My Dad’s Argus C3 (2019)

This is the camera that sparked my interest in rangefinder cameras. My Grandpa mentioned one day how much he used to want an Argus C3 but never got one. I had no idea what it was or why it was special. I looked it up and discovered it was a rangefinder camera. That first step into the rabbit hole left me lusting for a rangefinder of my own, especially a Leica. Eventually, I picked up a Leica M2, which I still have to this day. I have also collected many other film cameras. Too many.

One day I got a phone call from an employee at the photo lab I used to frequent. They mentioned someone had left a couple of boxes of old cameras that they had no use for and asked if I was interested. It was quite the treasure trove of odds and ends. In one of the boxes was an Argus C3. I gave it to my Grandpa. I have it again now that he's gone. It needs some work and isn't usable in its current condition. I mostly hang on to it for the sake of nostalgia.

If it weren't for the Argus, and my Grandpa, I don't know that I would have ever developed the interest in photography that I have today. I was certainly interested, but discovering this practically unknown (to me in 2005) type of camera was truly the thing that made me fall in love with film cameras. In 2010 I wondered how long I would be able to continue shooting film. I decided to sell all of my digital gear and go all in on film. I still shoot only film to this day. There's less film to choose from, fewer places to have it processed, and it's more expensive than it used to be. There's something special about film that digital can't touch or replicate. To me, digital is too disposable. The usable life of a digital camera is measured in years, maybe even months. Film cameras last decades. Some maybe even centuries. I plan to keep shooting film as long as I can.

I picked one of these up at a yard sale in the late 1990s for the bargain price of $1.00 US. The gent who sold it to me said he'd taken it to WWII with him when he was young. I've put a few rolls of film through it over the years, and it still works perfectly. Also, it weighs enough that the name "the brick" can't have only been inspired by the boxy shape. Built like a tank, indeed.

Having had no interest in photography before, in the last month I now have suddenly obtained two different classic film SLRs (a 70s Pentax K1000 and a 60s Minolta SRT101) from different family members. I have enjoyed learning how SLRs work and it fascinates me how all the mechanicals function flawlessly in fractions of a second.

I most enjoy being able to fix them with my bare hands. These cameras are over 50 years old and still work just fine. They hadn't been taken care of particularly well, but it always surprises me what you can fix with some rubbing alcohol and new screws when there aren't digital components inside. Contrasting this with a DSLR with a broken sensor that might be thrown in a landfill, I bet these cameras could still function well in another 50 years.

I had one of these as a kid, in the early 1970s. It was my first 35mm camera, and I'm sure I was given it because someone got it cheap or free. As the article states, they were made in huge numbers, and even now, there's still a lot of them flaoting around. It was kind of a pain to use because it wasn't it good condition.

(Later, my dad gave me his Nikon F, which I still have, so bye-bye Argus).

I have sort of an affinity for the Argus C3 as the anti-Leica, as the best epitome of the American anti-elitist, everyman-ism.

Not too long ago easily, and today with judicious shopping, $100 could net you the camera and the 35mm, 50mm and 100mm lenses. With study and practice you could take good photos.

The Argus is nick-named the brick for good reason. The body is Bakelite, heavy and with sharp corners. The Leica is smooth, slender, sexy.

The Argus is the perfect camera for a beginner because it is crude but adequate. The Leica is a Veblen good, the Argus a workhorse; master it and you master photography.

I remember the Argus C3!

Lesson: Technology moves ahead and certainly did for photography! We have gone through several steps of astounding.

In the 9th grade, to take pictures and be more popular, I wanted a camera. So I went shopping, saw expensive Leica cameras, etc. Then I saw an Argus C3 -- I had a shot at saving enough lunch money for that. So, I started saving. My parents happened to see my savings and asked what I was doing. Dad was nice, chipped in some more, and returned from work with a good Argus C3 collection, including a light meter, carrying case, flash, etc. He had bought all that at a good discount at the US Navy base where he worked.

Mom was the secretary at a church so knew a lot of people in the congregation including one, a sports photographer for a local newspaper. Hearing about my interest in photography, he volunteered to take me on a photo shoot!

So we went to the next basketball game of my school. We decided not to use flash but just to use available light where in the dark room he would push the film, Kodak Tri-X, to a higher ISO speed than the default 400.

So, at the game I exposed a full roll of the film. Then in the dark room of the newspaper, he pushed the film to ISO 1600 or some such, and we made some 8 x 10" prints.

The prints were good! For printing, he cropped the images to make more interesting composition.

The next school day, I took the prints with me, and, yup, instantly I, or at least the prints, was popular!

For developing I got a little unit that worked without a darkroom, that is, worked in a room with normal lighting.

To help me make a darkroom, dark enough for printing if not for developing, out of the bathroom, Dad put some shutters on the outside of the window. Someone gave me an old enlarger.

Alas, the enlarger was for 4 x 5" Speed Graphic camera film. So, to enlarge a 35 mm negative from the Argus C3 to an 8 x 10" print, I would have had to have put the photo paper on the floor with the enlarger head maybe 10' higher!

Basically soon I found that developing and printing 8 x 10" images was for me in the 9th grade with associated meager financial resources, in short, too expensive.

So, I retreated to Kodak Kodachrome color film and color slides!

But with a little more money, working with black and white 35 mm film and that Argus camera could be not wildly expensive, easy to do, with some nice results, and a lot of fun.

About then I had a girlfriend, the prettiest human female I ever saw, in person or otherwise. We went outside where she leaned back against a tree trying to look pretty -- she was very successful -- and I exposed the roll!

Alas, eventually in moving, off to college, etc. I lost those color slides and the whole Argus C3 collection.

The Argus C3 was the main prop in the fun, curious, heavily CGI (computer generated images) movie Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow with, e.g., Gwyneth Paltrow carrying around the Argus!

Later when my career was going well, my wife had a girl friend who visited us and brought a Nikon SLR (single lens reflex) camera. I was hooked! Soon my boss at work was taking a trip to Japan, and I paid him enough to bring back a nice collection of Nikon camera equipment. These items I did NOT lose and still have! The lenses, the whole collection, are astounding!

There is a lesson: Actually, in usual practice, the Nikon equipment is not as much better than the Argus equipment as might be guessed: Some wide angle, telephoto, macro, f1.2 lens, although gorgeous optics, just is not much more useful than the f3.5 lens and the rest of the Argus. For the Argus, just don't try to take pictures in nearly impossible conditions and, instead, stay closer to ordinary pictures with ordinary light.

The Nikon equipment is still useful: Just have the film developed to a CD (compact disk) of JPG (joint photographic experts group) files!

But technology moves ahead: Glancing at the description of the iPhone 12 Pro Max, it's back to astounding-land again. It's unfair to call its photo capabilities those of just a camera.

So in ~100 years we have had several levels of astounding, Kodak Brownie, Speed Graphic, Leica, Argus, Nikon, SLRs with electronic sensors, smartphones, soon the iPhone 12 Pro Max, and maybe in other form factors much more.

Since now we are in line for billions of people with very capable little shirt pocket cameras, movie cameras, CGI and editing capabilities, etc., we should see a river, no, rapidly flowing oceans, of content, the best of it well into astounding-land.

When electronics started growing in importance, some people expected a lot, but did anyone really expect what we have now?

I started out on a 40-ish year old Leica M3 with original Summicron, needless to say I've been chasing the feeling ever since I moved on to more convenient alternatives.

I would give my right arm for an affordable (as in not Leica hipster priced) digital range finder with similar feels and capabilities.

I have an Argus C3. Didn't even realize I could still buy film for it! (edit: hah it's just 35mm.... I'm dumb.)