What type of cameras did professional photographers use during the 1980s/early 1990's?

Question

If you look at a pic from around 1991 or 1987, you can see theres like a quality in the pic that makes it look old as compared to todays cameras which make everything look absolutely realistic and great.
What type of cameras did photographers use back during that time period?

Examples:
http://history.sandiego.edu/gen/snd/images/nirvana.jpg

http://www.gunsnroses1.com/pics_pictures/1/guns_n_roses_8.jpeg

Answer 1

Having taken pictures during the same time that you are mentioning, I would have to say that it depended upon what type of photos you were taking and what you wanted to do with them. As for teh optics being much better today than yesterday, that is not the case - they have made the lenses lighter, but not, in my estimation, much better.

When I started SLRs in 1967, there were not lenses much better than the Super Takamur lenses for the Pentax, but at the same time, Olympus lenses of the time were incredible - I have heard the comment that they were "too good." And, of course, Nikon has had no problems. But that is not all the cameras that were being used. Mamiya's C330 series, made from the 60s to the 90s, are still incredible cameras and supposedly have taken more weddings than any camera in existence. Almost concurrently, Mamiya's 645, and 67 series appeared and nothign is better mechanically than those cameras. Hassys have been made for eons. There were many other brands like Yashica's famous TLR cameras of which I have one made in 1964 that works fine. And don't leave out the larger format cameras, the 4x5s and above, they were all around.

What you are classifying as not such a good picture, judging from what you chased us to, are pictures, or posters that have been faded over the years so that the people look almost as dead men. Some pictures are made for effect, those might be of tht type. If you thumb through old National Geographics, you will see phenomenal pictures as far back as you can find NG. A lot of the quality of a printed photograph has to do with teh printing method.

The word "camera" in Latin means box and that is all that a camera is excepting for the lenses. What differentiates one from the other, then, is the glass and the mechanical structure of the machine. Most of the cameras of days past were mechanically well made, I am not sure of today's units. They are plastic, not metal, the guts are plastic, not metal, and I hear of too many mechanical and electrical problems to assume that they were much good structurally. My newest camera is from 1980 and the average of the several that I have would be about 1970. None of them need batteries to operate, so I can just go out and shoot.

Answer 2

The previous posting by Bill P really said it all. The color or print quality of these images have nothing to do with the camera or film from that time period. I have both cameras and film(the film has been properly stored in my freezer which allows it to last long after the expiration date) which date from that era, and if I were to expose, develop, and print some film it would look new, or in your words "realistic and great".
The deal is that these images are most likely scanned from a magazine and are scanned from the actual photographic prints(if you notice the images are slightly blurred a sure sign that these image are scanned from a magazine so as to prevent a moire pattern from occuring when the rosettes from the lithographic print overlap the pixels on the computer). Color offset lithographic prints from magazines are not archivally sound and degrade rather quickly leaving the images to look like the ones you have referenced. Even color C-prints http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C-print degrade over time causing color shifts.
If you want to create images like you can do one of two things. The first thing you could do is after you get your photos developed leave them in a bright sunny window from anywhere from a few months to a few years until the desired color shift has occured. The second things you can do is to simply learn photoshop and play around with the images curves or various other color correction tools.

Answer 3

It is really nothing special about the camera. The big differencehas been the advancement in the automation. On older highend cameras you had to adjust everything manually.You had to adjust the film speed and shutter speed the higher the ISO or film speed the faster the shutter or the lower the light. You had to adjust you lense opening (Fstop) fot the existing light conditions. You had to manually sdjust the focus so the subject came out cleas. You could change settings to create what os called "depth of field" or having only the foregroung in focus, You could adjust picture quality by purposely adjusting any or all of these. It was seldom that many shots were really perfect.

Today's cameras do everything for you. This is what the public wanted so now all you have to do is point and shoot.

Answer 4

Today so called "photographer" are only "push buttons" persons that take advantage of the technology.

Answer 5

SLR's