Mike demonstrating the click-zzz-click of the newly serviced Rollei. If you look closely, you'll see the aperture blades set at f8!

I’ve printed yesterday’s picture 10”x10” on a sheet of A3 (11.7”x16”) semi gloss paper. It looks fantastic. My medium format workflow is complete. I’m getting to grips with the camera, improved my (chemical) development technique, the scanner is working and I’m finally getting a good understanding of printing black & white on the inkjet. I’m really pleased with that print. So what’s the big deal? Why bother when a more modern camera makes it all (apart from the printing) so easy? well, modern cameras with all their automation flatter their owners. It’s easy to get a good picture from a modern camera. Point and click. You press the button, someone else does the rest, to paraphrase an old Kodak slogan. That some people can’t even get decent picture from one of these modern miracles amazes me - no names, but take a look at the number of people complaining about their cameras on dpreview... Of course to get the best out of any camera takes a bit of skill, but with a modern digicam, you start from a position where the camera will usually get the focus and exposure more or less right. You’re half way there. With the Rolleicord, you start from nothing. Every decision is yours. Get something wrong, and it’s you that messed up. No one to blame but yourself. If you do your own processing, there’s plenty more ways to mess that up too. Take my Golden Gate picture for example. I messed up twice. It’s far too grainy from under exposure and there’s streaks in the sky from my poor, but now corrected, developing technique. I still got a picture, but not as good as I wanted. It looks OK on the web but a 10x10 print looks dreadful. So, why not use a modern automatic camera? I could have a nice print on the wall, but then, wouldn’t I also have to pass on any compliments to someone like Sony?

But hold on, don’t I usually use a DSLR which I ‘proudly’ shoot in jpg mode? Why not shoot in raw if I want to make things difficult? Remember what I said about making decisions? I prefer to make them when I make the exposure. Endlessly fiddling about in a raw converter or PS trying to decide if you’ve got ‘the best’ conversion possible isn’t what I call fun. Getting it right ‘in-camera’ is a real skill, a skill that the great photographers of the 20th century had to master. Think you’re a pretty neat photographer? So prove it. Go out with an all manual camera, a hand held meter and a roll of black and white film. Come home and develop it in the kitchen sink. Print your favourite shot - a good inkjet print, a lab print or for maximum effect print it yourself in your home darkroom, then hang it on the wall. Feel that sense of pride? My point exactly!