What price winders in the digital age?

What a beast!

When writing an earlier post about my OM1/Winder outfit, I was reminded of my old pal Ken and the big motordrive he had almost permanently attached to his Nikon F2SB and had to chuckle. It wasn't just huge but bloody noisy as well! I remember one occasion when we were in the middle of a guided tour of Dunvegan Castle on Skye. Ken reached the end of his film in a large-ceilinged room that did a good impression of an echo chamber. So loudly were noises amplified that other visitors were talking to each other in whispers.

All of a sudden, the F2 launched into motorised rewind mode, cranking Ken's film back into the cassette at a frightening pace. The effect would not have been much different if someone had started cutting tourists in half with a Vickers machine gun. I can still remember Ken standing there wearing his best non-plussed face as the F2 vibrated his ligaments from the bone. Our tour group of about 15 people burst into hysterical laughter.

Understandably, no-one bothered to whisper for the rest of the tour. As I mentioned in an earlier post, Ken never tackled any subjects that needed a motor drive but there's no denying it was an impressive piece of machinery - more Brunel than Jobs though. Thinking back, probably the best use he made of it - although Ken might take issue with this - was photographing my golf swing at 5fps.

I thought I'd write this post after getting an email asking why I would want to bolt a big, heavy winder to the dainty OM1. Nobody seems to bother with winders/motordrives at all now and yet the function they performed then hasn't changed. I still love them. Although I've sold off lots of gear in the past few months, I still have a few cameras with bolt-on winders as opposed to the built-in winders on my Contax 137MD/MA SLRs. As Andy Nutter (Morris 1800) hinted at in a comment to the earlier post I wrote about Ken, there was something very sexy about motor drives and winders during the film era. 

So why the OM1 and winder? Firstly, the outfit will be so much more fun to use than the camera on its own and we should never underestimate that side of photography. Number two, the shutter release is so smooooth. There's nothing in the way from the moment you start to depress it until the shutter trips. Just one continuous movement. If you're shooting at a slowish shutter speed that's likely going to be a bit marginal then putting the winder into continuous mode and taking three photos in quick succession will often give you a sharp keeper when a tripod isn't available. There's no doubt in my mind that I'll be able to hold the camera still at slower speeds with the winder than without. There's one more reason that might only affect a small percentage of photos and that's when winding on manually with the camera on a tripod. Sometimes, especially when bracketing, the act of winding on can shift the camera just enough to change the framing. With a winder, that's not a problem.

I don't think I'd bother with the winder if I were going walkabout in a city on holiday as it might attract too much attention but for handheld shooting in the countryside or along the coast, it's brilliant. Thirdly, the winder also improves the general handling of the OM1.

I wouldn't use a winder with every camera, though. Take the Pentax MX. It's so small it really could do with a winder but the MX winder is...crap! Maybe it's the one I have but it sounds like and has all the strength of a 60-a-day smoker breathing his terminal breath. Even with fresh batteries, it gives the impression of being barely capable of advancing the film. I'm just waiting for it to expire with a tiny puff of smoke squirting out of the battery compartment. The ME winder for the ME Super is much better but still not a patch on the sprightly Olympus unit. The Yashica FR1 winder I have, essentially the same unit as the one for the Contax RTS, feels and sounds like the Olympus Winder II. 

When it comes to efficiency, noise levels and responsiveness, it's difficult to beat the built-in winders that some SLRs have. The Contax winders are great, being zippy and quiet. I also have a Konica FS1 that was the first 35mm SLR with a built-in winder and it has the best shutter release I've ever squeezed. Absolutely sublime.

Digital "winders" just don't cut it. For a start, they're not transporting anything! You don't get any physical sensation. They should be called "shutter cockers". I've got my D700 sitting on the desk in front of me and, having just rattled off a few frames, there's no excitement at all. Weird! So SLR winders aren't an anachronism in the digital age at all. It's the digital age that's out of step!