I actually used my dad's old Pony for a time but got his German-made Kodak Retina IIIc when he went the SLR route. I had a lot of good use out of that and used it alongside my later SLR through most of college when some of the mechanisms finally wore to the point they couldn't be repaired.
>Anyway, today we tend to have a survival bias about this
Yeah, there may be cult exceptions but most of the cameras considered collectibles today were probably at least moderately expensive when they were introduced.
>But I disagree on the "photography wasn't mass market" bit
That's probably fair. Vacation snapshots were at least moderately popular. Kodak didn't get to where it is only servicing pros. Of course, it was at a whole different level than today with smartphones in everyone's pocket and the costs associated with taking a picture effectively zero. We have all become the Japanese :-)
The novelization of The Pink Panther Strikes Again (1976) has a passage that discusses a photograph taken by "a Japanese student in England with a Leica". I doubt future generations will understand the multiple jokes encoded here.
I actually used my dad's old Pony for a time but got his German-made Kodak Retina IIIc when he went the SLR route. I had a lot of good use out of that and used it alongside my later SLR through most of college when some of the mechanisms finally wore to the point they couldn't be repaired.
>Anyway, today we tend to have a survival bias about this
Yeah, there may be cult exceptions but most of the cameras considered collectibles today were probably at least moderately expensive when they were introduced.
>But I disagree on the "photography wasn't mass market" bit
That's probably fair. Vacation snapshots were at least moderately popular. Kodak didn't get to where it is only servicing pros. Of course, it was at a whole different level than today with smartphones in everyone's pocket and the costs associated with taking a picture effectively zero. We have all become the Japanese :-)