A delightful book by a delightful writer. Matanle writes as if he and the reader are sitting at the kitchen table drinking coffee and passing cameras back and forth. And the books pictures are as if Matanle is showing you a family album and saying, “Here is one of my daughter I took twenty years ago with the camera you are holding.” He shows you pictures not so much to impress you with a certain camera, or his personal photographic skill, but rather because…he likes the picture for what it means to him. Delightful. Not too many photo book writers would do that. Matanle reminds me of Carl Shipman (whose books are a delight to read too).
Matanle’s love of (and knowledge of) cameras and photography is apparent on every page. I’ve simply got to quote you what he says about the huge, clumsy handling Contarex…
“There is really no quality among SLR’s to match that of the Contarex. If you buy just one SLR to admire, stroke, hold in front of the fire on a winter’s evening and never load with film, it should be a Contarex Cyclops (in Britain) or Bullseye (in the land of the free). The perfection of the engineering is breathtaking. It also comes expensive, so you need to be fairly well endowed with available cash to be able to afford one as a substitute for a Siamese cat.”
Delightful.
The book is packed with tidbits about a cameras cost, history, reliability and shortcomings as well as its finer points. Matanle is very opinionated in his likes and dislikes, as a writer should be. I find myself not always agreeing with him fully about certain cameras (like the Pen F series) but always seeing his point. He covers a wide variety of cameras and gives many lists of lenses.
It is a very comprehensive book. Well worth the money! Those of you who have read some of my other book reviews know how much I like to complain. And yes, as much as I liked and enjoyed this book there is a complaint. Although the paper is very thick and of high quality, both my Matanle books (published by Thames & Hudson) are coming loose at the spine. They have only been read through once and thumbed through a few times since given to me last Father’s Day, only couple months ago. Both mine are paperback, hopefully the hardback versions are better.