Manual Cameras Slow You Down. And That's a Very Good Thing.
On a Sunday afternoon, a week or so after the holidays, I grabbed my Olympus OM-1n and headed out for a five mile hike on the Skyline Trail in the hills above Napa. It was just that perfect kind of day with warm sun on my face and a cool breeze blowing. I loaded up the Olympus with some Kodak ColorPlus film, stashed some cheese and salami into my backpack and headed out for a day of exercise and picture taking.
I am not an aggressive hiker, but my long legs carry me at a pretty decent pace. A pace that I am sure sometimes makes me miss some things along the way. That’s why when I stopped at this foot bridge to take a shot with the Olympus, it occurred to me how perfectly this old manual mechanical camera slows me down.
First, turn it on. (The OM-1n’s meter does not go to sleep between shots, so for a long hike it’s best to keep the meter switch in the off position to conserve battery until you are ready to use it). Then focus, compose, adjust shutter speed or f/stop or both to center the needle in the viewfinder. Finally, take the photograph.
During this whole process, I became aware of the sound of the water trickling down the little creek under this bridge, some happy birds overhead and a bit of wind rustling the leaves in the trees. I can’t be certain that I would have paused along the trail here if not to take a picture.
I stopped to make this next shot and found some large flat rocks suitable for sitting a bit and good space for spreading out my feast of Pt. Reyes cheese and dry Italian salami. From my resting spot, I could see the Napa River finding its way to San Pablo Bay. Just around the tree to the left is the skyline of San Francisco. I fiddled with different combinations of shutter speed and aperture, but this is the photograph that came out the best. And it was time well spent. It was quiet up there. And nice.
I didn’t make any remarkable images during this hike, but gosh was it good for my soul! And as I made my way back down to the trailhead and in the days that followed, I got to thinking about all of my manual-everything cameras. About how I’ve made some of my most personally satisfying shots with them. And how so many times they’ve slowed me down just enough to appreciate the moment.
Like standing under the Golden Gate Bridge with my Leica M6 waiting for just the right light…
Enjoying some solitude at lands end, Pierce Point Ranch on Pt. Reyes with the Pentax Spotmatic as the sun began to sink into the Pacific…
Or getting up close and personal with some grapes near Dry Creek. I was shooting the Spotmatic that day as well…
Immortalizing a favorite chair I’d sit in near Salmon Creek when I lived in Freestone, taken with my Hasselblad 500C/M. You don’t do anything fast with a Hasselblad…
Exploring Bodega Bay with my Nikon F2…
That same grand old Nikon in San Francisco…
A foggy day with the Leica M6 at Sonoma Coast State Park…
An interesting old fence out at the Marin seashore captured with a 50mm Super Takumar on the Spotmatic…
That same camera and lens on a dry June day at Yosemite…
The Pt. Reyes lighthouse with the Leica M2…manual and meter-less…living dangerously!
The Leica M6 at Bodega Dunes…
An Autumn walk with my Nikon FM2n…
One of my favorite spots out on the Kortum Trail north of Bodega Bay with the Spotmatic and 50mm Macro-Takumar…
Even a rainy Sunday shooting still life with my Nikon F2 and 55mm Micro-Nikkor…
I love aperture priority automation and there are times when I’ll happily let the auto-focus automatic everything Nikon F100 do the driving. But looking back on the past eleven years of film shooting, it is apparent that some of my best shots and best times have been spent looking through the viewfinder of a manual everything camera.