Professional photographer, late 1940s
Vintage camera enthusiasts, help me out! My character is an American documentary photographer in 1949. He specializes in location work, nearly always outdoors and often in rough conditions. He's taking a solo trip to Mexico (probably by bus and train rather than by car, though that could change) to scout and shoot various subjects. I'm trying to
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I'm assuming this American photojournalist in Mexico in 1949 is of the younger generation, inspired by European-born photographers like Robert Capa, David Seymour ("Chim"), and Henri Cartier-Bresson, who all preferred 35mm Leicas and Contaxes over the 4x5 press cameras that most photojournalist used into the early 1950s because the magazines and newspapers really didn't like to work with small format negatives.
Working from that premise, he would carry at least two cameras, possibly three: probably Leica IIIas or IIIcs, or possibly Leica IIs; or else Contax IIs. Both Leicas and Contaxes were high-end German made cameras introduced in the mid-30s, with production of both Leica models continuing through the War and into the late 40s, and ceasing in 1942 for the Contax. They were favored by photographers on both sides (Capa used Contaxes to photograph the D-Day landings), and they were highly prized war-souvenirs. New-made Leicas were available within a year or two of the War's end, but Contaxes weren't reintroduced until 1950, too late for this character to own one. He would have shot black and white film virtually exclusively: the film speeds were faster, usually at least two stops of exposure latitude (meaning exposures could be fairly considerably off and he would still get a printable image), and the magazines were geared to print B&W. Color films, in contrast, were extremely slow, did not have much exposure latitude at all, and most important, reproducing color photographs in a magazine was incredibly complicated, expensive, and reproduction quality was lousy, and very few magazines (including National Geographic) messed with it to any great extent. However, if this character is supposed to be using color, he would have one camera dedicated to it, and probably fitted with the fastest lens he could get his hands on--something like a 50/f1.5 Xenon or Summarit or the slightly slower 50mm/f2 Summar or (maybe) Summitar, His other lenses would probably be a 35mm/f3.5 Elmar or Summaron; a 90mm/f4 Elmar and possibly a 135mm/f4.5 Elmar or Hektor. (These are all Leica lenses and would fit all the cameras he had). Similar lenses were available for the pre-war Contaxes: the 35mm/f2.8 Biogon, the 50mm/f1.5 and /f2 Sonnars, and an 85mm/f2 Sonnar, among others.....
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