Architect1776 wrote:
Why black out the name?
Many of us would rather not have a conversation piece in our hands. I've used black gaffer's tape to hide the logo on cameras before. It's sort of like not using the wide, brightly colored logo camera straps that the manufacturers include with every new body... Why draw attention to the brand when you're a photojournalist or event photographer? Sometimes, you just want to blend into the background and use the silent electronic shutter in "stealth mode."
When I'm working, I'm not advertising for a camera manufacturer. When I'm "just relaxing," I don't wear logo merchandise, either. One of my favorite T-shirts of all time, worn by a kid I met at a yearbook editor's workshop in 1983, said, "I am not a @!%$& brand label." It was a rejection of the teen logo culture of the time, which had gotten out of hand with conformative preppie-ness. "I-zit," "Low Coste," "Abercrumb," "Timmie Humpfinger," "Donna Krakhead New Jersey," "Nukee," and "Ray-Gun" were just some of the pejoratives used by kids who rejected the aspirational logo lifestyle pushed by the mall rats.
60 years ago, Nikon made the original 'F' in both chrome and black models. The black bodies were favored by war photographers because they reflected less light for the enemy to see. One of them even took a bullet and survived the hit, also saving the life of the photographer, Don McCullin.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/martsharm/4683329492A practical application for an all-black camera is copy stand work. When photographing shiny objects, photos, or flat art framed under glass, or when photographing items under a sheet of glass to hold them flat, you don't want to see a reflection of the camera from the object or the glass holding it down. In the 1980s, I used a Nikon F3 (which was all black to begin with) with black tape over the logo. Before that, when using my chrome Nikon FTn, I used a matte black plate with a hole in it, mounted on the macro lens with an empty filter ring, to hide the reflections from the chrome body and the chrome lens barrels of the time.
Even now, when I copy prints, slides, and negatives to digital files, I tape over the logo on my Lumix GH4.