Photo Corners headlinesarchivemikepasini.com
A S C R A P B O O K O F S O L U T I O N S F O R T H E P H O T O G R A P H E R
Enhancing the enjoyment of taking pictures with news that matters, features that entertain and images that delight. Published frequently.
Friday Slide Show: Ford Model A
4 September 2026
We saw this 1930 Ford Model driving up the street one night, its rumble seat open, with its lights off in the fog. It was an apparition.
So when we saw it parked on the street the other day, we took a few photos. And then we squandered the afternoon away watching YouTube videos about Model A restoration.
The Model A enthusiasm reminded us a bit of the digicam nostalgia we've been celebrating in our recent Friday Slide Shows. There's a certain personality in these old cars and cameras that provides a thrill when you get them to do what they were built to do.
There's also a bare-bones simplicity to them.
The Model A takes a lot of maintenance, but you don't need a scanner to read a diagnostic trouble code to figure out what's wrong. In fact, with a little care, like changing the oil every 500 miles, you can avoid some problems. They didn't have oil filters so you had to change the oil frequently.
And on a digicam, it's Auto and press the Shutter button. Sure, there are likely a dozen or so Scene modes (and even an EV adjustment for the technically astute), but no one ever bothered using Scene modes.
Which amuses us because we feel like we reviewed a few hundred of those digicams. All with test shots in the lab and gallery shots in the field, every control detailed to the point that if we ever see another one, we're going to throw it into the ocean.
We could say the same about "interchangeable lens cameras," as they like to be called. We've been looking for a new one for over 12 years. But the ones we have still get the job done. None of the reviews and comparisons we read ever persuaded us our images would be anything much different.
What really knocked us for a loop, though, was the iPhone.
You won't find any lab shots comparing the iPhone to a Canon R or Nikon Z or Sony Alpha.
But what we can do with an iPhone and Adobe Indigo is light years beyond the ambitions of Canon, Nikon or Sony, to name just three geezers of gear.
Under the hood of this Model A is a 200 cubic-inch cast-iron 40 horsepower four cylinder flathead mated to a three-speed manual transmission with gears that are not synchronized. Not very exciting compared to that Ferrari 296 GTB we showed you last month.
But that Ferrari doesn't have a rumble seat. Take off your shoes and jump in for the ride of your life.
In somewhat the same way, the iPhone and Adobe Indigo (the engine behind these shots) have given us the ride of our lives.
