Chopstork

Nikon is discontinuing most of their manual focus lenses and all but two of their 35 mm SLRs. Sad. Now I’m wondering what I should buy while they’re easily available. But I don’t have money for that.

Nikon to discontinue 35mm

Jan 19 update…

And just a few days later, Konica Minolta says they are shutting down their camera business and color film business. Wow. I learned photography on my dad’s manual Minolta.

Konica Minolta abandons cameras, film

How are kids now gonna learn photography? On dad’s new crappyass digital SLR? It’s just not the same. You’ve got to learn to roll your film, stick your hands in that black bag that smells of everyone else’s palm sweat, process your film in nasty chemicals. The excitement when you pull the roll off the reel and see your pictures for the first time. And what about the darkroom? Figuring out why the hell you can’t see anything in the grain magnifier, making test strips, watching your image just appear on a blank piece of paper…in more nasty chemicals. Maybe it’s not so bad - the old manual camera that mom or dad used to use will still be in the attic waiting to be rediscovered, I guess.