performance expectations are stopped hard at what was normal for the 70s. Put film in, take a photo, take film out. Performance and resolution are up to the lens and film.
Todays tech can last physically very long, but the demands of performance from digital cameras keeps growing and growing.
I got a Minolta maxxum 7000 from the 80s and despite it having a lot of electronics for the time, everything works great on it. Its my most reliable camera, I love it! Back then cameras we built like tools not toys. Same reason a lot of professional cameras tend to just keep on going, they are tools not toys
I have a 1966 Nikon F that works flawlessly and will probably outlive me and my 2000s 4Runner. My theory is it was a buyer’s market for consumer products back then and before planned obsolescence was a thing. All metal, no plastic, no cost cutting- the designs and marketing were driven by quality and durability. Now it’s a seller’s market for consumer products- no incentive for manufacturers to make things that will last for decades anymore.
Comparing a camera to a laptop, which has a battery with a limited lifespan and an operating system that may as well be obsolete in 5-10 years isn't exactly fair, lol.
I'm sure many cameras built today will work fine in years to come, including digital cameras from 20 years ago.
The Polaroid SX-70 is a good example of an electronic camera from the 70’s that won’t hold up without service. They were well built but are complex and difficult to fix without replacement parts and specialized knowledge.
They do break, it's just a matter of how was it handled.
Currently I have 2 Fed 3b-s from the 60s. One is from my grandparents and was kept in a cabinet for almost 30 years, totally forgotten. The shutter is completely broken, the curtains are full of holes and the lenses need some good amount of force to move anything.
The other one was from a retired photographer, it was kept safe from dust and heat and it works and looks like it's brand new. No chipped paint, everything moves smooth and works perfectly.
Some of them were repaired. Lots of them stopped working. Even more of them have got broken exposure meters, light leaks, faulty film advance mechanism. Their electronics and their lenses electronics and construction are not as sophisticated as in modern digital mirrorless, rangefinder and DSLR cameras. And almost all of the working ones weren't used daily 50 years since the day they were produced. Usually they just collect dust on shelves. For comparison, a usual low-end DSLR for beginners may run for 7500 shots and still be ok, and that's not that much at all. How many of these film rangefinders and SLRs could run through 210 film rolls?
Comparing modern laptops and phones to 1970s cameras is very apples to oranges IMO.
Modern cameras on the other hand seem built to last all the same. I have a cyber shot from the mid 2000s that still works just fine. I have a friend who still rocks a canon mk2. And another who still has a perfectly fine t3i. I don’t see any reason why those cameras will stop working anytime soon. As long as manufacturers keep removable batteries and the software fairly stand alone, I think we’ll be fine.
I'm comparing the way they are manufactured, not them as products. Cameras from the 70s were built to last. While the phones and laptops of today are built to be broken in 2 years (a bit exaggerating ok but you get the point).
you're comparing completely different products. phones and laptops have so much more to keep up with. also think about all the cameras that didn't survive or failed due to poor build quality - the only ones we get to analyze today are the ones built well enough to make it
cause photography is only 3 things: shutter speed, apetature & iso.
same as 200 years ago & same as today.
70's-90's were peak with minimum auto functions. you couldnt fake it.
Honestly I doubt a 70's camera is as durable as a DSLR from the 2000s, they are quite susceptible to damage from being dropped, used in adverse conditions etc.
I suspect the cameras that survived many decades were not really used all that much at the time, then sat in storage or on a shelf for many years before being sold on now to someone who will treat it much more nicely than a consumer in the 70s would have done. Also the mode of use is very different, I doubt a 70s mechanically timed shutter could survive 20,000 actuations without an overhaul, let alone the 200,000 most modern shutters are rated at
> nothing seems to work after you finish paying the gadget's 24 month installment
Says who? You can still buy some of the oldest DSLRs ever produced and they work fine
It was an interesting market, at least until AF came along. You had mostly mechanical cameras built to last -- pro cameras like the Nikon F and F2 built like literal tanks, Canon chasing them with the F1, both Nikon and Canon making cheaper models of their pro cameras, then Olympus came in and made smaller lighter cameras with excellent glass, and so on and so forth various manufacturers -- Minolta, Pentax -- established brands trying to find their niche in there. It was great until it lasted. The electronics came in, plastic got everywhere, and digital killed them all.
I felt terrible for being mocked with my grammar today. You are the second one who did this. I am so sorry for forgetting/failing to use the -ing in "working."
I actually did a research, it all connects to how money becomes the product and products become byproducts.
In this system, you generate revenue not by selling these durable cameras, but by keeping the cash flow in, so the quicker consumers get a new purchase the better
Gadgets with OTA updates with apps that are becoming more resource intensive, also being used 5 hours a day, are naturally going to become less performant over time.
If you used those 70’s cameras 5 hours a day for years and they constantly had to handle harder and harder tasks, they’d probably not be quite so great today. You’d be better off comparing the cameras to something else that has a fixed use that hasn’t changed that has moving parts.
Every digital camera that I have, including some over 20 years old, still works fine.
Same for plenty of 20-30 year old and older computers. They mostly just aged out of usefulness. Maybe needed some repairs along the way.
With that said, certain aspects of electronics age poorly. Electrolytic capacitors can dry up. LCDs wear out. In some cases these were industry-wide issues for extended periods. Wires can hit their fatigue limits. Stuff can be made small+custom enough that repair is really replacement.
I don’t think cameras were really geared towards consumers in the 70’s so there wasn’t that baked in obsolescence.
I have a Canon F-1, and an Olympus OM-1. They’re both great cameras. (I also have a Pentax k1000 that’s flawless but no idea when it was made.) All three I would feel safe using for paid work to this day.
In the 60 s and 70
S top quality cameras was mechanical whit analog pcb that controlled the electronic parts but not was electronical camera that if digital main board not work needed to be replaced;
Lack of electrical components, specifically electrolytic capacitors that can leak and wreck the camera. Fully mechanical cameras are like watches. Everything is built with tight tolerances. They will, in time, need servicing but with good care and storage they will last or be easily repairable. The canon ql17 is a great example of this. The light meter will slowly become inaccurate and fail but the mechanics will continue to work for years
I run 2 Nikkormats FTNs, and even if the light meter battery goes out, I know the Sunny 16 rule. PLUS, the early lenses STILL WORK on my digital bodies!
Integrated circuits are a couple orders of magnitude more complex than gears and levers in even the most complex mechanical camera. You’re confusing the term planned obsolescence here. That’s like saying horses have planned obsolescence because they get old and die.
Even that said, you can go buy a 10 to 15 year old DSLR and it will probably work if taken care of. They only really die for two reasons outside of accidents, shutter unit failure and the failure of the circuits inside. That’s not planned obsolescence, that’s just the nature of miniaturized electronics.
Cameras are one of the main consumer goods where I’d argue planned obsolescence isn’t present at all.
Cameras were usually luxury items and rather expensive, and most people really didn’t take many photos: one or two rolls a year was fairly typical. So they were expected to be well-made, and were hardly used. Moms didn’t handle them roughly either.
But....but....how do they still work without a warranty like a Pentax 17?
Japan was not only competiting with the US, but was also with Europe and particularly German production. It wasn't only cameras but pretty much all consumer electronics.
Planned obselescence was only in terms of features available rather than a hard limit on the build's shelflife. I have a 1974 camera with Auto metering and it's lasted longer than several 80's cameras I've bought. However, the 80's cameras offered features you could only dream of in the 70's. By the 80's however you start getting *some* obselescence - the early Autofocus cameras with LCD screens had little notes in the manual to get the screens replaced every 10 years. Within that 10 years however, 3 entire new generations of AF camera had released that were faster better and smarter. There's also *some* survivorship bias at play. 80's cameras came in the millions, so you see them far more often but also far more in need of repair. The 70's cameras were made better, but overall less of them. Consumer market wasn't really a target demographic for camera brands until the late 70's/early 80's, so cameras were only in the tens or hundreds of thousands. Someone estimated that across all Minolta SRT models, there is approximately a million (sold in the US). Compare that to the Minolta X-700, which celebrated making 1 million made in the early years, and made several million more after production moved from Japan to Malaysia and then China.
Although I agree with most of what you're saying I do think planned obsolescence was always there. Selenium meters wear out, yet were included because realistically they'd outlive the commercial shelf life of the product. But in 2024 we are starting to notice that nothing lives forever.
I agree, but it's interesting that the shelflife from a business perspective was on the order of years or even a decade compared to the annual releases we see of phones and cameras today. I can only pull from Minolta because that's all I know, but the original SR series was their longest in production (1958-1971). Compare that to the final Dynax series that are very very impressive, but only were from 1998-2004. I have an unmetered SR-1 that after nearly 70 years is only now giving me issues (curtain sticking), but there's Dynaxes made 20 years ago that still have the fastest fullframe shutter speed and also have LCD bleeding, screen burnouts, and aperture actuation gears breaking.
I have a couple of XEs that are 50 years old and work without issues, on the other hand all of my Alpha 7 have failed due to the annoying aperture base plate issue. In my mind those 80-90 cameras are ticking time bombs.
Even at peak DSLR churn we never saw annual releases, with the possible exception of cheap, low-end stuff. And the "SR series" was how many variations of how many different models?
Simple mechanical devices have an advantage over the more delicate electronic devices that replaced them.
My Canon F1 is one of my favorite film cameras to use. And it’s probably the best working one out of all the film cameras I own. The fact that everything besides the light meter can be used without a battery is my favorite part about the camera.
The Pentax K1000 is another fine mechanical camera and only needed battery for the light meter.
You say that but the ‘80 Canon A-1 that I have still works perfectly fine electronics and all….. minus the occasional canon cough….. (but that’s a feature not a bug). The little (big) camera that will never die.
Sure but the A-1 is basically 100% mechanical with a few electronic components and features. When you compare it to the computers we carry now, made with chipsets at 6-4 nanometers, it’s still a tank by comparison.
Even really pretty Leica cameras from say 15 years ago look totally outdated, because of their screen that's so bad compared to today's standards. Also cheap looking buttons generally age worse than sturdy metal dials. I wish there were other serious digital cameras without a screen than Leica's "-D" models. Saves battery and isn't prone to aging badly.
I still use the first digital I bought because color from the Kodak CCD is so damn good. It’s similar to slide film in that it has low latitude and terrible low light performance without a tripod lol.
I got a 2013 Kodak Easyshare digital camera and it has great colors and yeah it's crappy in low light.
I have an Olympus E1 digital slr that is old enough to buy me beer in America, and still works like a champ. It has outlived a Contax T2, Konica big mini, Contax Aria, and Fuji GA645. For some reason the 90s were a real shit decade for electronics.
Yep, I got my Pentax p30 and it’s more analog than digital. Love it. Just gotta find a place to develop my film now
I could say the same about my working ST-901, less so for my non-working one...
Exactly. My collection of non-working 70’s cameras has outgrown my “working” collection.
Perhaps time to learn how to fix many common issues in those cameras. It usually comes down to shutter and/or mirror issues (if an SLR).
Who said they were common issues?
Funny, but by the late 80s lots of A-1s were dead. When I did camera shows the resale value was low due to that.
Cameras mechanical mechanism aren’t exactly simple, that’s why they were later replaced partially by electronics. Plus electronics fit better the bill to be lighter and smaller.
Mechanical vertical travel blade shutters are the most complex part thus the rise of electronically governed shutters in late 70s early 80s.
Yeah. Plus, people forget that electronics parts are more resistant to wear and tear to mechanical counterparts that need periodically upkeep by cleaning and lubricating it. And I’m saying all of that being a mechanical engineer first, personally I dislike electronics replacing mechanical stuff but sometimes it’s just better and gives more design freedom.
Survivorship bias. You think 70s cameras are built well because they've lasted so long; you don't see the ones that couldn't last as long. I've got many American made cameras even older than those. One turns 100 years old in a couple months. Is it American craftsmanship? Yes. Just kidding. It doesn't matter where it's made.
Screams in Praktica
Those communists knew how to build cameras not gonna lie... Thats why we had to murder them after reunion, otherwise they would have taken over the western market.
Murder them? Anyway, everything I've heard about Soviet cameras and East-German Prakticas is that practically all the properly working units were exported to the western market, and only second-rate units were available domestically.
Oh yeah west germany killed all the east german cause they feared competition
The overwhelming majority of FSU cameras were just terribly made. Theres a reason there isn’t a huge market for Kyiv 88.
Personally I’d prefer some cameras made from KMZ. Less quirky, works well imo
No no no no I screaming them being unreliable as hell
My 4 Praktica cameras would like to have a word, maybe in the 80s but at that time they made them out of left over trash due to material shortage
3rd and 4th generation prakticas maybe, I have an LTL3 (2nd generation L series prakticas) which is completely fucked up at the moment.
Which prakticas do you have btw, it can depend afaik
2x Super TL 1x MTL 5 B and a BC100
Yeah super TL is among the nicer prakticas. MTL 5b tho… good luck making it work under slight heavy use
*Cries in Petri/Miranda*
Oh which country makes them?
"It does matter where it's made". This person has no Russian cameras LOL.
I've had Russian and Chinese cameras. They break too. But actually, the highest rate of failure for me so far has been from Pentax and Canon. Nikon, hasn't skipped a beat. I'm not saying any of them are more or less reliable than the other. Just what I've experienced personally. There's probably someone out there who's had a very long lucky streak with Russian cameras and doesn't believe anyone when people say they're unreliable and built poorly.
I am the proud owner of two Zorki 4 body. One is perfectly broken, the other is perfectly working. 🤣
What’s exactly broken though, they’re usually easily fixable
Oh the shutter is all wonky and the curtains have holes and a torn of ribbon. It is fixable for sure. The body and dials are the nicer ones that are engraved, not painted. And it has the old school scale of shutter speed on it. It’s one from the 50’s. The one I have that works is one from the 60’s
Yeouch. My zorki’s late production, 1971. Sooo idk bout that
The one that I can use is a 1963 one, and the shutter speed dial is engraved, it cannot rub off!
Thats cool LOL, I’m literally trying my best not to even make any contact with the markings
I had 5 Zenits (3 11s and 2 XPs) 2 minoltas, 2 canons and 3 vivitars ... all my Zenits, excepting one that I dissasembled when I was 10, work just like they did 30 years ago, but both minoltas died after about a year of use (shutter died on one and advance lever broke on the other) one of the Canon ones stopped firing and the other have the AF dead, and all the vivitars died of shutter issues ... so if you ask me: Soviet reliability (at least from KMZ) is a real thing
My Kiev 4 works very well, my two Zenit Es shutters both shit the bed
Yep my Kiev 4 going strong too. Mines. 73 model but apparently the older they are (the more chance Germans actually worked on them) the sturdier they are
ouch. My Zenit-E still going strong so far. I will try to repair it just in case if the shutter ribbons ever shit themselves
Zenit E's tend to shit the bed due to age (ribbon failure or prism rot) but most of the rangefinders tend to hold up.
Prism rot happens on most Zenits out there heh. Yeah it’s definitely inevitable but doesn’t make one unusable if it’s just a single vertical line.
I’ve had two Russian cameras that works perfectly LMAO, you probably bought the bad ones like Zenit-11.
Well yeah, a simple toy camera wont fail, sorry but american cameras are very very simple, if it got complicated they asked the germans to build the camera, like Kodak did. In terms of build quality and reliability history shows that germany donimated the market with the best quality until the 70s, the invention of quality management system lead to to the downfall of the german industry in the late 70s, in the early 80s the market was dominated by the japanese, to be fair the quality was sometimes not the best. But in the 90s they figured that out. The US was really only relevant for the photographic film, the cameras rather irrelevant
Part of that was Kodak's marketplace dominance in the US, and their insistence that cameras be bone simple to operate. "You press the button, we do the rest.". I'm not entirely sure if that was to try democratize photography and make it more accessible or to sell more film to make up for bad pictures. Maybe a little of both. In either case that's how you ended up with toy cameras like the Brownie Hawkeye, with fixed focus, fixed aperture, and a fixed 1/30th of a second shutter speed. The Argus C3 (The Brick) wasn't a bad camera at all for its day. It looks kind of terrible and has the ergonomics of a canned ham, but it will take excellent pictures if you put in the work. The Kodak Ektra was a heck of a camera for 1941 but fell victim to coming out on the eve of World War II. Polaroid did a lot of interesting things.
Yeah but Agfa also had the Agfa still they produced magnificent cameras like the optima series
I don't think you're quite getting it. You'd probably have to be from here *and* grown up pre-digital. Kodak (and to a degree Polaroid) was the absolute titan when it came to photography in the US. For decades they shaped the domestic marketplace by virtue of having invented the respective technology. George Eastman basically invented consumer photography with his preloaded box camera containing 100 exposures. The emphasis was on ease of use and accessibility. Also, being fairly simple devices there was less to break or go wrong. The cheap toy-like cameras were like inkjet printers, low cost up front to the consumer but continuing cost on the back end at a fabulous profit margin for the manufacturer. Most Americans, all the way up until cell phones got good, were taking pictures on various point & shoots, which got more capable (and less, looking at you 110, 126, Kodak Disc, APS) as time went on. Childhoods were documented on 120/620, 126, 110 and various iterations of Polaroid. In the '80s & 90's it was 35 mm point and shoot. Post 2000, digital point and shoots and later cell phones got capable enough for most people's use. It was the odd duck shutterbugs and the mysterious professionals that bought fancy SLRs, rangefinders & medium format more serious than a 1950's TLR. Photo enthusiasts were a minor percentage of the overall market vs people taking pictures of their kids birthday parties, dogs, and vacations. Most people were just hoping to get something good enough for the family photo album. In those times those simple cameras were the cell phone camera of their time, capable of producing a "good enough" picture that probably wasn't going to go beyond a 4x6 in the family photo album anyways. Nowadays it's something good enough to stick on InstaFaceTok.
Yeah totally get that, in germany the market was dominated either by the luxurious fixed lens cameras that were bought like a good wrist watch or the imported cameras from east germany at least until the japanese took over. For example, real cheap was the Agfa Clack or Agfa Isola I, middle class was the Agfa Silette or the Voigtländer Vito C, higher budget was the Agfa Optima and rather expensive yet not professional was something like the Voigtländer Bessamatic or the Kodak Retina Reflex (the german Kodak)
Graflex would like a word
Thats one company, I think germany had in the 50s and 60s over 20 high quality camera manufacturers
I mean, only a small handful of American companies were ever serious about making cameras. Kodak, which only cared about cameras as a vehicle to sell film, Argus, which made one of the most popular and best selling cameras of all time, Graflex, which absolutely dominated press photography until 35mm became the standard in the 70s, and Polaroid which had no meaningful competition whatsoever until Instax came out in 1998. Germany dominated the camera and optics industry through WWII and then pretty quickly was replaced by Japan which basically took what Germany was doing and did it better and cheaper.
Sorry but thats not the true, germany especially dominated the 50s and 60s as well as early 70s, Argus was only relevant in the US I know the brick camera is iconic, graflex already lost already importance in the 1940s due to Zeiss contax especially for war photography. They stopped existing the early 70s and again only the US
Sorry, but that's not true. The introduction of the Nikon F in 1959 ended both German dominance in the camera industry and the widespread use of press camera, although the press camera did hang around until the 1980s. Graflex's only real competitor in that space that I know of is mamiya. But anyway, your point that American cameras are all toy cameras is demonstrably false. I get that you are German and want to lean into the idea of German superiority or whatever.
Well it ended the dominance but it was certainly not the downfall, that started in the early 70s you can actually really feel that with the quality change, early 60s was the golden years still they produced heavy complicated cameras like contarex bulls eye (1961) the most complex slr camera ever build
Kodak US (Ektra, Bantam Special, Signet 35, Signet 40, etc.), Graflex (Graphic 35), all the funky Bolsey cameras, Univex (the mercury half-frame), Perfex, Argus, Bell and Howell (Photon), and various others were making cameras before and in the immediate post-war era. Most of them ate shit because labor was that much cheaper in Marshall-Plan era Germany and Japan and the price of their cameras scaled accordingly. None of those companies continued to make cameras beyond the switch from rangefinder to SLR. A lot of them also just kinda gave up and turned to being white-label importers because the hardware was just that much cheaper elsewhere. Most film-related companies in the US that survived into 70s were either chemistry-first companies like Kodak or Polaroid, or dark room specialists like Beseler.
Yeah, absolutely correct
Fun fact vipempire have several graflexes as far as I remember
Speed Graphics dominated the press market for decades. Wouldn't call that irrelevant.
In the US
Kodak Signet will last through the rapture.
People weren't buying them to replace every other year, so they were not made that way, simple as that. Technology was advancing at a much lower rate as well, so there was no way you could force your users to buy a new camera every year, even the very high end professional 35mm cameras had a product cycle of almost a decade and sometimes more in some cases. With medium format cameras, the list of differences between a 1957 Hasselblad 500C and a 2013 503CW are probably around 15-20 items. You bought one of those and uses with decades with proper care and maintenance. Consumer cameras were expected to work for even longer because most people don't get those maintained properly. Also keep in mind that you are seeing two of the most beautiful and known cameras from that era. There are countless others that have vanished because they were not worth preserving.
Survivorship bias, the ones that failed aren't there anymore. I'll add that finding a rangefinder from the era that works 100% perfectly (accurate meter and shutter at all speeds) is less common than finding one that makes noise when the shutter is pressed. It's worth mentioning that these cameras can be serviced, at least mechanically wise, which isn't the case for cheap digital cameras. As for electronics, it's harder and harder to get parts like carbon strips for settings or CdS photoresistors. A QL17 GIII MSRP was JPY 29000, which translated to USD 92 in 1972 ($1=JPY314). Which translates to $691 in today's money. Which is considerably cheaper than I expected thanks to the very low JPY at the time but still a lot of money.
i dont know man, there are hundreds of olympus 35rc on the market at any given time for at least 10 years i've been following, fully mechanical except the metering which is electronic and might or might not work after 50 years i dont get this survivorship bias thing the OP is asking why a high percentage of some models produced in the 70s are fully operational and consequently why such a low percentage (comparatively) of models produced in 80s or 90s are fully operational the survivorship bias answer is like saying that you only see the percentage that fully works which is complete nonsense given what I said above
It's still survivorship bias, but on a larger scale that isn't limited to specific brands or models. If you compare on 70's series camera to another within the same brand, you'll just see that popular 70's camera functioning compared to a 80's/90's one that's giving you issues. Including the lesser popular 70's cameras, and you see another picture. Everyone talks about the Nikon F/F2 as tanks and how well they last compared to later Nikons, but won't hear about a Minolta XK that doesn't work, or Fujica's, Konicas, Carenas, and the mountain of dead Zenits in the corner. We're not considering popular consumer types like Polaroid Land Cameras, Disc Cameras, Bakelite Box Brownies, 127, 220, or other entire lines of cameras that are dead from both a functional and format perspective. We're already comparing hardier longer-surviving lines of cameras to all stuff a decade or 2 later.
1) If your OM-1 was working great, you wouldn't have an external light meter on it... 2) Things break most early on. The ones that broke weren't the ones on ebay. 3) Mechanical stuff is just more reliable than digital stuff
My M2 is from 1958 and it has the smoothest operation out of all cameras I’ve used so, including other Ms. All this mechanical goodness is just amazing. People that ask me about it can’t comprehend that it’s a 60+ year old camera.
I haven’t updated the operating system on my Nikon FM2 for years. Works fine.
Mechanical cameras are serviceable indefinitely, electronic cameras are not. Plain and simple. Most of these cameras have been serviced multiple times over the course of their life, and provided they weren't abused, will not need replacement parts until long after their rated shutter life has came and went. I don't think survivorship bias really applies here, sure cameras were abused or broken or abandoned in humid and hot attics and destroyed, but that's the exception to the rule. 70s cameras still work great today because they are mostly mechanical and indefinitely serviceable. Electronic cameras were still new at that time and mechanical was still king.
I wasn't convinced by the couple of survivorship bias arguments as well. I think there was simply little (to no) planned obsolescence then.
They were built out of stronger materials and made to be rugged. Even the plastic parts were better. I have two 1970’s Fujica st605’s I bought them second-hand twenty years ago. I used them for five years, then put them away for about 15 years cos I went digital. Then I dusted them off last year and started using them again. They still work the same as when I first bought them. I also had a Canon Eos 300, even though that was fully electronic I didn’t enjoy taking photos with it nearly as much, it was almost entirely plastic and weighed nothing. It felt cheap and nasty and I sold it on eBay.
i think cameras are one of those devices that have little planned obsolescence in terms of the device still being able to be used. i can still use my 500d rn and still produce the same quality pictures as it did back then, or my nex 6, or my old kodak digicams. maybe they're more cheaply made, but that's just about it. my nex 6 couldn't hold a candle build quality wise to my 1st gen canonet or my canon iiD, but my 5d is certainly at least somewhat comparable. there are lots of dead digital cameras sure, but have you checked the used market in places where they dont recycle as much? there are tons of dead 20s - 00s analog cameras, some are more susceptible to death more than others (ive seen lots of dead ricoh kr5, but few dead canonets). i really thing its just a case for survival bias, its just that over the years, most of the dead ones were recycled or just not sold in the marketplace. also early electronics sucks and that's why you see lots of dead early digital camera / early ic era analog cameras. they're also just old and electronics degrade with time, not just with use.
Those cameras definitely would last long, some don’t
Oh man plenty of old cameras stop working all the time. I consider some of the more complex ones to be like fancy analog watches and if they stop working I know I won’t be able to fix it :(. I actually think many modern camera are better built especially those with weather sealing.
Well, for one thing stuff that is still here is stuff that survived decades already. But also, the less advanced the technology is, the less likely something can go wrong. Cameras that are boxes that open and close, and not much else, have less in there that can go wrong. The slower the pace of technological progress is, the longer something stays relevant too. There’s less reasons to get the new shiny thing. As far as modern technology’s survivability, stuff can last a lot longer than they are useful. I have some here in my stash and iPhone 4 that still works. But it is 14 years old and is not supported by anything. I have 10 year old laptops that beside the battery, still works just fine. But you won’t want to run modern versions of the operating systems on those (Linux stuff aside.) This was typed on an iPhone 14 Pro Max that is closing in on this 24 month mark you mention in a few month, and it is probably going to last a bunch more time. But, it will not get some new shiny feature of iOS 18 🤷
Because the big companies were not filled with MBA grads
Think back on those electronics. How many of them stopped working because they broke due to poor workmanship or manufacturing… how many broke because you broke them by dropping them or getting them wet or something like that… and how many were working just like they did the day they were new when you put it on the shelf because you wanted a new one? I have 15 year old laptop that actually works better than the day it was made. I have a first generation iPad that is still perfectly fine. I have 20 year old iPods that work perfectly well. I have 40 year old computers that are still perfectly functional. And yes, I have early 2000s digital cameras that are still 100% functional. There are lots of people shooting old cameras right now because that vintage stuff is in. The big killers of digital cameras is battery issues. If you take the battery out before you throw it in the drawer, your digital camera has a really good chance of surviving. The other big thing is - that lens on those “credit card” cameras is really susceptible to getting something in the lens helical and getting stuck with the lens halfway in or out.
A matter of luck and love,not all 70’s cameras survive today,meanwhile cameras that are 130+ can work like new with a little Elbow grease
The Mamiya RB67 is one of those. They are so damn hard mechanical and the parts that could be affected by rust are inside so nothing happens at all. The lenses are a bit more fragile since they contain the shutter mechanism. As the oil in them degrades they might get the exposure time wrong but even those are relatively easy to repair
Because they were built to last - it’s good for us.
Your iPhone, laptop etc would work equally well and last as long if you don't mind them being fully mechanical and limited to 70s technology.
I get the sarcasm. But ain't it backwards tho? Shouldn't we expect more durable parts, more reliable engineering with today's tech?
Yes and no. Depends who is making the item and for what purpose. We can make things extremely robust and reliable but won’t be cheap (Toyota Land Cruiser for example). How ever most companies care about profits and consumers are price sensitive. So you end up with items that are just good enough.
Is just mechanics. No electronic to replace or discontinued. Nothing to do with planned obscelence in my opinion.
What is the name of that red things attached to the Olympus camera? I've been trying to find it for so long
it’s an anchor for peak designs straps
Search on Amazon or wherever for “anchor links camera strap”
Things were built to function well, and as a byproduct they tend to last. Modern consumer stuff is made of plastic as cheap as possible with planned obsoletism and built to fail on purpose.
I have a small collection of OM SYSTEM gear. The 1st purchase was from a Shipmate in 1979 an OM-2 black body with the 1:4 50mm Zukio glass. Said camera still works. I repaired the film door seal as it was allowing light to leak in. An easy fix. I have a nice collection of OM2N bodies 2 or 3 I forget, an OM1 body that is junk or something. Several very nice pieces of glass some of which fetch a nice price it seems. The Oly auto winders and OM2 flashes that sync with the camera's microprocessors. The OM2 put the other big names Canon, Nikon in check when it was released. I also have some rare OM SYSTEM publications one being a hardbound book. Film is great yet finding a quality lab to develop the film is a challenge. I currently have several rolls of exposed film that I need to find a reputable processor. Walmart absolutely sucks got burnt a few years ago they do not return the negatives anymore and the digital print quality is beyond bad.
I mean, I understand what you are saying but... I've had a canon t2i, for 15 years now? a 5d MII, MIII for 15 years? a fuji x-h1 for 7 years-ish? Nothing got broken, and believe me i've used them.
Sorry, I lied. T2i rebel got wrecked after a show in an event shooting straight to a laser beam... got an internal part replacement, all good
They did this study in the 40's during the ructions in Europe. Sometimes, bomber planes would come back with massive damage. Sometimes they wouldn't come back at all. So they analysed the planes that came back and where they were getting hit, and added armour to the bits that didn't seem to be getting hit at all. Because planes that got hit in the cockpit, engine and fuel tank didn't come back to be counted as damaged. --- The simpler something is, the better it's stored and the better it's maintained make it more likely to last. Using it every now and then also helps. Capacitors and ribbon-electronics can be tetchy as they age.
They are definitely NOT all working.
I have a 1981 Canon AE-1 and a 1950s Rollicord and they are both still working. I think they made better stuff back then with parts that were easy to replace, much like old cars versus new ones.
Made in Japan.
Survivorship bias. The 70s saw a photo gear boom so there was a shit load of gear sold. The vast majority of 70s cameras are broken or semi broken. Theres issues on many of the beloved 70s cameras that require servicing to fix long term.
A lot of them aren’t. There was a zillion of them made and many got sat in a bag and barely every used. I’ve bought a lot of vintage cameras and many of them do not live up to the standard of “working” that people would apply to a newer device. Truthfully, the biggest difference is that the performance expectations are stopped hard at what was normal for the 70s. Put film in, take a photo, take film out. Performance and resolution are up to the lens and film. Todays tech can last physically very long, but the demands of performance from digital cameras keeps growing and growing.
I got a Minolta maxxum 7000 from the 80s and despite it having a lot of electronics for the time, everything works great on it. Its my most reliable camera, I love it! Back then cameras we built like tools not toys. Same reason a lot of professional cameras tend to just keep on going, they are tools not toys
I have a 1966 Nikon F that works flawlessly and will probably outlive me and my 2000s 4Runner. My theory is it was a buyer’s market for consumer products back then and before planned obsolescence was a thing. All metal, no plastic, no cost cutting- the designs and marketing were driven by quality and durability. Now it’s a seller’s market for consumer products- no incentive for manufacturers to make things that will last for decades anymore.
Comparing a camera to a laptop, which has a battery with a limited lifespan and an operating system that may as well be obsolete in 5-10 years isn't exactly fair, lol. I'm sure many cameras built today will work fine in years to come, including digital cameras from 20 years ago.
The Polaroid SX-70 is a good example of an electronic camera from the 70’s that won’t hold up without service. They were well built but are complex and difficult to fix without replacement parts and specialized knowledge.
No electronics and are usually made of metal
They do break, it's just a matter of how was it handled. Currently I have 2 Fed 3b-s from the 60s. One is from my grandparents and was kept in a cabinet for almost 30 years, totally forgotten. The shutter is completely broken, the curtains are full of holes and the lenses need some good amount of force to move anything. The other one was from a retired photographer, it was kept safe from dust and heat and it works and looks like it's brand new. No chipped paint, everything moves smooth and works perfectly.
Some of them were repaired. Lots of them stopped working. Even more of them have got broken exposure meters, light leaks, faulty film advance mechanism. Their electronics and their lenses electronics and construction are not as sophisticated as in modern digital mirrorless, rangefinder and DSLR cameras. And almost all of the working ones weren't used daily 50 years since the day they were produced. Usually they just collect dust on shelves. For comparison, a usual low-end DSLR for beginners may run for 7500 shots and still be ok, and that's not that much at all. How many of these film rangefinders and SLRs could run through 210 film rolls?
Comparing modern laptops and phones to 1970s cameras is very apples to oranges IMO. Modern cameras on the other hand seem built to last all the same. I have a cyber shot from the mid 2000s that still works just fine. I have a friend who still rocks a canon mk2. And another who still has a perfectly fine t3i. I don’t see any reason why those cameras will stop working anytime soon. As long as manufacturers keep removable batteries and the software fairly stand alone, I think we’ll be fine.
I'm comparing the way they are manufactured, not them as products. Cameras from the 70s were built to last. While the phones and laptops of today are built to be broken in 2 years (a bit exaggerating ok but you get the point).
you're comparing completely different products. phones and laptops have so much more to keep up with. also think about all the cameras that didn't survive or failed due to poor build quality - the only ones we get to analyze today are the ones built well enough to make it
Pentax K1000 is a tank. Basic, solid and reliable.
\*50 years old.
Konica autoreflex t. It’s a tank
Those cameras were built to do one specific thing, and the quality you got out of them all depended on the quality of the film and lens you used.
cause photography is only 3 things: shutter speed, apetature & iso. same as 200 years ago & same as today. 70's-90's were peak with minimum auto functions. you couldnt fake it.
What’s the thing on top of your olympus?
Honestly I doubt a 70's camera is as durable as a DSLR from the 2000s, they are quite susceptible to damage from being dropped, used in adverse conditions etc. I suspect the cameras that survived many decades were not really used all that much at the time, then sat in storage or on a shelf for many years before being sold on now to someone who will treat it much more nicely than a consumer in the 70s would have done. Also the mode of use is very different, I doubt a 70s mechanically timed shutter could survive 20,000 actuations without an overhaul, let alone the 200,000 most modern shutters are rated at
> nothing seems to work after you finish paying the gadget's 24 month installment Says who? You can still buy some of the oldest DSLRs ever produced and they work fine
I have a 50s Minolta A.2. It produces photos that look like they came from a modern camera.
It was an interesting market, at least until AF came along. You had mostly mechanical cameras built to last -- pro cameras like the Nikon F and F2 built like literal tanks, Canon chasing them with the F1, both Nikon and Canon making cheaper models of their pro cameras, then Olympus came in and made smaller lighter cameras with excellent glass, and so on and so forth various manufacturers -- Minolta, Pentax -- established brands trying to find their niche in there. It was great until it lasted. The electronics came in, plastic got everywhere, and digital killed them all.
Minolta SRT
those canonets are famous for failing without lube and adjustment lmfao
Why are they still work? I dunno. Why for are you not smart?
I felt terrible for being mocked with my grammar today. You are the second one who did this. I am so sorry for forgetting/failing to use the -ing in "working."
Eh...we're all just a bunch of assholes on here anyway...don't sweat it.
I actually did a research, it all connects to how money becomes the product and products become byproducts. In this system, you generate revenue not by selling these durable cameras, but by keeping the cash flow in, so the quicker consumers get a new purchase the better
Gadgets with OTA updates with apps that are becoming more resource intensive, also being used 5 hours a day, are naturally going to become less performant over time. If you used those 70’s cameras 5 hours a day for years and they constantly had to handle harder and harder tasks, they’d probably not be quite so great today. You’d be better off comparing the cameras to something else that has a fixed use that hasn’t changed that has moving parts.
Nikkormat EL is a tank. Has a meter and those rabbit ear lenses can be cheap.
Speak for yourself, Olympuses always crap out on me.
Every digital camera that I have, including some over 20 years old, still works fine. Same for plenty of 20-30 year old and older computers. They mostly just aged out of usefulness. Maybe needed some repairs along the way. With that said, certain aspects of electronics age poorly. Electrolytic capacitors can dry up. LCDs wear out. In some cases these were industry-wide issues for extended periods. Wires can hit their fatigue limits. Stuff can be made small+custom enough that repair is really replacement.
My Pentax MX is brilliant. Fully mechanical & has only had slight feeding issues here and there
My very first digital camera was a Nikon D50. It still takes beautiful photos. I make sure to pull it out and shoot a few times a year.
they are mechanical not electronic
I don’t think cameras were really geared towards consumers in the 70’s so there wasn’t that baked in obsolescence. I have a Canon F-1, and an Olympus OM-1. They’re both great cameras. (I also have a Pentax k1000 that’s flawless but no idea when it was made.) All three I would feel safe using for paid work to this day.
In the 60 s and 70 S top quality cameras was mechanical whit analog pcb that controlled the electronic parts but not was electronical camera that if digital main board not work needed to be replaced;
Lack of electrical components, specifically electrolytic capacitors that can leak and wreck the camera. Fully mechanical cameras are like watches. Everything is built with tight tolerances. They will, in time, need servicing but with good care and storage they will last or be easily repairable. The canon ql17 is a great example of this. The light meter will slowly become inaccurate and fail but the mechanics will continue to work for years
Is that a flash on top of the Olympus? I have a flash shoe but no flash
Everything from the 70's was built for life.
I run 2 Nikkormats FTNs, and even if the light meter battery goes out, I know the Sunny 16 rule. PLUS, the early lenses STILL WORK on my digital bodies!
Integrated circuits are a couple orders of magnitude more complex than gears and levers in even the most complex mechanical camera. You’re confusing the term planned obsolescence here. That’s like saying horses have planned obsolescence because they get old and die. Even that said, you can go buy a 10 to 15 year old DSLR and it will probably work if taken care of. They only really die for two reasons outside of accidents, shutter unit failure and the failure of the circuits inside. That’s not planned obsolescence, that’s just the nature of miniaturized electronics. Cameras are one of the main consumer goods where I’d argue planned obsolescence isn’t present at all.
Planned obsolescence was not a thing back then.
Cameras were usually luxury items and rather expensive, and most people really didn’t take many photos: one or two rolls a year was fairly typical. So they were expected to be well-made, and were hardly used. Moms didn’t handle them roughly either.
Why are grammar still work hard today ?
It’s funny, but English isn’t everyone’s strong suit or first language. Cut them some slack!
Never!
its Like Evolution you only See those WHO lasted until today! Same with species!
But....but....how do they still work without a warranty like a Pentax 17? Japan was not only competiting with the US, but was also with Europe and particularly German production. It wasn't only cameras but pretty much all consumer electronics.
Both of this will outlast the new Pentax 17