I hate to be one of *those* people, but I've been on a bit of an analogue kick lately.
I take day to day snaps using a 40 year old film camera for sheer shits and giggles. I mean, objectively any modern digital camera will do a better job of making a picture, but at the same time there's still a charm in the simplicity and robustness of the process. Light goes in, magical chemical shit happens, more magical chemical shit happens at the developer, then pictures happen. It's mostly automatic - save for the focus - but thanks to modern batteries the light meter doesn't quite measure correctly anymore since it was calibrated for mercury batteries and because the whole lot's based on voltages and signals, the timing of the shutter and/or aperture can cause things to be a bit overexposed
I bought a record player yesterday. More importantly, I bought something of a crap record player. It's not a high-end turntable system. It's a cheap, portable Steepletone that has a DC power input, Tone and Volume, 2 detacheable speakers that also form the lid. It has a sub-woofer output, line-in, a speed adjustment and that's it. But it makes OK sound, even using a 29 year old copy of Master of Puppets, and manages to sound much clearer than an iPod ever did. It's a fairly simple creature, with no fancy bells and whistles.
It doesn't quite have full bass, but there is something just fascinating about the way it revolves. The process of creation is visible under a microscope.... a needle tracing along a groove moving coils in the head. I mean, it's a physical process, rather than something ephemeral like data which is subject to the whims of battery and electricity. It's just wires and coils that could theoretically (And probably is, tbh) be made in a shed, rather than a process requiring hyper-pure megafactories cutting silicon wafers and moulding OLED screens. It's a piece of technology for the apocalypse that'll run quite happily off a 12V car battery when all the iPods have been cooked by radiation and EMP.
It has no real features whatsoever beyond reveling in it's own deliberate failings. It's a bit crap, but it's not trying to convince you that it's better than it actually is.... so transcends its inherent crappiness to become something just a little bit interesting.
I suppose, the joy of analogue tech is the way it fails. Instead of chirping or blocking, it just sort of degrades gracefully in an intriguing, fascinating and organic way (Okay, so maybe not VHS...). It's not about an absolutely faithful reproduction.... it's about just a little extra creation from nature.
Or am I just being Fedora?
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
I take day to day snaps using a 40 year old film camera for sheer shits and giggles. I mean, objectively any modern digital camera will do a better job of making a picture, but at the same time there's still a charm in the simplicity and robustness of the process. Light goes in, magical chemical shit happens, more magical chemical shit happens at the developer, then pictures happen. It's mostly automatic - save for the focus - but thanks to modern batteries the light meter doesn't quite measure correctly anymore since it was calibrated for mercury batteries and because the whole lot's based on voltages and signals, the timing of the shutter and/or aperture can cause things to be a bit overexposed
I bought a record player yesterday. More importantly, I bought something of a crap record player. It's not a high-end turntable system. It's a cheap, portable Steepletone that has a DC power input, Tone and Volume, 2 detacheable speakers that also form the lid. It has a sub-woofer output, line-in, a speed adjustment and that's it. But it makes OK sound, even using a 29 year old copy of Master of Puppets, and manages to sound much clearer than an iPod ever did. It's a fairly simple creature, with no fancy bells and whistles.
It doesn't quite have full bass, but there is something just fascinating about the way it revolves. The process of creation is visible under a microscope.... a needle tracing along a groove moving coils in the head. I mean, it's a physical process, rather than something ephemeral like data which is subject to the whims of battery and electricity. It's just wires and coils that could theoretically (And probably is, tbh) be made in a shed, rather than a process requiring hyper-pure megafactories cutting silicon wafers and moulding OLED screens. It's a piece of technology for the apocalypse that'll run quite happily off a 12V car battery when all the iPods have been cooked by radiation and EMP.
It has no real features whatsoever beyond reveling in it's own deliberate failings. It's a bit crap, but it's not trying to convince you that it's better than it actually is.... so transcends its inherent crappiness to become something just a little bit interesting.
I suppose, the joy of analogue tech is the way it fails. Instead of chirping or blocking, it just sort of degrades gracefully in an intriguing, fascinating and organic way (Okay, so maybe not VHS...). It's not about an absolutely faithful reproduction.... it's about just a little extra creation from nature.
Or am I just being Fedora?
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
