(first posted 6/23/2015) Every year, I go to the Mecum Spring Classic car auction in Indianapolis to photograph the cars. I always take my digital camera and a pocketful of extra batteries; I take upwards of a thousand digital photos there every year. But I usually take a film camera along too, loaded with black-and-white film. This year, I used my camera to move in close and study styling details. Iconic details, like this tail light on a 1963 Ford Galaxie.
And the tail lights on this 1970 Chevy Camaro. Chevy’s round tail lights were always the height of cool, whether on a Camaro or a Malibu or an Impala.
I also have a thing for headlights. Their design is clean and pleasing on this 1965 Porsche 356C.
And who doesn’t love the delightful, delicate binnacle on this 1956 Continental?
Pontiac’s front-end treatment on its 1967 full-sizers took a different tack, dropping the then de rigueur round lenses into dramatic, sculpted pockets.
And for 1939, Ford placed its headlights in an upside-down teardrop shape.
Staying with that ’39 Ford for a minute, the prow promises V8 power.
But that Ford V8 badge whispers where this V8 badge from a 1955 Plymouth boasts at top volume.
I’m pretty sure I snapped this Forward Look badge on the flank of that same 1955 Plymouth. What a great design.
Badging remains a favorite subject for my camera lens. I make a cameo appearance in this photo of a 1960 Pontiac Catalina.
Bold serifed letters in the hub of this 1966 Ford Mustang say that this car means business.
Sometimes I step back a little bit to take in more of a car, without capturing it all. I wanted to study the lines of this 1963 Corvette from this angle.
Right next to it was this 1966 (I think) Corvette, with its one-piece backlight. I’m partial to the split window for looks, but I’m sure that if I drove one of these I’d prefer this car for its better rear visibility.
The light played deliciously off this 1960 Rambler’s snout, and my camera captured it beautifully.
Here’s the camera I used to shoot all of these photos: my circa-1977 Pentax ME. I used a 50mm f/1.4 SMC Pentax lens with Kodak T-Max 400 film – a fast lens with fast film because I was shooting primarily inside in available light, and needed all the light-gathering ability I could get. The pictured f/2 lens is a couple stops slower — that is, it lets in less light — and would have made some of these shots a lot harder, if not impossible, to get.
People sometimes ask me how to get started in film photography, and I always tell them to pick up a 1970s Pentax SLR body and a 50mm SMC Pentax lens on eBay. You can pick up a kit like that for well under $100; well under $50 if you are patient. They’re unsung bargains – try pricing classic Nikon film SLRs and you’ll see what I mean. And the Pentax lenses are first rate.
Beautiful shots.
I still prefer photos on film. Digital is easy to use, but a film camera captures the world the way I see it. Digital can’t do that.
Same here. I like Black and White photos. Colour is nice, but black and white is also good for pictures. 🙂
I had one exactly like that, a Pentax K1000 late 70’s, could almost be the exact same year, 77′. It was my mothers, and when she bought some new equipment, I inherited hers. And I can say with no doubt it was the best camera I’ve ever had. I went to college just then, and I attented the photo class as an extra curriculum activity. And we had more or less free reign at that place.
We could’ve been a dozen or so people interested in photography. And we got one roll of free b/w film every week, unlimited amounts of papers and dark room equipment. Our photo teacher basically told us to just go out and shoot the hell out of stuff, because we would never get that kind of free opportunity again. I think the school had a ten grand yearly budget just on expensables alone.
It was a great course, and a great lesson! Everything I know about photography, I learned at that course. Sadly, in one of my darker periods, I had to pawn that camera for money, and never got it back. With three different lenses, I got perhaps a hundred dollars out of it. I can’t believe I was that stupid, it was the best camera I’ve ever had. And I concur, A Pentax may be the best starter kit there is. It’s the cockroach of cameras…
Very nice! Thanks for posting these.
It’s interesting to note how well the forms and surfaces, both chromed and painted, translates in black and white or, dare I say it, in shades of grey?
Of course, being a Ford guy, you had me with the opening shot of the Galaxie. I must admit, however, that the prize goes to the split-window Corvette. Yet another pinnacle of American auto design from the early 60s.
Great work Thanks
Love your work, Jim, and great write-up. These shots are all poster-worthy. Great collection of images.
Great stuff! Love the ’67 Pontiac shot, been a fan of that front end since the first time I saw one way back when. I’ve thought about dabbling in a little B&W, still have my ancient Nikon F2.
I have two F2s here. Do shoot yours; they get lonely.
Sure, its a color and digital film world, but these beautiful black and white pictures exude a glamorous, Hollywood like style that color just can`t match.Certainly a form of art.
Nice photos, Jim, especially of that ’63 Galaxie. I’d forgotten how difficult shooting with a film camera is compared to a digital one. I have a Olympus OM1 loaded with Kodak 100Tmax B&W film now, but my skills are a long ways off from yours. It’s fun trying to improve, though.
The OM-1 is a great camera. I have two OM-1 bodies that don’t get enough exercise.
For those that have limited budgets and have a treasure hunter’s desire– get yourself to your nearest Goodwill store. There are often good slr cameras (Pentax, Ricoh, Minolta), and lenses from wide angle to telescopic, for great prices.
PS- great shots and thank you for encouraging others to revive a beautiful art form.
If you don’t mind putting some time into following auctions and are prepared to take a flyer on something about which you may not have a lot of reliable information, try Goodwill’s web auction site, shopgoodwill.org. I scored a Rolleiflex that way (it did need a little refurbishing). Prices are often better than eBay, the drawback being that Goodwill employees are not generally experts at some of the more specialized gear they’re selling, so caveat emptor. The site combines listings from all over the country and SLRs especially are plentiful.
Old film SLRs can be had for bargain prices even on that auction site. There’s some truly great gear out there available for a relative pittance. I have a soft rule of not paying more than $50 for any one camera and I probably have 30 SLRs that I picked up under that rule.
Of course you also need to be careful and know what you are looking for and how to evaluate it. Remember many used a battery that is no longer available and won’t expose correctly if you put in a newer silver oxide 1.5V battery. Then there is the shutter and is it’s timing correct. My collection runs just above 300 cameras from 1898 to the Maxxum 7000. Rangefinders, folders, TLR and SLRs.
I only have four Pentax SLRs and all four needed upkeep and fortunately there is a person in Tennessee who is an expert at a decent price. I do have all the Pentax SMC lenses. Yet my main focus is everything Minolta made followed by Yashica, Miranda and Ricoh to private label. Forget the Nikons and Canons but Nikkormat is ok.
Now if one truly wants to see what B&W can do then you need a folder preferably in the 6×9 format. Nothing can touch that negative size. Not easy to find a Zeiss, Agfa or Voigtlander, and they range from $130 to $450 in beautifully restored condition especially the bellows. I can handle the lenses and shutter but the bellows takes an expert. Put some 120 film in, brush up on your exposure calculations and then shoot. I learned how to develop and print when I was 13 in a graphic arts class circa 1966.
These B&W pictures are truly gorgeous. Many times you see more in a B&W print than in color where your eye pays more attention to the colors rather than forms. One thing I noticed is the terrible orange peel in the shot of the second Vette.
I use silver-oxide and sometimes even alkaline batteries in my old cameras all the time and exposures always come out fine. My advice is always to shoot print film, as most of it has some exposure latitude. My go-to film is Fujicolor 200, which I swear I could shoot 2 stops wrong and still get a usable result. Ektar 100 is similarly forgiving.
Just finished shooting my first Miranda, a Sensorex II. A review is forthcoming on my personal blog, http://blog.jimgrey.net.
Fortunately most of my 1.35V cameras are Minolta and you can go into them and adjust a little screw to compensate. The rest are SR44 batteries except for oddballs found in Yashica mainly.
I actually have never shot any Fuji film at all. While my collection numbers about 500 rolls in the freezer there is not one Fuji. Lots of Agfa and Ilford B&W film, Tri-X, Plus-X, Panatomic-X, Verichrome and Kodachrome.
Now shooting the cameras is hard. When I started my collection I had just two old cars and one newer. Now there are six older cars and two daily drivers not to mention my Aircraft Carrier now. Restoration takes a lot of time and it usually works best in daylight just like taking pictures does. So much so that my 6 year old got put to work for the first time sweeping the deck today.
Your photos are stunning. You should do an Instagram page if you aren’t already. The black and white allows your eye to focus solely on the form.
I did that for a while. Not so much anymore. https://instagram.com/mobilene/
Call it “black and white by Grey”!
Nice work Jim. On the day Kodak went bankrupt I pulled out my Yashica FX-3 and sat down with my kids:
Ok, this is a film camera, this is what we used to take pictures with before digital cameras. This is the film, and it comes in these little cans….
You, sir, have an eye for detail. Wonderful images! The fast f/1.4 lens helps too…
I keep meaning to pick up a film SLR someday. Almost pulled the trigger on an eBay Pentax a few years ago, but didn’t. I used one much like yours pictured when I was on the yearbook staff in middle school, but I didn’t know enough about it to get much practice, and I do think it would teach me things that my DSLR can’t. Though I don’t know how much luck I’ll have with thrift stores–too many hipsters around here that snap up all the good stuff as soon as it arrives!
Like I said up there somewhere, tons of great film SLRs lurk around eBay for under $50. If you buy one and find you don’t like it, you can probably sell it for what you paid for it.
I had a Pentax ME Super for a while. It was a good camera: light, stylish, cheap… until the circuit board fried and the shutter fired on Bulb only. Oh well, back to my AE-1!
Nikon FE all the way
As a photographer, I am blown away; fantastic work, and even better camera. I don’t know if CC would agree as a whole, but I think having photo series would be awesome. Like, take a theme, and run with it. For instance (badges and scripts) or “leading edge and grillework) or some such.
Keep it up
Wow, thanks!
I do posts like this from time to time, a few times a year. As Paul N. says, this is a big tent; I’m sure others with photo skills could post their own automotive visions.
Funny, I’d been thinking of pulling out my trusty Nikon FM and doing the same thing at the local cruise-in.
Dooo eeeeeet.
Beautiful work! I would be hard-pressed to pick a favourite. I can appreciate using a film SLR camera as a hobby, but I have to wonder though: Could you not have captured the same images with a DSLR, either in b/w mode in the camera, or converted to b/w in post-processing?
My wife picked-up a Canon AE-1 and a couple prime lenses and took a b/w photography course. Later she picked-up some colour film for the camera, but was frustrated because the “lab techs” at the camera stores never had their developers setup correctly and too many of her shots came back with bad colour. Additionally, she wanted to share her better photos, and discovered how time-consuming it can be to digitize them with a scanner. So she wound-up borrowing my Canon DSLR all the time instead. Today she has a fancy new DSLR and I borrow hers all the time. 🙂
I probably could have, but I don’t happen to own a DSLR. I think from time to time about buying one, but really, my Canon S95 is a startlingly good P&S camera and for that 5% of the time I need what a DSLR would give me, I get out one of my 30 or so film SLRs and shoot it.
Great photos!
The lead photo instantly made me think of Jack Ruby and Lee Harvey Oswald in the garage in Dallas.
https://youtu.be/r6PcVCqg3tg
Ugh, for me that scene brings up the memory of that butt-dragging 62 Ford ambulance carrying Oswald to Parkland Hospital.
Beautiful shots. My favorite is the 60 Rambler. Brings out all the subtleties in the design. 2nd favorite is the “Forward Look” trim capture.
Unfortunate that Chevy and Ford have this rich legacy of design “trademarks” and refuse to get the nerve to use them rather than just give a hint or suggestion. Would much rather see the bold tail light expressions than the same oblong, Edsel like boomerangs on the tails of cars from the Malibu and Camry to the Hyundai and Mazda.
I guess that’s why the “retro” look was so popular for a long time. [And still is with the Mini and Fiat 500].
I’m a B&W film and Pentax aficianado, too.
I still have my Pentaxes, back to the 42mm screw mount, through the K1000, ME and MX to the LX. I went Pentax autofocus too, but with the advent of digital it is usually the Pentax digital SLR. But when a slower pace beckons, the manual focus cameras force me to slow down and study what’s on tne viewscreen; and that’s good.
ME Super, here. Shot a ton of film at Road Atlanta back in the day, but sadly threw out all but a handful a few years ago.
Great shots but, thats a 38 Ford not a 39, yes it was rehashed as the 39 standard model but its a 38 first release.
Minolta SR-T 202… Served as the “unofficial” official photographer for my military unit. Always planned to get into B&W film, but the allure/ease of Kodachrome had me hooked. Alas, when it went away, and the easiness of having your film developed at your corner drugstore died as well, I switched to digital. Nowadays, I wouldn’t even know where to buy film, and/or have it developed!! Anyone remember “Fotomat”?? 🙂
(Image courtesy of Ebay)
Great work, dropping the color really brings out the chrome and the reflections. I feel an urge to break out the film again.
Personally I’m a Nikon man, since I still have the Nikon FM I bought in high school, along with some classic lenses. The film fleet also includes a Nikon 6006 AF SLR and a an Olympus XA rangefinder camera. That said, the digital point and shoot and Nikon DSLR get most of the serious photo action these days.
Pentax K2 bought brand new with quite a few of those glorious SMC lenses acquired over the years.
Perhaps it’s time for an occasional feature on “darkroom classics” about the cameras used to photograph curbside classics.
I was all set for the day at mecum in indy until a family matter occurred – youtube stream was watched but now I feel sad i did not go……
Wonderful photos! So much of the beauty of these old cars is in the subtle details.
Great shots Jim. Always a pleasure.
These photos are really great. The details of these cars remind me of the thrill of seeing them as a kid. I loved the taillights on the 63 Ford convertible owned by friends. And the stacked headlights of the 67 Pontiac. I’ll never forget the first time I saw a new ice blue 63 split window Corvette zipping down the streets of Fort Wayne, IN – what a sight, like nothing else on the road. Just one quibble – I don’t recall the Continental Mark II being referred to as a Lincoln Continental. Pedantry aside, what a treat – thanks!
I’m hip to the pedantry. I fixed the text.
Nice shots. I’ve shot black and white myself over the years, and for some subjects I prefer it to color. I shoot primarily digital now, but I still have my old film cameras kicking around. I’ve got a Nikon FE and a Canon EX (my favorite old camera) that I’ve been itching to dust off sometime and use again. I also have an old Minolta that my mom found at a yard sale for $20. It came with two zoom lenses, including a great Tamron. Time to put them back to work.
Just getting back to this one after a quick glance when it first went up. Gorgeous shots of the kinds of details that make me love the cars (and a lot of industrial design) of their eras. The black and white forces us to look at the shapes and reflections, and you have captured them beautifully.
Here’s something I shot earlier this summer.
Great atmospheric shots that show (again) that car styling is not an accident.
Thanks Jim
I forget, does your Pentax have an M42 mount?
Nope, K mount.
Not much difference between f2 and f1.4 you would be better off pushing the film to 1200 or to, I used to push TriX to 2400 and higher…a little grainy but got wonderful high speed action shots in sub standard lighting.
At the time I did this I was not developing my own film. I do now, and am unafraid to push my film!
Pentax is WAY underrated, in digital as well. I have a Pentax KR digital SLR that runs circles around the Canons and to boot can use ANY Pentax lens EVER made.
Even the M42 screwmounts? I’d guess not…
Yes, the Pentax dSLRs can use M42 screw mount lenses, with the proper adapter. Some aftermarket adapters are flanged and do not permit focus to infinity…you do not want one of those. The camera will even autoexpose through the stopped-down lens. One of my favorite combos is a Pentax dSLR and my manual diaphragm 300/6.3 Tele-Takumar. Effectively the lens becomes a 450mm, and the camera’s shake reduction evdn works!
Even the pre-Pentax Asahiflex lenses will work on Pentax dSLRs. The same adapter used to mount an M42 screw mount lens on the dSLR K-mount, plus an Asahiflex-to-M42 adapter will do it. If you can find the latter!
Fascinating! I wasn’t aware there are flangeless M42-to-K adapters that will allow focus to infinity. Do such adapters also exist for M42-to-Nikon, do you know?
The Asahiflex stuff ended before my collection’s earliest camera (’61 H2), and on the occasion I thought of them I assumed they used M42 as well; guess not.
This is almost all theoretical; I had to let go my collection in 2019 and I don’t have a Pentax dSLR. However, there are several Nikon dSLRs in the family, and one of those gwahgeously sharp Super Takumar 50mm ƒ/1.4s…!
I have one of the Pentax K-M42 adapters and it’s great. I used it on the Pentax K10D DSLR I used to have and it worked pretty well.
M42 on Nikon won’t focus to infinity natively. There are adapters with a lens in them which compensates. However, being in that location in the image path means they can cause deterioration to the image.
My second SLR, bought used as a backup to my Spotmatic, was a 1961 Heiland Pentax H2. I had to rebuild its shutter after the rubber in the shutter fabric aged and finally cracked. It is still clicking away, now. The backup actually broke before the Spotmatic, which never did, only needing cleaning, lubrication and adjustment since 1966. Spotmatic and later shutters are considerably sturdier.
Ah, but those accursed mercury batteries they take…! Last I checked (quite a lot of years ago) there was a zinc-air cell providing pretty close to the correct voltage to replace the old mercury cells adequately.
The Pentax Spotmatic utilizes a bridge circuit in its exposure meter. It balances current flow through a reference variable resistor against current through its CdS photo resistor cells; when current flow is nil, the meter needle is centered and exposure is correct. So the 1.35 volt supply is not critical. 1.5 volt silver cells work fine, all that is needed is a plastic or rubber ring so the cell will fit snugly in the battery compartment. 1.4 volt Zinc-air hearing aid batteries work, too, but once they are activated by opening their seal, they have a short usable life.
Aging of the CdS photo resistors can cause nonlinearity of the metering, though. Whether a particular camera is affected is unpredictable.
I’ll add that to my list of things I’d have liked to know when I was shooting vintage Pentaxes!
Jim-What great photos-I love black and white photography. I still have my Pentax Spotmatic II with a 1.4 lens I purchased it when I was stationed in Udorn Thailand in 1972. And it still takes great pictures. Now, I’m going to have to buy some black and white film.
B&H Photo online will be your friend then!
I still have my Pentax ME Super which I purchased nearly 40 years ago. One tough camera, it bounced out of my saddle bag and landed on the blacktop after I crossed some railroad tracks, wasn’t going very fast, it is my miracle camera. Have another Pentax that I bought a few years later. I’ve got 4 lenses and a 2X adapter. Have recently thought about getting a Pentax dSLR to get back into photos.
The old Pentaxes are very Slant-sixlike. Dad used to half-joke he could kick a field goal with his H1a and take a picture with it afterwards. It’s really good hardware!
P.S. Love that shot of the 63 Ford Galaxie 500 tail light, one of my favorite cars.
Dammit all, I’ve done it again—gone geeking out about the equipment and lost sight of the photos. These are terrific images! Artistically beautiful and thoughtful; skillfully composed, and technically excellent—including some very difficult-to-photograph subjects (headlamps with reflections from multiple planes; reflectors and reflections in general) adeptly done. I’m smilin’!
> I used a 50mm f/1.4 SMC Pentax lens with Kodak T-Max 400 film – a fast lens with fast film because I was shooting primarily inside in available light, and needed all the light-gathering ability I could get. The pictured f/2 lens is a couple stops slower
An f/2 lens would be only one stop slower, not two.
Commitment issues usually keep me from shooting B&W film – i’m always afraid I’ll want to capture something in color before using up my 24 exposures. With digital (or scanned film) it’s easy to shoot in color and change anything I want to be B&W in software. I also go back and forth between C-41 process B&W film that can be developed in one-hour machines at the drug store, and conventional black & white film like Tri-X that takes longer and costs more to process (unless you have a darkroom, where traditional B&W film is easier to develop). C-41 B&W film is basically color film without the RGB filters that separate the three or four layers, so the resulting negative lacks the graininess that gives prints a “film” look.
The first 35mm camera I used was a 1960s Asahi Pentax Spotmatic (bought overseas; they were branded Honeywell Pentax in the U.S.). It was eventually replaced with a Pentax ZX-5n in 1997 which had a retro feel with old-school knobs, dials, and buttons rather than the LCD display based interface that most SLRs used by then, but still incorporated all the modern features. It felt a bit plasticy though and not as substantial as the Spotmatic, and was only used for a short time being on the cusp of the digital photography era.
I learned to shoot on my mom’s 1968 Pentax Spotmatic and a friend’s similar ME. I then got my own K1000 with a 50mm, I think in 1992…the best of both of those cameras. Simple, rugged, great, the only new camera I ever bought. I used that for years until I quit shooting film when I went to music school. I didn’t really take many photos again until I got my first digital camera in 2006. I have way too many undeveloped color rolls from the old days…most of the film that I developed was bW in my makeshift darkroom. I do miss that process a lot. But I love digital imaging.
Apologies if this is a stupid question or has been asked before, but aren’t the shots in this post now digital, since they had to be converted to digital to upload to a website? If so, what was the process to retain their quality?
Lastly, are they better quality even as digital versions, because they were first shot on film?
thanks –
Well, they’re digitally presented, yes, because you’re looking at them onscreen. But they were originally taken on film. Likely printed on paper, too, though they could also have been scanned directly from the negative. The process for digitising a negative, slide, or print for maximum quality involves making sure the photo and the scanner are both clean-clean-clean, scanning at the highest practicable resolution, and skillful post-scan processing.
Thank you!
Jim: I’ve been made fun of several times for it, but I LOVE the front end of the 1967 full-size Pontiacs. I think it’s a beautiful design – the lights being at the outmost edges make it look incredibly wide. Different strokes I guess. 🙂