Tonight we'll take some photos like it's 1999
January 26, 2015 10:46 AM Subscribe
I'm writing a story, set in 1999, with a character who is a photographer. I don't know a lot about what that might entail. Help me out?
Obviously, I don't expect to learn everything about photography circa 1999 from asking here. But the answers to at least a few questions about some of the specifics as they relate to this character would help me a lot.
I have reasons for thinking this character would probably prefer film to digital. In 1999, would there be good, plausible reasons for that, would it be just a preference anyone might have or not, or would it be an unusual quirk?
This character usually takes photos at night, ideally with a set-up that is easy to carry around and use at will. Is there anything they would almost certainly do, have, or use because of this (including such things as stops, apertures, flashbulbs, film type, camera type)?
If you wanted to take a picture, at night, of someone under a streetlamp, and particularly wanted to capture the way it lit their hair, would you avoid using a flash? What would be the best way to take that picture?
Is there any particular type of camera this person would probably be using, or a few suggestions as to what they might use?
Thanks in advance!
Obviously, I don't expect to learn everything about photography circa 1999 from asking here. But the answers to at least a few questions about some of the specifics as they relate to this character would help me a lot.
I have reasons for thinking this character would probably prefer film to digital. In 1999, would there be good, plausible reasons for that, would it be just a preference anyone might have or not, or would it be an unusual quirk?
This character usually takes photos at night, ideally with a set-up that is easy to carry around and use at will. Is there anything they would almost certainly do, have, or use because of this (including such things as stops, apertures, flashbulbs, film type, camera type)?
If you wanted to take a picture, at night, of someone under a streetlamp, and particularly wanted to capture the way it lit their hair, would you avoid using a flash? What would be the best way to take that picture?
Is there any particular type of camera this person would probably be using, or a few suggestions as to what they might use?
Thanks in advance!
Best answer: I think film was still the default in 1999, at least for an SLR-type camera. I got married in 2001, and at that time, very few wedding photographers used digital.
posted by OrangeDisk at 10:54 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by OrangeDisk at 10:54 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: In 1999? Digital would be a fairly new technology, expensive, slow, relatively low resolution.
So, film. The classic (timeless) street photography camera would have been the medium format Hasselblad 500 series, it's the box with the shade that you look down on to, a lot of street photographers loved it because it's way less imposing than the "in between your face and the subject" SLR, and, being medium format, it had quite a bit more film area than a 35mm frame.
But a Nikon or Canon (or Leica for the better heeled) would be reasonable.
A die-hard and well-heeled nighttime Canon SLR user of the time might have had the 50mm/F1.0 lens, but that's kind of unlikely. I had a 17-35/2.8 back then that was amazingly cool for people and indoor shots, following up on Sara C.'s "fisheye" comment above: It's not a fisheye, but it goes wide.
For "natural" light scenes at night, tripod, definitely. Hand-held, I remember SF club photographers of that era having a rig with two flashes of different colors, but that's not what you're describing.
posted by straw at 11:01 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
So, film. The classic (timeless) street photography camera would have been the medium format Hasselblad 500 series, it's the box with the shade that you look down on to, a lot of street photographers loved it because it's way less imposing than the "in between your face and the subject" SLR, and, being medium format, it had quite a bit more film area than a 35mm frame.
But a Nikon or Canon (or Leica for the better heeled) would be reasonable.
A die-hard and well-heeled nighttime Canon SLR user of the time might have had the 50mm/F1.0 lens, but that's kind of unlikely. I had a 17-35/2.8 back then that was amazingly cool for people and indoor shots, following up on Sara C.'s "fisheye" comment above: It's not a fisheye, but it goes wide.
For "natural" light scenes at night, tripod, definitely. Hand-held, I remember SF club photographers of that era having a rig with two flashes of different colors, but that's not what you're describing.
posted by straw at 11:01 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: Go to the library and look at a few 1999 issues of Popular Photography and Photo District News. Digital was just getting useful, but film still ruled. Light painting was kinda hot, and people were shooting multiple exposures, making a photocd, and combining it in photoshop.
posted by Sophont at 11:06 AM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
posted by Sophont at 11:06 AM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Digital was in its infancy. I have a friend who worked for HP and she showed me one of the first digital cameras in 1997. They could NOT figure out what anyone would do with it. Posting pictures to the internet was not a thing, not even remotely.
Also, SO expensive for very low resolution. The science just wasn't there.
You wouldn't even need to justify it, digital photography just wasn't a thing.
At our wedding in 2002 we were still using those little cardboard box cameras for candid shots. We put them on the tables at the reception.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:07 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Also, SO expensive for very low resolution. The science just wasn't there.
You wouldn't even need to justify it, digital photography just wasn't a thing.
At our wedding in 2002 we were still using those little cardboard box cameras for candid shots. We put them on the tables at the reception.
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 11:07 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I got my first digital camera in 1999 and it was essentially a bulky point and shoot toy. No professional would have used such a thing for real work let alone night time photography. Professional grade digital cameras did exist at the time and were used mainly by photojournalists that really leveraged the ability to quickly turn around a photo for publication. Other than that, they were insanely expensive and not as good as their film counterparts. If your character was a serious photographer, they would have built up a collection of lens and film cameras as mentioned above which would have slowed down the adoption of digital for them.
For something portable enough to do street photography at night without flash you'd need to have a lens that is extremely fast (i.e. lets in the most amount of light aka as a very small f-stop number). Here is a current Canon f1.2 35mm lens. You'll notice in today's money its $1,500. This is a prized possession now and back then as well.
posted by mmascolino at 11:11 AM on January 26, 2015
For something portable enough to do street photography at night without flash you'd need to have a lens that is extremely fast (i.e. lets in the most amount of light aka as a very small f-stop number). Here is a current Canon f1.2 35mm lens. You'll notice in today's money its $1,500. This is a prized possession now and back then as well.
posted by mmascolino at 11:11 AM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: Film SLR as noted; I bought one around then and it cost a few grand with lenses. Remember that there are all kinds of film available; aside from speeds, you could get nice black and white films or films that were designed to go directly to slides.
I also had a digital camera but it was a $100 thing that gave me photos appropriate for posting on the interwebs without "sizing down" or emailing to the bride (picking out bridesmaid dresses from 2,000 miles away). No display, no flash, just point, shoot, and hope. I used to borrow some kind of Sony digital camera that took giant 1.5 MB pictures (which filled up just one 3.5" floppy disk that you inserted directly into the camera).
posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 11:17 AM on January 26, 2015
I also had a digital camera but it was a $100 thing that gave me photos appropriate for posting on the interwebs without "sizing down" or emailing to the bride (picking out bridesmaid dresses from 2,000 miles away). No display, no flash, just point, shoot, and hope. I used to borrow some kind of Sony digital camera that took giant 1.5 MB pictures (which filled up just one 3.5" floppy disk that you inserted directly into the camera).
posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 11:17 AM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: Posting pictures to the internet was not a thing, not even remotely.
Well, it was if you were designing a website and wanted to use your own images, and you had access to a digital camera so that it was an option in lieu of scanning a physical photograph.
This is what we used the abovementioned digital camera for in my high school web design class, in 1998. But, still, it was a very clunky camera, not very portable, and nobody could think of any real use for the thing besides "take a picture of yourself and put it on the website you're designing as part of a class assignment". I think it was mostly an exercise in FTP use, really.
I remember there being a thought that Someday, photographers will use better digital cameras to take pictures to put online all the time. But certainly things like Instagram (and other types of amateur snapshot digital photo-sharing) were not even imagined yet. And I don't think anybody was even conceiving of the idea that you might take a digital photo and then print the results.
posted by Sara C. at 11:17 AM on January 26, 2015
Well, it was if you were designing a website and wanted to use your own images, and you had access to a digital camera so that it was an option in lieu of scanning a physical photograph.
This is what we used the abovementioned digital camera for in my high school web design class, in 1998. But, still, it was a very clunky camera, not very portable, and nobody could think of any real use for the thing besides "take a picture of yourself and put it on the website you're designing as part of a class assignment". I think it was mostly an exercise in FTP use, really.
I remember there being a thought that Someday, photographers will use better digital cameras to take pictures to put online all the time. But certainly things like Instagram (and other types of amateur snapshot digital photo-sharing) were not even imagined yet. And I don't think anybody was even conceiving of the idea that you might take a digital photo and then print the results.
posted by Sara C. at 11:17 AM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: High-speed film is also it's own set of black arts. Grain size was always a concern, roughly a film's resolution in digital terms.
In the late nineties, ISO 400 was common, a decent grain size and could be "pushed" faster, up to ISO 1600, 4 times faster, and still provide reasonable results. I used it for low-speed night photos. Black and white was more sensitive than colour and was easier to manipulate in the darkroom to draw out dark images.
Ilford and Kodak both made nominal ISO 3200 films, but I don't know a lot about them. They were super expensive, at least on a student's budget.
posted by bonehead at 11:25 AM on January 26, 2015
In the late nineties, ISO 400 was common, a decent grain size and could be "pushed" faster, up to ISO 1600, 4 times faster, and still provide reasonable results. I used it for low-speed night photos. Black and white was more sensitive than colour and was easier to manipulate in the darkroom to draw out dark images.
Ilford and Kodak both made nominal ISO 3200 films, but I don't know a lot about them. They were super expensive, at least on a student's budget.
posted by bonehead at 11:25 AM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: Wow, I just read what I linked (it looked like the work camera)...
I agree with Sara C. -- if digital pictures were printed out they were little postage stamp sized pictures that you printed in your family newsletter.
posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 11:25 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
0.3 megapixel sensor is great for emails and posting on the web Is that 1mb? Weird.I agree with Sara C. -- if digital pictures were printed out they were little postage stamp sized pictures that you printed in your family newsletter.
posted by Buttons Bellbottom at 11:25 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Photoshop was pretty useful back in 1999 as well. A good (bw?) slide film, a slide scanner and photoshop would made a decent workflow for night photography then.
posted by bonehead at 11:26 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
posted by bonehead at 11:26 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: At that time, a lot of people who had been around for a while still used trusty old cameras like Nikon F3s or various kinds of Leicas (heck I'm using my F3 still today).
Photographers who weren't into shooting action would often still be dedicated fixed-focus lens users (a little depending on the level of nerdiness). So for the photographer who wants to be prepared: a bunch of lenses (like 35mm, 50mm, 135mm), and perhaps two or three camera bodies loaded with different kinds of film. For night photography using ambient light, high-sensitive film, a tripod, a cable release; otherwise in the kit: likely a studio (multi-directional) flash and some filters and smaller gadgets.
Travel-light people: perhaps only one camera and two or so lenses and a lightweight tripod. It really depends a lot on what kind of personality and professional profile you're after. I recommend a trawl through professional (or wannabe professional) photography magazines from the time (at the library), maybe you find a portrait or interview.
Or if you want to go all nuts and bolts, read Feininger on Photography or something similar.
In 1999, some people totally already posted pics to the internet. I remember sitting in a Computer lab at Cornell browsing for houses and cars back in Sweden and it totally had started that you could look at the stuff.
And on preview, the Ilford 3200 is (was) incredibly grainy, like a live-peep back into the Middle ages. Not everyone's cup of tea. Difficult to print with reasonable results too.
posted by Namlit at 11:29 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Photographers who weren't into shooting action would often still be dedicated fixed-focus lens users (a little depending on the level of nerdiness). So for the photographer who wants to be prepared: a bunch of lenses (like 35mm, 50mm, 135mm), and perhaps two or three camera bodies loaded with different kinds of film. For night photography using ambient light, high-sensitive film, a tripod, a cable release; otherwise in the kit: likely a studio (multi-directional) flash and some filters and smaller gadgets.
Travel-light people: perhaps only one camera and two or so lenses and a lightweight tripod. It really depends a lot on what kind of personality and professional profile you're after. I recommend a trawl through professional (or wannabe professional) photography magazines from the time (at the library), maybe you find a portrait or interview.
Or if you want to go all nuts and bolts, read Feininger on Photography or something similar.
In 1999, some people totally already posted pics to the internet. I remember sitting in a Computer lab at Cornell browsing for houses and cars back in Sweden and it totally had started that you could look at the stuff.
And on preview, the Ilford 3200 is (was) incredibly grainy, like a live-peep back into the Middle ages. Not everyone's cup of tea. Difficult to print with reasonable results too.
posted by Namlit at 11:29 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I had a Nikon 990 then and they were absolutely terrible cameras by today's standards. My niece's Barbie camera is miles better.
posted by bonehead at 11:29 AM on January 26, 2015
posted by bonehead at 11:29 AM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: Slide film. That was all that real pros used for straight-up color shots. The only time you didn't use slide film was when you were deliberately trying for less resolution.
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:35 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by Cool Papa Bell at 11:35 AM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I took photos in 1997-1999 at night. Shooting film was not a quirk in any way. I used a cannon AT-1 SLR with a 50mm f1.8 lens and a tripod. I always used the same lens. I used the timer or a remote to take the shots in order to not giggle the camera. I pushed fast but not too fast B&W film, 400 ISO. The exposures were long, 1/30 sec. to 1 second. Sometimes without a tripod, I'd just set the camera on something, awkwardly try to look through the range finder and use the timer. I was not rolling in money or photo gear. I just used this kit over and over until I got it right. I would shoot at f1.8 which resulted in a very narrow field of focus. It was difficult to focus at night. I had to take lots of shots.
A person's hair from 6' away under a street light would be totally possible if the person stayed still and there was no wind. A casual shot in these conditions without motion blur would be improbable. Getting someone by luck when they are not moving for 1/2 a second exposure just doesn't happen, they have to know not to move. A casual shot might happen in some place with unusually bright lighting where you could take a longer exposure. Near ball parks, factories with 3rd shifts, on military bases, etc.
posted by bdc34 at 11:36 AM on January 26, 2015
A person's hair from 6' away under a street light would be totally possible if the person stayed still and there was no wind. A casual shot in these conditions without motion blur would be improbable. Getting someone by luck when they are not moving for 1/2 a second exposure just doesn't happen, they have to know not to move. A casual shot might happen in some place with unusually bright lighting where you could take a longer exposure. Near ball parks, factories with 3rd shifts, on military bases, etc.
posted by bdc34 at 11:36 AM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: If you wanted to take a picture, at night, of someone under a streetlamp, and particularly wanted to capture the way it lit their hair, would you avoid using a flash? What would be the best way to take that picture?
This is a reasonably technically challenging shot. If you used a flash, you'd capture how the flash lights her hair. But there's not much light otherwise, so you're balancing off long exposures (blurry even with a tripod because the subject can't hold perfectly still forever), high speed film (grainy), and a wide aperture (which makes the focusing much less forgiving). Autofocus doesn't work so great in low light, and manual focus requires you to see well in the viewfinder. It would be reasonable to use an extra light source while focusing, and turn it off for the actual shot. Similarly, it could be helpful to use a hand-held light meter so you know how to expose the picture (balancing those three aspects mentioned above).
Remember there's no previewing or reviewing anything. You take a bunch of shots, and don't know how they came off until you've developed the film. So you have a good reason to take a lot of extra shots (multiple rolls of film), for safety. Though street lights are at least consistent (vs like a sunset or something), so if the model is patient, you can make a few tries of it.
posted by aubilenon at 11:41 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
This is a reasonably technically challenging shot. If you used a flash, you'd capture how the flash lights her hair. But there's not much light otherwise, so you're balancing off long exposures (blurry even with a tripod because the subject can't hold perfectly still forever), high speed film (grainy), and a wide aperture (which makes the focusing much less forgiving). Autofocus doesn't work so great in low light, and manual focus requires you to see well in the viewfinder. It would be reasonable to use an extra light source while focusing, and turn it off for the actual shot. Similarly, it could be helpful to use a hand-held light meter so you know how to expose the picture (balancing those three aspects mentioned above).
Remember there's no previewing or reviewing anything. You take a bunch of shots, and don't know how they came off until you've developed the film. So you have a good reason to take a lot of extra shots (multiple rolls of film), for safety. Though street lights are at least consistent (vs like a sunset or something), so if the model is patient, you can make a few tries of it.
posted by aubilenon at 11:41 AM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: I dated a pro photographer in 2001 (wedding and magazine) and digital was not a thing you used for work, though I think at that point some specialized shops (I'm thinking of JC Penney, where a couple of my friends worked in IT) had studios connected to servers for product photography.
But for people, in places, where you couldn't drag a rack of servers around with you, it just wasn't a thing. You couldn't blow them up, it'd be pixellated garbage if you tried to print them much bigger than snapshots, and there was no real functional way to integrate them with off-camera flashes. My wedding in 2004 was shot on film, but the negatives were scanned to digital and corrected and I was given them on CD. That was a big deal.
In 1999, a "real" photographer would have turned their nose up at the thought of digital, and either had no access to a digital camera or at best played with one as a joke (but my first 0.3?mp camera was $500, so they weren't toys). There was a lot of snobbery (justifiable, given what anyone could imagine the quality might one day be), but photographers were also fine-point-ists about film itself. Film, ultimately, was their medium. Not use film? You might as well ask your chef not to use food.
If you were tech-savvy enough to know what the internet was and put a photo on it, you likely scanned a printed photo on a flatbed scanner, or if you were very serious or in college you might have had access to a slide or negative scanner - I think in 1999 you could mail it off to have that done as well. Then you edited it down in Photoshop or some dinky image software, so that it would load in less than 14 hours, before you put it online.
My boyfriend owned maybe two pro-quality camera bodies and a couple of lenses and external flashes. For test shots he used a camera body with a Polaroid back, which is an attachment that takes an instant photo through the chosen lens so you could check the lighting/white balance/model's makeup etc. That's how we used to know what pictures looked like before they were developed. (He also owned a pile of vintage and vintage toy cameras like Lomos, Holgas, and old Polaroids.)
For jobs, he rented the lenses and lights he needed from a camera shop. When he was working, he'd be wearing a photo vest with a complicated organizational system - unshot color film here, b&w there, shot film over here (to be handed off to the assistant who would sharpie a description and file it away in one of the bags), filters here and there, pants pockets filled with batteries.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:44 AM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
But for people, in places, where you couldn't drag a rack of servers around with you, it just wasn't a thing. You couldn't blow them up, it'd be pixellated garbage if you tried to print them much bigger than snapshots, and there was no real functional way to integrate them with off-camera flashes. My wedding in 2004 was shot on film, but the negatives were scanned to digital and corrected and I was given them on CD. That was a big deal.
In 1999, a "real" photographer would have turned their nose up at the thought of digital, and either had no access to a digital camera or at best played with one as a joke (but my first 0.3?mp camera was $500, so they weren't toys). There was a lot of snobbery (justifiable, given what anyone could imagine the quality might one day be), but photographers were also fine-point-ists about film itself. Film, ultimately, was their medium. Not use film? You might as well ask your chef not to use food.
If you were tech-savvy enough to know what the internet was and put a photo on it, you likely scanned a printed photo on a flatbed scanner, or if you were very serious or in college you might have had access to a slide or negative scanner - I think in 1999 you could mail it off to have that done as well. Then you edited it down in Photoshop or some dinky image software, so that it would load in less than 14 hours, before you put it online.
My boyfriend owned maybe two pro-quality camera bodies and a couple of lenses and external flashes. For test shots he used a camera body with a Polaroid back, which is an attachment that takes an instant photo through the chosen lens so you could check the lighting/white balance/model's makeup etc. That's how we used to know what pictures looked like before they were developed. (He also owned a pile of vintage and vintage toy cameras like Lomos, Holgas, and old Polaroids.)
For jobs, he rented the lenses and lights he needed from a camera shop. When he was working, he'd be wearing a photo vest with a complicated organizational system - unshot color film here, b&w there, shot film over here (to be handed off to the assistant who would sharpie a description and file it away in one of the bags), filters here and there, pants pockets filled with batteries.
posted by Lyn Never at 11:44 AM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]
Best answer: SLR/film. The Canon EOS series is the range I know best, going from the entryish-level 500N/Rebel upwards to models that had eye-controlled focusing. Digital quality was really not there for all but the highest of high-end uses in very specialised uses like photojournalism on ultra-fast turnarounds.
There were also plenty of highly capable and unobtrusive compact cameras that fit into a shirt pocket or small case and worked for street photography. Leicas, of course, but many cheaper options, such as the Contax T2 (and its budget sibling the Yashica T4) or Olympus μ (aka Stylus Epic) or Ricoh GR1, all with fast fixed lenses. No zoom. Night photography with those was trickier but doable.
Philip Greenspun's writeup on P&S cameras, originally written in 1995 broadly applies to 1999, and the comments to that piece from the late 90s provide useful context here. Greenspun put a lot of stuff online in the mid/late-90s about photography, and that spun off into the photo.net community.
posted by holgate at 12:04 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
There were also plenty of highly capable and unobtrusive compact cameras that fit into a shirt pocket or small case and worked for street photography. Leicas, of course, but many cheaper options, such as the Contax T2 (and its budget sibling the Yashica T4) or Olympus μ (aka Stylus Epic) or Ricoh GR1, all with fast fixed lenses. No zoom. Night photography with those was trickier but doable.
Philip Greenspun's writeup on P&S cameras, originally written in 1995 broadly applies to 1999, and the comments to that piece from the late 90s provide useful context here. Greenspun put a lot of stuff online in the mid/late-90s about photography, and that spun off into the photo.net community.
posted by holgate at 12:04 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: How old is your character? It's been adequately covered above that digital just wasn't there yet in 1999, but a hobbyist street photographer in high school or college would have different equipment than a professional photographer. The people I was friends with then would argue the advantages of old Nikon bodies vs old Canon bodies (all preferred over new stuff with electronic shutter control because of the idea that you could shoot without a battery in a pinch). I believe the Nikon F3 was the weapon of choice for those who could afford it, but for those on a student/hobbyist/whatever budget the preference was often for whatever you could get used and still expect to work (e.g. an old Nikon FE or a Pentax K1000).
For night/street/etc shots, as mentioned above, the preference might have been for high ISO black and white film (probably slide and not print film), which could be "pushed one stop" or "pushed two stops" in processing to account for underexposure (possibly intentional underexposure based on preferences for grain and ISO). Somebody who actually shot that stuff back then would have to give you a detailed combination of brand and ISO.
Street shooters also favor wide angle lenses, so while a 50mm ƒ/1.8 would often be the standard lens sold with a body, a street shooter would have, say, a 35mm ƒ/2.0 and use that as a walk-around lens (you'll want to fact check the contemporary lens options for whatever camera body/brand you settle on).
Also if your character is a certain sort he or she will have a Leica. You can pretty much identify that sort of person now, because they still have Leicas. Leica cameras are rangefinders, not SLRs, and they had a range of lenses that could be focused using markings on the barrel of the lens as you looked down at your camera, making them by far the choice of street photographers who were willing to spend the money to support their habit. They're expensive, even when used, but there's a certain sort of glamour (or, negatively, fetish) that surrounds them. The lenses are like jewels, but they take a certain willingness to pay for that puts them a level above, say, Nikon or Canon.
posted by fedward at 12:07 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
For night/street/etc shots, as mentioned above, the preference might have been for high ISO black and white film (probably slide and not print film), which could be "pushed one stop" or "pushed two stops" in processing to account for underexposure (possibly intentional underexposure based on preferences for grain and ISO). Somebody who actually shot that stuff back then would have to give you a detailed combination of brand and ISO.
Street shooters also favor wide angle lenses, so while a 50mm ƒ/1.8 would often be the standard lens sold with a body, a street shooter would have, say, a 35mm ƒ/2.0 and use that as a walk-around lens (you'll want to fact check the contemporary lens options for whatever camera body/brand you settle on).
Also if your character is a certain sort he or she will have a Leica. You can pretty much identify that sort of person now, because they still have Leicas. Leica cameras are rangefinders, not SLRs, and they had a range of lenses that could be focused using markings on the barrel of the lens as you looked down at your camera, making them by far the choice of street photographers who were willing to spend the money to support their habit. They're expensive, even when used, but there's a certain sort of glamour (or, negatively, fetish) that surrounds them. The lenses are like jewels, but they take a certain willingness to pay for that puts them a level above, say, Nikon or Canon.
posted by fedward at 12:07 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: Yeah, as others have said, digital was not really a viable option. Here's a review of a DSLR from 1998 that has a 2-MP sensor, and one of the criticisms is that it's $5000 too expensive. Also note how huge it is.
A street photographer shooting night scenes and wanting to travel light might use a viewfinder camera with a really fast lens (my dad has a Zeiss Contax with a f1.4 lens, which is pretty darn fast), might shoot on Tri-X B&W, pushed a couple stops, so the graininess becomes part of the aesthetic. Might instead use a 4x5 press view camera if he's a real crank, because the negatives are so huge that grain becomes less of an issue (I have a friend who shot the punk scene in poorly lit clubs using a press view camera). That's bulkier and more work.
Another thing to keep in mind about chemical photography is that prints weren't as big as they often are now, because you had to photographically enlarge them, and getting even tabloid-size prints was rare. These days you just go to Kinko's and print poster-size prints on their massive inkjets.
posted by adamrice at 12:08 PM on January 26, 2015
A street photographer shooting night scenes and wanting to travel light might use a viewfinder camera with a really fast lens (my dad has a Zeiss Contax with a f1.4 lens, which is pretty darn fast), might shoot on Tri-X B&W, pushed a couple stops, so the graininess becomes part of the aesthetic. Might instead use a 4x5 press view camera if he's a real crank, because the negatives are so huge that grain becomes less of an issue (I have a friend who shot the punk scene in poorly lit clubs using a press view camera). That's bulkier and more work.
Another thing to keep in mind about chemical photography is that prints weren't as big as they often are now, because you had to photographically enlarge them, and getting even tabloid-size prints was rare. These days you just go to Kinko's and print poster-size prints on their massive inkjets.
posted by adamrice at 12:08 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: Camera choice would really depend on what kind of photographer. If a student / hobbyist on a budget, a Pentax K1000 with a 50mm f2 lens was pretty standard issue. A hobbyist with a love for mechanical things (and great taste in cameras) might use a Nikon FM2: manual exposure with a built in meter. A street photography aficionado with cash would have a Leica: M6 TTL for the technologically inclined, M2/M3 for the purist. A street photographer on a budget might use any number of fast, inexpensive, fixed lens rangefinder like a Yashica Electro 35 or Canonet QL17 / QL19.
A fine art photographer with an eye for detail and large reproductions would probably shoot medium format, using the same rig for whatever studio work they did. Hasselblad was an expensive, complicated, modular setup. Pentax 67 or Pentax 645 were both utilitarian, bulky, but serviceable options. Twin lens reflex like the Yashica or Rolleiflex had a touch of the anachronistic—the romantic even. Note: 120 film typically has 10-12 shots and reloading was more involved. The medium format photographer would likely be methodical about setting up shots. 35MM film on the other hand many people were bulk rolling. 100ft. = 20ish rolls, so you could afford to be somewhat cavalier.
With high speed (1600-3200 ISO) film and a fast enough lens (F1.4 being the most widely available at reasonable prices) one could even shoot hand-held at night. But then grainy, black and white, home-developed film would be an aesthetic choice that said as much about your character as their choice of camera.
posted by Lorin at 12:19 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
A fine art photographer with an eye for detail and large reproductions would probably shoot medium format, using the same rig for whatever studio work they did. Hasselblad was an expensive, complicated, modular setup. Pentax 67 or Pentax 645 were both utilitarian, bulky, but serviceable options. Twin lens reflex like the Yashica or Rolleiflex had a touch of the anachronistic—the romantic even. Note: 120 film typically has 10-12 shots and reloading was more involved. The medium format photographer would likely be methodical about setting up shots. 35MM film on the other hand many people were bulk rolling. 100ft. = 20ish rolls, so you could afford to be somewhat cavalier.
With high speed (1600-3200 ISO) film and a fast enough lens (F1.4 being the most widely available at reasonable prices) one could even shoot hand-held at night. But then grainy, black and white, home-developed film would be an aesthetic choice that said as much about your character as their choice of camera.
posted by Lorin at 12:19 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: The newspaper I worked for was digitally scanning from negatives to import photos directly into pages in 1999, but definitely not shooting digital. The quality wasn't good enough yet even for low-res B&W newspaper work, even with the cost of film.
(Also, fish-eye was fucking ubiquitous, for real.)
In 1999 my newspaper bought a telephoto lens for $8,000. I remember one of our sports photographers coming back from a football game and saying, "See the helmet reflection in this picture? That's what $8,000 buys you: helmet reflection." The lens was powerful enough that from the sideline of a football game, you could take a picture of a guy's shiny helmet and see the guy next to him reflected in it. Our older telephoto lenses didn't capture nearly that much detail.
You could get a little mechanical 2x zoom lens on a not-too-expensive point-and-shoot, though, in 1999, which as a dedicated snap-shotter I thought was pretty freakin' cool.
Also remember that in 1999 you would have still been closing one eye and looking through the viewfinder to take photos, and the camera would be obscuring your face. You could not immediately check your work on a screen. When most people take pictures now they hold the camera some distance away from them and look at -- not through -- the camera. (Photographers are still mostly looking through the viewfinder.) Stock photography of people taking photos is totally different than it used to be! People also didn't used to hold up the camera and take weird-angle shots without being able to see what they were shooting -- film is expensive and you wouldn't find out if it worked until much later on! All the time you see people holding the camera out at arm's length -- up high, off to the side, etc. -- and firing off a few in the hopes of getting a better angle on something. That was pretty rare in 1999. If he's going to try to take pictures from above, for example, he's gonna have to climb a ladder, even for test shots. Instead of being able to get your HAND somewhere to get a picture, you had to be able to get your FACE there.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:36 PM on January 26, 2015 [5 favorites]
(Also, fish-eye was fucking ubiquitous, for real.)
In 1999 my newspaper bought a telephoto lens for $8,000. I remember one of our sports photographers coming back from a football game and saying, "See the helmet reflection in this picture? That's what $8,000 buys you: helmet reflection." The lens was powerful enough that from the sideline of a football game, you could take a picture of a guy's shiny helmet and see the guy next to him reflected in it. Our older telephoto lenses didn't capture nearly that much detail.
You could get a little mechanical 2x zoom lens on a not-too-expensive point-and-shoot, though, in 1999, which as a dedicated snap-shotter I thought was pretty freakin' cool.
Also remember that in 1999 you would have still been closing one eye and looking through the viewfinder to take photos, and the camera would be obscuring your face. You could not immediately check your work on a screen. When most people take pictures now they hold the camera some distance away from them and look at -- not through -- the camera. (Photographers are still mostly looking through the viewfinder.) Stock photography of people taking photos is totally different than it used to be! People also didn't used to hold up the camera and take weird-angle shots without being able to see what they were shooting -- film is expensive and you wouldn't find out if it worked until much later on! All the time you see people holding the camera out at arm's length -- up high, off to the side, etc. -- and firing off a few in the hopes of getting a better angle on something. That was pretty rare in 1999. If he's going to try to take pictures from above, for example, he's gonna have to climb a ladder, even for test shots. Instead of being able to get your HAND somewhere to get a picture, you had to be able to get your FACE there.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:36 PM on January 26, 2015 [5 favorites]
Best answer: fedward: "but for those on a student/hobbyist/whatever budget the preference was often for whatever you could get used and still expect to work (e.g. an old Nikon FE or a Pentax K1000)."
A lot of college photographers I worked with (in 1999) started out on a parent's old SLR camera that the parent stopped using in the 80s when you could get 35mm compact cameras; lots of gorgeous old 60s and 70s SLRs that their parents got while in college.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:49 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
A lot of college photographers I worked with (in 1999) started out on a parent's old SLR camera that the parent stopped using in the 80s when you could get 35mm compact cameras; lots of gorgeous old 60s and 70s SLRs that their parents got while in college.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 12:49 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: My Film Grain is Not Your Film Grain...but some of us love that grainy look you get from Ilford 3200 speed. I was shooting it back in 2002 because I liked that look. Heck, I shot some in New Orleans last year to feed the nostalgia bug and I still love the way it looks over digital.
That said, so much of shooting film boils down to those kinds of choices, though. How much gear your character has would depend a lot on how much money they had to spend. Regular folks could not afford medium format or Leica unless they got a sweet deal at a yard sale. On the other hand, if your character is rich, or made their living doing photography, I suspect they would have better gear.
posted by aperture_priority at 12:50 PM on January 26, 2015
That said, so much of shooting film boils down to those kinds of choices, though. How much gear your character has would depend a lot on how much money they had to spend. Regular folks could not afford medium format or Leica unless they got a sweet deal at a yard sale. On the other hand, if your character is rich, or made their living doing photography, I suspect they would have better gear.
posted by aperture_priority at 12:50 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: I bought a high-end Olympus digital point-and-shoot camera at the end of 1999. "Prosumer" was not yet a thing, but it was sort of that level. It cost just over a thousand bucks, and was just over one megapixel, I think. (You could print good quality 5 x 7s from it). It had a lot of manual options , but no interchangable lenses. It took better pictures in low light than any camera I've had since. We also had a very nice Nikon SLR that never got used again because it was so much cheaper to not have to buy film and waste out-of-focus pictures. 1999 is just on the cusp of digital being good enough and cheap enough for hobbyists. Professionals would already have digital if they were in a niche that needed it, but not for art. Magazine photos only get blown up so big, but there just weren't the megapixels available at the time for a good poster-size print.
posted by rikschell at 12:51 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
posted by rikschell at 12:51 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: lots of gorgeous old 60s and 70s SLRs that their parents got while in college.
Yep, the manual everything (or near-manual: metering, but with manual speed/aperture) SLR 35mm from photography class or just Taking Proper Pictures, that for many people in the 90s was a step up from an APS pocket camera or even a 110/126 Instamatic. My wife has a Minolta; I have a Russian Zenit that looks like it came out of a side-wing of a tank factory. The hand-me-down Rollei / Yashika / Mamiya TLR user was a little more full-on photo-geek.
posted by holgate at 1:08 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Yep, the manual everything (or near-manual: metering, but with manual speed/aperture) SLR 35mm from photography class or just Taking Proper Pictures, that for many people in the 90s was a step up from an APS pocket camera or even a 110/126 Instamatic. My wife has a Minolta; I have a Russian Zenit that looks like it came out of a side-wing of a tank factory. The hand-me-down Rollei / Yashika / Mamiya TLR user was a little more full-on photo-geek.
posted by holgate at 1:08 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: lots of gorgeous old 60s and 70s SLRs that their parents got while in college
Man, I would have loved one of those. Instead I got a new Pentax for my birthday because my dad wouldn't share (although he barely used his SLR). All my friends had old Nikons or whatever that were built like tanks, and I had a new thing with not just built-in metering but electronic shutter and aperture control. The shame. It was like taking a Miata to a muscle car party.
posted by fedward at 1:19 PM on January 26, 2015
Man, I would have loved one of those. Instead I got a new Pentax for my birthday because my dad wouldn't share (although he barely used his SLR). All my friends had old Nikons or whatever that were built like tanks, and I had a new thing with not just built-in metering but electronic shutter and aperture control. The shame. It was like taking a Miata to a muscle car party.
posted by fedward at 1:19 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: My camera, my first good camera, at that time was a Canon AE-1 from 1972 (Munich olympic edition!) with a prime 70mm FD, my best pawn shop find ever. Totally manual but did have a built-in light meter.
I loved that thing. I was crushed when it was stolen in the early 2000s. Used it often for light painting. For the time, it was a great cheap camera for the sort of thing the OP is asking about, roughly equivalent to the K1000.
posted by bonehead at 1:31 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
I loved that thing. I was crushed when it was stolen in the early 2000s. Used it often for light painting. For the time, it was a great cheap camera for the sort of thing the OP is asking about, roughly equivalent to the K1000.
posted by bonehead at 1:31 PM on January 26, 2015 [1 favorite]
Best answer: In terms of equipment, most of us had a camera bag. It would have been rectangular and boxy and full of padding, Velcro, and mesh pockets. It had plastic buckles to open/close. There'd be pockets on the outside too and it'd have serious straps, fully adjustsble, padded for your shoulder. Very much like a sports bag or backpack, same kinds of fabric, straps and fasteners. You'd have rolls of film in there and all your (not many) lenses strapped in. If you're shooting for fun, it most likely came with your camera so you might have the user manual in one of the inside mesh pockets.
posted by stellathon at 1:35 PM on January 26, 2015
posted by stellathon at 1:35 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: Graduated photography in 91, and just finished film school in 99. Still used my Pentax K-1000, but I had a leica rangefinder too.
Digital was definitely not affordable at that point. I remember some friends who were pro had some larger format cameras with digital backs, but they were horrifically expensive. And storage was an issue with anything that looked good. It was doable, but niche. People at that point could still confidently (and completely wrongheadedly) say that digital would never replace film.
Boy, that's funny to think about now.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:43 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Digital was definitely not affordable at that point. I remember some friends who were pro had some larger format cameras with digital backs, but they were horrifically expensive. And storage was an issue with anything that looked good. It was doable, but niche. People at that point could still confidently (and completely wrongheadedly) say that digital would never replace film.
Boy, that's funny to think about now.
posted by lumpenprole at 3:43 PM on January 26, 2015 [2 favorites]
Best answer: 35MM film on the other hand many people were bulk rolling.
I took photos for my high school yearbook in the mid 1970s. My high school had a bulk loader to roll our own 35mm film cassettes, and a black and white darkroom. Edward Burtynsky got his start as a photographer when his father came home from a garage sale with a couple of SLRs, a bulk loader, and some other equipment, and handed one of the SLRs to the teenage son. Burtynsky was thus able to hand load and shoot a lot of film for not much money.
As I recall, you could often buy low-end darkroom equipment, second hand, for relatively little money because photography was a hobby that a lot of people started, found they didn't have the time to pursue, and then sold off their equipment to clear out the space in their basement. The high-end equipment, however, could consume as much money as you could afford, and more.
I miss developing photos in the darkroom. Every step of the process of taking the picture, developing the negatives, and then printing the photo has an effect on the final result. There's something magical about watching the latent image come to life in the Ilfospeed.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 4:37 PM on January 26, 2015
I took photos for my high school yearbook in the mid 1970s. My high school had a bulk loader to roll our own 35mm film cassettes, and a black and white darkroom. Edward Burtynsky got his start as a photographer when his father came home from a garage sale with a couple of SLRs, a bulk loader, and some other equipment, and handed one of the SLRs to the teenage son. Burtynsky was thus able to hand load and shoot a lot of film for not much money.
As I recall, you could often buy low-end darkroom equipment, second hand, for relatively little money because photography was a hobby that a lot of people started, found they didn't have the time to pursue, and then sold off their equipment to clear out the space in their basement. The high-end equipment, however, could consume as much money as you could afford, and more.
I miss developing photos in the darkroom. Every step of the process of taking the picture, developing the negatives, and then printing the photo has an effect on the final result. There's something magical about watching the latent image come to life in the Ilfospeed.
posted by Multicellular Exothermic at 4:37 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: Posting pictures to the internet was not a thing, not even remotely.
There wasn't social networking picture stuff for sure, but people with blogs would post photos to their websites. I had a Sony Mavica then which took floppy disks (truth!) and it took small 640x480 images. Here is a collection of a few of them from WTO in 1999. You can see, you would not use this if you were a serious photographer.
posted by jessamyn at 5:15 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
There wasn't social networking picture stuff for sure, but people with blogs would post photos to their websites. I had a Sony Mavica then which took floppy disks (truth!) and it took small 640x480 images. Here is a collection of a few of them from WTO in 1999. You can see, you would not use this if you were a serious photographer.
posted by jessamyn at 5:15 PM on January 26, 2015 [4 favorites]
Best answer: The Mavica's 640x480 didn't look quite as small on the 800x600 CRT monitors that were the most common way of viewing the web in 1999. (The 16-bit colour palette ruled as well. Also, plenty of people on dial-up.) So it wasn't just digital cameras that were inferior to film; the displays weren't as good as print. If you were taking pictures in 1999, there were lots of online resources and photo-centric message boards and communities, but also an understanding that the scanned and scaled photos being shared on the web were lesser versions.
Even the early Flickr archives (2004-) show a big contrast in quality between lower-res digital pictures and uploaded PhotoCD scans from negatives or scanned slides: my tech-savvy friends occasionally get knots in their stomach when they see their early digital photos for the first time on their new spanky retina whatnots (especially iPads).
posted by holgate at 5:57 PM on January 26, 2015
Even the early Flickr archives (2004-) show a big contrast in quality between lower-res digital pictures and uploaded PhotoCD scans from negatives or scanned slides: my tech-savvy friends occasionally get knots in their stomach when they see their early digital photos for the first time on their new spanky retina whatnots (especially iPads).
posted by holgate at 5:57 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: It really depends on the character. Is the photographer amateur or pro? How do they make their money? Someone whose days are shooting weddings would have a different rig than a journo or a studio photographer.
People are right that most photographers wouldn't have had digital, but they're being a bit hyperbolic — 1999 is when the first usable DSLRs came out, with the Nikon D1 at about $6,000. And Photoshop 5 was part of a lot of workflows. Around that time, the AP even came out with its own branded DSLR that they gave to a bunch of their photogs. And a lot of folks who wouldn't have a full DSLR might still have a digital back on their camera. But really, that was only people who needed to be able to file an image pretty much immediately. Everyone else had to either process their own film or get it sent to a lab.
And actually, at the time, it was the tail end of people complaining about the trend toward "miniature" cameras, i.e. 35mm. A bunch of photographers had to learn everything on Speed Graphics 4x5s, and the move toward the lighter 35mm (specifically the Leica) was still something people bitched about in some newsrooms (not least because the 35mm enlargements showed so much more grain and were often harder to pull a banner image from).
As for what people would shoot: Slide film (called "chromes" usually) for publication, but street photography is much harder with chromes than with negative film — especially since color negative film has a big fudge factor in exposure, where you can be a stop or two on either side and still get your image, whereas chromes can leave you with nothing workable at half a stop off. If the photographer is shooting models under street lights, yeah, chromes and a tripod and long exposure… if not, probably a longish exposure with a 1600 ISO film and an in-camera meter, if you want color. If you want black and white, you have a lot more options, including infrared film. That was how Weegee got his fantastic movie theater shots with his Graflex. Then you only need a little visible light and can shoot much, much faster. There were even a bunch of stocks (including Kodak's surveillance film) that didn't need any filters to shoot true IR.
Even though the streetlamp shot would be blown by a flash, a photographer would probably have a speedlight with them, as well as several different cameras with different film stocks or lenses already mounted, so that they could switch quickly from one to another as the situation warranted.
posted by klangklangston at 6:16 PM on January 26, 2015
People are right that most photographers wouldn't have had digital, but they're being a bit hyperbolic — 1999 is when the first usable DSLRs came out, with the Nikon D1 at about $6,000. And Photoshop 5 was part of a lot of workflows. Around that time, the AP even came out with its own branded DSLR that they gave to a bunch of their photogs. And a lot of folks who wouldn't have a full DSLR might still have a digital back on their camera. But really, that was only people who needed to be able to file an image pretty much immediately. Everyone else had to either process their own film or get it sent to a lab.
And actually, at the time, it was the tail end of people complaining about the trend toward "miniature" cameras, i.e. 35mm. A bunch of photographers had to learn everything on Speed Graphics 4x5s, and the move toward the lighter 35mm (specifically the Leica) was still something people bitched about in some newsrooms (not least because the 35mm enlargements showed so much more grain and were often harder to pull a banner image from).
As for what people would shoot: Slide film (called "chromes" usually) for publication, but street photography is much harder with chromes than with negative film — especially since color negative film has a big fudge factor in exposure, where you can be a stop or two on either side and still get your image, whereas chromes can leave you with nothing workable at half a stop off. If the photographer is shooting models under street lights, yeah, chromes and a tripod and long exposure… if not, probably a longish exposure with a 1600 ISO film and an in-camera meter, if you want color. If you want black and white, you have a lot more options, including infrared film. That was how Weegee got his fantastic movie theater shots with his Graflex. Then you only need a little visible light and can shoot much, much faster. There were even a bunch of stocks (including Kodak's surveillance film) that didn't need any filters to shoot true IR.
Even though the streetlamp shot would be blown by a flash, a photographer would probably have a speedlight with them, as well as several different cameras with different film stocks or lenses already mounted, so that they could switch quickly from one to another as the situation warranted.
posted by klangklangston at 6:16 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: The inflection point for digital wasn't long after 1999. My first digital camera was released in fall 2000, and the big deal then was that "affordable" 3-megapixel cameras were just arriving on the market (I think I paid about $600 in 2001). Nikon and Canon also shipped their first digital SLRs in 2000, with the Nikon D1 a $5850 "pro" model (apparently actually announced in 1999, but not shipping in quantity until 2000) and the Canon D30 pitched as a $3500 "consumer" model. The first "affordable" DSLR, the 6-megapixel, $1000 Canon EOS 300D Digital Rebel, didn't come along until 2003. I happened to find some money (an uncashed paycheck) the week it was released, so I was definitely the first kid on my block to own one.
But yeah, 1999? A serious photographer would still be using film. A gadget freak might have had an early digital camera, but to my recollection they didn't really gain popularity until they became both high enough resolution (from my perspective, that happened around 6 megapixels) and affordable enough for people other than the pros and the well-heeled gadget freaks to own.
posted by fedward at 7:10 PM on January 26, 2015
But yeah, 1999? A serious photographer would still be using film. A gadget freak might have had an early digital camera, but to my recollection they didn't really gain popularity until they became both high enough resolution (from my perspective, that happened around 6 megapixels) and affordable enough for people other than the pros and the well-heeled gadget freaks to own.
posted by fedward at 7:10 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer:
The aforementioned Hasselblad would be a pretty sweet medium format setup. But it's got a large mirror so the mirror slap would make handholding harder at slow shutter speeds. Mirror lock up would mean you'd just have the leaf shutter. On the flip side, because it rests against your stomach and you can lean yourself, that's more stable than holding a camera to the face.
Others mention standard 35mm SLRs, those are possible too. A fast 50mm lens (maybe f/1.8 or quicker) would be relatively inexpensive. On the opposite side of the 35mm price range would be a Leica rangefinder (which can be scale focused with the lens barrel markings as mentioned, but 35mm SLR lenses could do the same too) with a potentially even faster lens ... the 50mm f/1.1 Noctilux ... which today sells for around $10k.
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:21 PM on January 26, 2015
If you wanted to take a picture, at night, of someone under a streetlamp, and particularly wanted to capture the way it lit their hair, would you avoid using a flash? What would be the best way to take that picture?You wouldn't try to light this photo, with a flash and especially not with any sort of lighting setup. You want to capture the low ambient light if you want to capture the street light on the hair. So fast film (read: high ISO), fast lenses (read: wide aperture) and maybe even a monopod/tripod.
The aforementioned Hasselblad would be a pretty sweet medium format setup. But it's got a large mirror so the mirror slap would make handholding harder at slow shutter speeds. Mirror lock up would mean you'd just have the leaf shutter. On the flip side, because it rests against your stomach and you can lean yourself, that's more stable than holding a camera to the face.
Others mention standard 35mm SLRs, those are possible too. A fast 50mm lens (maybe f/1.8 or quicker) would be relatively inexpensive. On the opposite side of the 35mm price range would be a Leica rangefinder (which can be scale focused with the lens barrel markings as mentioned, but 35mm SLR lenses could do the same too) with a potentially even faster lens ... the 50mm f/1.1 Noctilux ... which today sells for around $10k.
posted by Brian Puccio at 8:21 PM on January 26, 2015
Best answer: This character usually takes photos at night, ideally with a set-up that is easy to carry around and use at will.
Night photography pretty much requires longish exposure times, which recommends a tripod OR some serious bits of kit.
An amateur could have easily used an inexpensive little compact like the Canonet GIII QL17, loaded with Kodak TMAX 400 (or maybe TMAX P3200), and on a cheap amateur tripod like, say, the Slik 500.
The step up from that would have been the entry-level SLR; say, a Pentax K1000 or a Canon AE-1. (Maybe a consumer-grade Nikon like the FG.)
A pro would more likely to be using much more expensive bits of kit including high-speed lenses and films that would preclude the need for a tripod.
They'd likely be using a Leica M-something, probably an M4 like Jim Marshall's (...who did more than his share of night photography...). With say, a Summilux 35/1.4. Maybe the 50/1.4.
Or maybe a Nikon F3 SLR; it had fast lenses available, including the preposterously expensive (...and rare...) f/1.2 "Noctilux"; which (if cost is no object to this hypothetical photographer) would certainly help.
A monopod would have helped either pro or amateur, but would have attracted more attention.
(Reading these answers, it's little surprising that 1999 (!) is now long enough ago that few people clearly remember the tech available. Digital photography certainly existed - but didn't really take off as a useful option until after the introduction of the Nikon D1 around the time of the 2000 Olympics.)
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 11:17 PM on January 26, 2015
Night photography pretty much requires longish exposure times, which recommends a tripod OR some serious bits of kit.
An amateur could have easily used an inexpensive little compact like the Canonet GIII QL17, loaded with Kodak TMAX 400 (or maybe TMAX P3200), and on a cheap amateur tripod like, say, the Slik 500.
The step up from that would have been the entry-level SLR; say, a Pentax K1000 or a Canon AE-1. (Maybe a consumer-grade Nikon like the FG.)
A pro would more likely to be using much more expensive bits of kit including high-speed lenses and films that would preclude the need for a tripod.
They'd likely be using a Leica M-something, probably an M4 like Jim Marshall's (...who did more than his share of night photography...). With say, a Summilux 35/1.4. Maybe the 50/1.4.
Or maybe a Nikon F3 SLR; it had fast lenses available, including the preposterously expensive (...and rare...) f/1.2 "Noctilux"; which (if cost is no object to this hypothetical photographer) would certainly help.
A monopod would have helped either pro or amateur, but would have attracted more attention.
(Reading these answers, it's little surprising that 1999 (!) is now long enough ago that few people clearly remember the tech available. Digital photography certainly existed - but didn't really take off as a useful option until after the introduction of the Nikon D1 around the time of the 2000 Olympics.)
posted by AsYouKnow Bob at 11:17 PM on January 26, 2015
Response by poster: Thanks, everyone! You were all super helpful, and I got something useful out of every single one of these answer!
posted by kyrademon at 7:17 AM on January 28, 2015
posted by kyrademon at 7:17 AM on January 28, 2015
This thread is closed to new comments.
My high school got a digital camera in 1998 that took the most worthless garbage pictures ever. It's possible that there were DSLR cameras on the market for pro photographers at that point, but they were by no means the norm. Art photographers were not really using them. Photojournalists were just beginning to.
In 1999, digital vs. film wasn't even on the level of a real choice yet, let alone someone still shooting film as a "quirk". (That would probably be more like 2003 or so.)
The kit would look something like:
SLR (most likely either Nikon or Canon; my little brother got an SLR around this point and had a Canon Rebel. He's an amateur, though.)
tripod
lots of lenses. I remember fisheye lenses being a Thing in the late 90s, but if your character is going against the grain, they might not be into that.
For night lighting on a pro level you don't want a flash so much (though they might be using one) as you want a lighting setup. There are a lot of potential ideas for what that would look like, depending on exactly how portable it needs to be.
posted by Sara C. at 10:54 AM on January 26, 2015 [3 favorites]