| Nikonians
remember Merlin by
Bo Stahlbrandt &
J. Ramón Palacios
tell
a friend about this article
|
MERLIN The late Mike Graham,
a.k.a. Merlin, was himself a resource, a no-nonsense hardcore
passionate fan of Nikon and a true friend. And not just of
us, but of anyone who sought his comments or advice.
 |
|
Mike Graham, also known as Merlin,
R.I.P. |
With the authority of a well seasoned
pro, with almost 20 years of professional experience, a self-proclaimed
dinosaur, he wrote: "I actually made a conscious decision
to go with Nikon. I don’t want to knock the competition.
I’ve tried just about everything else - Olympus, Minolta,
Canon and all the rest, but there is something about the feeling
you get when handling professional Nikon bodies and lenses
that says:
| "I’m built for a lifetime
of hard use, for any situation you’ll ever
meet, and I’ll never, never let you down.
You might scratch me and bend me, but you can’t
break me. You can take me out in the rain, you can
drop me off your desk, or you can cross the Sahara
with me around your neck. There is no photograph
that I can’t take for you. I will still function
perfectly when you’re long gone and forgotten.
In twenty years, somebody will pay more for me than
I costed new. I am a Nikon, the finest 35mm camera
ever built!" |
.. |
|
We
sure miss him.
His site is still up but we don't know for how long.
In
his memory, we are preserving here three of his short
articles on specific cameras he owned and loved dearly:
|
|
The
Nikon F3
The
Nikon EM
The
Nikkormat FT3
and
of course his first contribution to Nikonians, the much liked
The
Merlin Stick, story that needs to be told:
A Nikonian was going
to Paris and a visit to the Louvre was scheduled but this
chap knew that tripods were forbidden inside. So he posted
the question. Merlin immediately went out of his way to test
an idea. Bought a large cane and a small ballhead, drilled
the cane and presented us with the article, The
Merlin Stick, a solution to a fellow Nikonian he never
met in person and whom now he never will.
That and much more is who Merlin was. |
