I stumbled across a post on Craigslist. "High End Professional Photography Studio Sale (August 22&23) (1300 N. Wilton Pl., Los Angeles 90028)" I looked at the pictures in that post, and it brought back a lot of memories. All of the pictures here are from that Craigslist post.
Back to my story. The year was 1990. I was shopping for photographic equipments. I was armed with The Recycler (a print version of today's Craigslist/eBay-local). The rationale for shopping heavy duty photographic equipments was that they're good investments-- they would last a life time. After all, the basic photographic techniques had been the same since the early 1900s. You take a picture, develop on a canister, darkroom darkroom darkroom, print, done. It was done that way in 1900, in 1910, in 1920, 1930, 1940, 1950, 1960, 1970, 1980, and 1990 (black and white still done that way at the time). Why wouldn't it be any different in 2010, 2020, 2030? So I thought at the time.
I had an early version 1978 Pentax K1000 with a 55mm f/2 lens, and it was all I needed. The only other things I needed were darkroom equipments, and some black and white filters. I responded to a post on the Recycler. I showed up at this house in Granada Hills. This old man with white hair opened up the door. He said "oh, so you're Kevin?" He sounded a bit surprised, and I could hear the tone "Oh great, it's just a kid." He was a retired photographer selling off a bunch of old equipments, from drums, to easels, to enlarger, trays, chem bottles, camera lenses, everything. He turned out to be a nice and patient guy and explained some of the equipments that I didn't know how to use at the time. I ended up spending 4 hours looking at his arsenal of professional photo equipments. I came out with more photographic knowledge than before, more equipments, and an almost empty wallet. But I was ready to create my own photo lab, and I was excited!!! Many kids at the time just wanted to spend hundreds of dollars perfecting their Street Fighter techniques and such. I had my own darkroom... waaay cool, dude.
Even as digital photography became more prevalent in the late 90s, many professionals laughed at it. The resolution sucked. The color sucked. Everything sucked about it. Some experts estimated that it took 100 years for photography to reach the state of the art quality, and it would take at least a few more decades to do the same, digitally. But Moore's Law proved everyone to be wrong... doubling transistors every 18 months, and doubling computational power every 2 years or so... you continue this trend, and in 10 years, digital photography surpassed everyone's expectations. In less than 10 years, most of the pro photographers were already on digital (digital processing and digital capture).
When I finally parted with my darkroom equipments in 2008, I barely got back any money, after taking in consideration of shipping costs. You see these pictures of the old film equipments? They're no different than what I saw in 1990. The difference is utility-- they were useful in the 1990, and today, they're obsolete and worth very little. Hardly anyone wants to use an enlarger, let alone dealing with stinky chemicals and trays. Digital processing is not just "good enough", it is superior. With one mouse slider in Lightroom/Picasa/Photoshop, you can change contrast in 1 second. You can change the tone in 1 second. You can change the exposure in one second. You can burn and dodge in 10 seconds. A single print that may have taken masters like Ansel Adams hours to create, now takes minutes. In some instances, you can create amazing results in your digital darkroom, in seconds.
See the pictures on this post? Almost everything is worth... $0.00. They have little utility in today's world. The only things that are still worth something... are the lenses. Optics don't change like electronics. No matter what technology you're using, you need to capture light. Optical innovations isn't subject to Moore's Law. You see that old Nikkor AI 50mm f/1.4 above? It's still worth a lot. A good lens in the 70s, is still a good lens today.
It's all about the lenses!
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