Equipment

Bernard

When Bernard Cahier began his photo-journalist work at the Italian GP in Monza, 1952, he used a Kodak Retina II camera. But the photos were good, and that single event launched his career.

The following year, he would cover the whole motor racing season, Grand Prix and Sports cars. He invested in two Leica 3F cameras, equipped with a Leitz 50 mm F3.5 Elmar lens and a 90 mm F4 Elmar "telephoto" lens. Later, he would buy a Leica 3G, equipped with the Leitz Elmar 35mm F3.5 lens, and also a Canon 50mm F1.2 lens with an adapter mount.

In those days, you had to put film in a camera...

Bernard Cahier used mostly two types of film, both of which became mythical.

• Kodak Tri-X (ASA 400) black & white negative , which was launched in 1954
• Kodachrome color positive film (initially ASA 10, then ASA 25, and later ASA 64)
• Some Ektachrome was also used, as was Plus-X B&W film.

Later, in the early 60s, Bernard Cahier switched to the Pentax SLR camera equipment made by Asahi, who had been pioneers in developping single lens reflex cameras. The excellent Takumar lenses were used, and for the first time a 200 mm f/4 telephoto lens.

In the late 70s, following a brief trial with Olympus cameras, Bernard Cahier adopted Canon FD equipment (F1, AE-1, A-1).

Paul-Henri

Paul-Henri Cahier's first camera was an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic in 1967. He switched to Canon in the late 70s, using mostly the Canon F-1, F-1n, New F-1, and T90 for the FD mounts.

From 1989 onwards, came the EOS series, with the EOS-1, EOS RT, EOS-1N, EOS-1N RS and EOS-1v.

The switch to digital began progressivly: first the Canon D30 ((2001), then the 1D (2002); and from 2003 onwards it was all digital with the EOS 1Ds series (Mk1, Mk2 and Mk3).

The list of lenses is a long one:

• FD mount: 17mm f/4, 24mm f/1.4L, TS 35mm f/2.8, Macro 50mm f/3.5, 100mm f/2.8, 200mm f/2.8, 500mm f/4.5L, 35-70mm f/2.8-3.5
• EF mount: 14mm f/2.8L, Macro 50mm f/3.5, Macro 135mm f/3.5L, 135 mm f/2L, 200 mm f/1.8L, 600 mm f/4L, 28-80 mm f2.8-4, 17–40 mm f/4L, 24-105 mm f/4L

In the film era, Paul-Henri first used black & white, Kodak Tri-X and Plus-X film, and also tried the Ilford FP4 and HP5 film. But the bulk of work was gradually done exclusively on Kodachrome film, mostly Kodachrome 64.