'Old fashioned' cameras ?

[Fred L]

Am I the only one who is frustrated when large format field cameras are described in articles as 'old fashioned' ?

A National Geographic piece on favourite cameras used by their photographers describes a metal folding Wista field as such. Is this a fall back catch phrase that they think people will twig onto ? Isn't everything old fashioned ? I could say a Leica MP is old fashioned since it's not far departed from a Leica II (in working principle).

[Old-N-Feeble]

No need for frustration. I'm sure large format cameras have been labelled "old fashioned" for the last several decades... not too longer after the invention of roll film.

[Sevo]

Fashions come and go. I've recently had a youth identify a Nikon D2 as old-fashioned...

[Jim Galli]

There's a whole lot more idiotic stuff getting bandied around than that. Hard to argue that a camera with a bellows and film is not 'old fashioned'. Like Sevo says, even the digital world is going to get wrung through that wringer. Look at the front page of BING. How long before a picture that is truly still is rendered old fashioned. I save my ire for true idiocy.

[Fred L]

but coming from people who should know better and can surely come up with a better descriptor. but yeah, there are more important things to worry about. must be the cold meds kicking in

[Ari]

There are more important things to worry about, but this is only the latest dumbing-down of NGS magazine.
I've wanted to cancel our subscription for two years, but my father enjoys reading them when he visits.

[Alan Gales]

I went out to dinner last night to a restaurant that is about to close it's doors after 90 years. We were there to celebrate my mother-in-law's 80'th birthday. At first I could not get the flash to work on my Fujifilm x100s. I eventually figured out that when the camera is in silent mode it kills the flash.

Sometimes old fashioned is a good thing. It sure beats new frustration.

[Jac@stafford.net]

Am I the only one who is frustrated when large format field cameras are described in articles as 'old fashioned' ?

Apparently yes.

[Peter Mounier]

Actually, they are Old-Fashioned if you accept the definition put forth by Merriam Webster ... 1a: of, relating to, or characteristic of a past era.
Or Dictionary.com ... 1. of a style or kind that is no longer in vogue. 2. favored or prevalent in former times.

If you're a journalist and want to convey an image of a view camera, using the word "Old-Fashioned" immediately conjures up the vision of a photographer with a folding camera on a tripod with a dark cloth. Or a news photographer with a field camera. It's effective in communicating that thought with very few words. I use the term myself to describe the type of camera I love to use.

You're a photographer, can you describe a field camera in fewer or more effective words? If someone gives you a blank look when you're talking about your cameras, don't you use those descriptors too?

[Jerry Bodine]

You're a photographer, can you describe a field camera in fewer or more effective words? If someone gives you a blank look when you're talking about your cameras, don't you use those descriptors too?

Never have. Some folks don't even think in those terms. Once while photographing a frozen waterfall from the only safe location with my Sinar Norma, surrounded by tourists (out of necessity), when I was about to come out from under the darkcloth a lady with a definite euro accent called to her husband to come see a 'real camera'. I looked at her and saw the genuine excitement in her eyes as she asked me what kind of camera I was using; I simply said "It's Swiss." She said softly, "Ooooh" and went back to her husband. He never bothered to come look.