Speaking Frankly

From The Keppler Files: April, 1991

My advice is generally to depend on large-aperture, single focal length lenses indoors and let the zooms run wild where they do best: outdoors. I've never met a photographer who shoots indoors who was sorry that he owned a single focal length 24-, 28, 35-, or 50mm f/2; an 85 mm f/1.8-2 ; or a 100-105 mm f/2.8 lens. Another advantage of the single focal length: less probable distortion than a zoom lens.

So I'd suggest that anyone buying his first good SLR should stay away from the zooms and buy a 50mm lens. Today, 50 mm lenses of f/1.7 or f/1.8 aperture are surprisingly inexpensive. Do you need an f/1.4? I've seldom taken a picture at f/1.4 that couldn't have been done just about as handily at f/1.8. And f/1.4 lenses are usually not as sharp as f/1.8 and f/1.4 lenses are far more expensive.

Inside Straight: Like a Leica

If you are ever fortunate enough to hold one of the first 1925 Leica I(A)s in your hands, you'll quickly understand why it became the first commercially successful 35mm camera. (Just don't drop it. Each is worth $30,000 or more today!) It's oh-so-light, compact, and comfortable, and its few controls fall right where your fingers want them.

Its creator, Oskar Barnack, didn't throw the I(A) together as I suspect a lesser designer might have, nor did he follow the advice of a committee. Twenty years prior, while working at the famous Carl Zeiss optics plant in Jena, Germany, Barnack, an enthusiastic amateur photographer, spent much of his spare time hiking. Lugging around a plate camera and tripod proved slow and cumbersome.

Why not a pocket-sized camera that would use 35mm movie film? Barnack was confident that despite the format's small size, careful exposure and processing of the film might yield surprising results, particularly if he increased the picture area to 24x36mm, twice that of a movie frame.

From The Keppler Files: November, 1966

There is no absolutely foolproof way of evaluating optical ability except by actually taking pictures and looking at them. There are too many variables: sharpness, contrast, coloration, flare are only a few of the optical ingredients and each one of these must be broken down into the sub-ingredients. Couple this to the whole mess of variations in films, processing and viewing, and you can see just what chaos optical science is up against.

From The Keppler Files: May, 1970

I find studying faces irresistible. Is it best, right or left profile or straight ahead? Is the smile ingratiating? Do the eyes light up? What are typical expressions? Is the nose a long one that should be shot from slightly below to shorten it? Is the face full so part highlight and part shadow would be best? Where in the room is the right lighting for this subject? Where is the best background? How does the light near the window compare with the light from the main overhead fixture? Is the subject usually at ease or does a slight nervousness indicate that he or she will freeze if a camera is evident? This is a nice little game that can occupy your time at boring cocktail parties or other social gatherings.

From The Keppler Files: September, 1969

Some of the greatest photographic prose being written today comes from the pens, pencils and typewriters of readers complaining about equipment or service form dealers, importers or manufacturers. The heights of furious indignation and rage reveal hidden literary talents among many of you. Surely these blazing epistles must cause the recipient to wince, quake and race to rectify whatever complaint, legitimate, illegitimate or gray area being steamingly brought to his attention. Don't believe it. While the writing of these letters must act as a great catharsis for the writer, it generally has the effect of turning even a reasonable dealer, importer, or manufacturer into a stubborn mule who shoves your letter to the very bottom of the heap where it may stay, perhaps forever.

From The Keppler Files: October, 1965

While many a professional photographer in good standing hasn't got the foggiest notion of good mechanical techniques (and the blurred, out of focus, badly exposed pictures of a number of our many outstanding photojournalists would shock you), just as many technical perfectionists are accused of ignoring the process of creation.

From The Keppler Files: November, 1995

So my advice to you is: don't flit from one camera system to another just because it may be slightly ahead technically at the moment. As sure as the day will dawn tomorrow, the manufacturer of your present system, if its cameras or lenses are behind the cutting edge of technology, will attempt to leapfrog technically over the others -- and again the SLR grass will look greener where you aren't. And being at the forefront of technology isn't always as exhilarating as it's cracked up to be either. My older cameras, sneered at slightly by my friends, have some features that the newer ones don't. And familiarity with what I do have breeds contentment.

Inside Straight: Rating Game

Why and how photographers went crazy testing lenses.

In 1946, Army Sergeant Harry Martin (yes, our Harry, who runs the Checkrated program and writes Time Exposure each month), stationed then in occupied Japan, bought four cartons of cigarettes from the PX for a buck apiece. At Shinko, an outdoor market in Yokohama selling cameras, he traded the cigarettes for a new Canon S 35mm rangefinder camera with 50mm f/3.5 Nikkor lens.

Although many Japanese products, including cameras, seemed attractive, most of the American public was convinced  that anything made in Japan was junk worth no more than a handful of cigarettes. So, it's not surprising that, in 1950, American photojournalist David Douglas Duncan ignored the coaxing of fellow photojournalist Jun Miki to try Miki's 85mm f/2 Nikkor lens. Miki gave up, but, using the lens, snapped a low-light candid of Duncan. The next day, Miki presented an 8x10 black-and-white enlargement of it to the unsuspecting American, who was in Tokyo on assignment to photograph Japanese artwork.

From The Keppler Files: July, 1967

Purists who insist on the separate, super-accurate, hand-held meter are in for it. Through-lens metering systems are here to stay, yea grow, yea multiply and probably finally knock the separate hand-held meter out of the box for keeps -- eventually, but not now.

From The Keppler Files: November, 1964

When traveling abroad, don't pay subjects just because you've taken their picture. Start giving out coins and watch the scene come to a standstill while the line to receive money forms on the right. Should you ever pay strangers abroad for posing? Certainly. When you ask them to pose. Then they are performing a service and should be paid as a model would be.