Down the Road

Photographs and stories by Jim Grey

Since 2007

Recommended reading

Jim Grey
4 comments on Recommended reading
1 minute

💻 I am incredibly fortunate to work in a highly professional industry, with generally good and very smart people, for terrific pay. I have children who have not been so fortunate. Someone who writes as Resident Contrarian writes about the kinds of jobs available in that not-so-fortunate world, and how badly they can treat the people who work them. It mirrors what my children have experienced. Read What Does “Shitty Job” Mean in the Low-Skill, Low-Pay World?

Grocery store daffodils
Nikon Df, 55mm f/2.8 Micro-Nikkor, 2022

📷 This week I wrote about old cameras breaking down and how the people who repair them aren’t getting any younger. Then Ryan Jones wrote an article on 35mmc about how he’s learned camera repair — a young man picking up the mantle. It’s a lovely essay, go read it. Read The Case for Patience — Film Photography and Camera Repair

📷 arh reviews the Exa 1a, a 35mm SLR with a waist-level viewfinder and a blazing top shutter speed of 1/175 sec. Read Exa 1a

📷 I like old cameras you don’t see every day like the Olympus 35S 35mm rangefinder from 1955. James Tocchio reviews one. Read Olympus 35S 35mm Rangefinder Camera Review

📷 Henri Toivonen reviews the Reveni Labs spot meter. It’s a tiny little meter you can clip into your camera’s accessory shoe. He points out some challenges with it that make it not so pleasant to use. Read Reveni Labs Spot Meter review

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Comments

4 responses to “Recommended reading”

  1. Andy Umbo Avatar
    Andy Umbo

    The Olympus 35-S has to be one of the most attractive of the Japanese rangefinder cameras that I have seen! I’ve certainly always been a fan of the Minolta Hi-Matic series, but this camera seems to have suck a perfect form.

    Also great to see the story on the Exa. I ended up in a highly Germanic city for my photographic formative years, and there were a lot of Exaktas, Exas, Praktinas and Prakticas knocking around on the used camera shelves. Any fan for highly mechanical objects will fall in love with the Exaktas and Exas. We also learned those post WWII East German Zeiss based lenses were something special, many times “wowing” our more affluent Japanese camera buying pals!

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      Yes, the Olympus 35S really is lovely. The author didn’t recommend it as a daily shooter, however. I dunno, nerds like me get cameras like that out just for the experience of it.

      Reply
  2. Andy Umbo Avatar
    Andy Umbo

    Second comment here on ResCon’s article on “shitty jobs”. He hits the nail on the head for much of the article, but misses a few additional points. One is that working in the “fly-over” many times limits your income and quality of job. I’ve been tracking this in my industry for years, and the more competition there is for employment, and the lack of available jobs, highly impacts both how you are treated (i.e. your expendability), and the amount of money you get paid.

    My last professional job was in Indianapolis, and before I took the job, I was sort of horrified by what my reportees would be making. They were making literally half of what my staff was making in similar jobs 15 years before in Milwaukee. When I questioned my boss about this, he said they’d only pay more if they had trouble keeping a staff on what they were paying. You can guess the outcome of this, the staff was highly under-experienced and under-educated for what was needed, and it was difficult to get results out of them. The positions didn’t pay for professionals, and so they didn’t get them!

    This carried right on into inexperienced management that actually wanted me to fire a portion of my trained staff during a yearly lull, and hire up again, expecting instant results, when we needed people again! I never worked anyplace in the country, that had such a bone-headed and inexperienced management staff, who seemed like they got their management skills managing bottom-dollar factory work instead of creative professionals. Happy to leave there, AND Indianapolis, when they “laid off” everyone over 55! And happy to hear they had to make draconian changes including firing a lot of people eighteen months later. Sorry for the workers tho…

    Reply
    1. Jim Grey Avatar
      Jim Grey

      You might be right about how your options are more limited in the middle of the country. In my industry I’ve been happy to be a bigger fish in a smaller pond, however.

      Reply

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