Capa's cameras

[Paul Schliesser <paulsc@eos.net>]

>The book has Robert Capa mentioned as one of the Leica users. Every
>picture I've ever seen of this Capa with a camera, was with a 
>Carl Zeiss Contax. He may have also used a Rollei.

Ed,

According to the Whelan biography of Capa, he mainly used Contax and 
Rolleiflex cameras. At the very end of his life, (if I remember 
correctly, he was killed in 1956), he had started using Nikons for color 
work. When he was killed, he was carrying a Contax and a Nikon.

Some of his very early work was with Leicas (and maybe some of the 
Spanish Civil War stuff), but his WWII stuff and later was Contax and 
Rolleiflex. In his early days, he mostly used borrowed cameras, and 
usually ended up hocking any equipment he owned.

One of the saddest things in the book, as far as his photos, is the story 
about his blurry D-Day pictures. The original captions in LIFE stated 
that the pictures were blurred because of Capa's reactions to the dangers 
around him. In reality, an impatient lab technical melted the emulsions 
of most of his films trying to dry them faster. As Capa and the LIFE 
people waited, a lab guy came out and said that the photos were 
incredible; a short time later, he came out and announced that they were 
ruined. 

He returned with his film on the first transport of wounded soldiers 
coming back from the invasion. He waited behind the doors at the front of 
the landing craft, hoping to get a shot of the orderlies, doctors and 
stretcher-bearers ready to recieved the first batch of wounded. As it 
turned out, another LIFE photographer had the opposite idea, and when the 
doors were opened, Capa and the other photographer took pictures of each 
other with great amusement.

- - Paul