Rick_D

That's crazy! Have never seen this variation, but once pondered getting a gray military IIIc Kugellager at an antique show. The feeling passed, as it was Real Money.

escuta

My Leica IIIf and my as yet unfinished Somec Special taken with same. Ilford Delta 100 film developed in PMK Pyro:

escuta

That Sonnar is a fairly rare one from what I know. I have the f2 version in Contax mount. Great lens.

Rick_D

Leica IIIc, Contax IIIa [what's with these guys & their original naming schemes?] and a digital analogue, if you will.

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Luckily, cameras take a lot less room than bicycles.

etherhuffer 

And…….Vixen 7x15 porro prism mini binoculars circa 1971 or so

escuta

Contax III with Carl Zeiss Sonnar 5cm f2 collapsible:



Contax IIa



Selfie with Nikon F2:

etherhuffer 

Twin lens cameras. Usually 120 film size. Optics not good enough? Make the film size bigger!

etherhuffer 

I got an Edixa Reflex from my dad. Schneider Kruznach lens. Put Agfachrome film in it and the color rendition was extremely warm. Those photos look like a Maxfield Parrish painting.



The shutter button stopped the lens down as you pressed it, so you could preview your depth of field.

top506

Not the full closet load.

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Aardwolf

Does anyboy need that many cameras ?
Unless of course all your relatives are super models.

Oops, forgot this is about bicycles, can't have too many

etherhuffer 

I love to haunt estate sales and garage sales, but have learned that my tool shed is full. In the crash of 2008 guys sold off tools in droves, and the generation of "mechanical" thinking guys was waning anyway. We are fully in the electronic age now. Preceded by the electro-mechanical age. Before that the mechanical age.
Cameras now span three all three ages. I learned on the mechanical age (Crown Graphic, Brownie, Edixa, Mamiya Rollei copy, etc) My favorite is the electromechanical age (Canon FTb, AE1, A1) Has anyone here a Weston light meter? Every dropped one? The horror!
So most of these cameras are now of little value to the average person and estate sales and garage sales are full of them. So do it, collect them and hoard them up. Get a modern light meter and some film and go have fun. The amount of science and capital that industry pored into cameras is amazing. These cameras are the equivalent of the mechanical clock in terms of technology. An engineer who loved history once told me that the highest of forms of engineering until the 20th century were clocks and guns. Then came cameras.

Rick_D

My friend and his father restored Ford Model Ts, and today he has three. They peaked in theoretical value perhaps twenty or so years ago, and the collectors nostalgic for things of that era are all passed on. Same thing will happen to the currently overpriced '60s American muscle car fleet, as those who pined for one as kids age out.

Cameras could be similar, even if there's much less commitment compared to storing and maintaining an antique car. There is a bit of maintenance should one wish to shoot one, and getting a proper CLA isn't easy today.

squirtdad

Did the whole BW school photographer thing, with a mamiya/secor . developed and prrinted in high school

I have an Olympus OM-1 I bought new and still use. TRI-X rules

Had to send it off to specialist to do a battery conversion as you can't get mercury batteries.

Picked a 1.5 50 mm also (had 28mm and 70 to 210 zoom

send the film off for developing and digital conversion

I had a speed graphic at one point and loaned it to my brother who lost it

have the idea to find a 4x5 field and play with it when I retire

(on a sorta related note, my wife once got a cease and desist letter from Ansel Adams to stop bouncing on his trees and she has Weston's as 16 and 21 birthday gifts, printed by brett....Edward Westons granddaughter was her best friend)

etherhuffer 

cla?

top506

Clean, lubricate, adjust.
Over the years I got to be a pretty fair Zeiss Contax wrench. The press cameras and Compur shutters too.

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polymorphself 

A long shot but I’m in the market for a 1000 ISO Nikon L35AF if anybody has one to get rid of.

Rick_D

You really want a Contax T3, but those go for crazy money. :-)

Went on a minor high-end compact ebay binge back when the segment was disappearing, digital was ascendant and prices for used film gear were really depressed. It's not exaggerating that a good camera from that sector can match any SLR for IQ, because film is agnostic about anything other than the lens in front of it.

polymorphself 

Everything you said here is true.

Reynolds 

One of my favs, used this a lot in the '80s-'90s:


Good quality, all mechanical, compact, (especially with the 40 2.8 "pancake").

canklecat

I still have many film cameras, from a 1950s Agfa 6x6cm folder I restored myself through the Nikon F3HP and FM2N I last used before digital. I'll probably sell most of it soon. Chronic neck pain from old injuries makes it impossible to carry any significant weight on my shoulders or neck, so my favorite Domke and other gear bags are useless to me now. I still have a ThinkTank waist bag I received as a gift years ago and never used, but I'll probably give it to a young family member who's a very good photographer.

I'll probably keep the Agfa folder as a shelf ornament, and a couple of compact 35mm rangefinders -- an Olympus 35 RC and some kind of Ricoh, I forget the model, very similar features to the Olympus. But I've never found another compact fixed lens 35mm rangefinder that was as small as the Olympus while also practical with good ergonomics. The tiny Rollei and a couple others were smaller but much less practical.

Most of my film era Nikkors are optically inferior in some respects to even the least expensive kit zoom that comes with any dSLR the past 15 years. The newer lenses are far better corrected for chromatic aberration, far more resistant to all kinds of flare -- ghosting, veiling, internal -- and have snappier contrast. The only lenses I've kept that are still optically competitive are the 105/2.5 AI Nikkor, maybe the 85/2 AIs, and I love the bokeh and moderate contrast of the old pre-AI 180/2.8, although I could use it only on my F3HP with the hinged indexing tab doodad flipped out of the way. I might keep one of those lenses for use with my Fuji X-series digital cameras with adapter.

I finally gave away my darkroom gear last year to a friend who's retired and has space for it. Couple of Durst 6x6 enlargers, timers, etc., Nikor tanks, the whole mess. I kept one small Nikor tank and reel in case I find some exposed film I'd forgotten to develop. But I'll just scan it.

TBH, what I missed most about the film era was the printing process. I wasn't particularly attached to film or developing negatives, although I did experiment a bit. But it was the zen-like process of printing in the darkroom that I found appealing. Without access to a proper darkroom for the past 15 years I just lost interest in using my film cameras. I've been using digital almost exclusively for at least a decade.

Reminds me, I also have many boxes of my grandparents' 1960s slides, mostly Kodachrome on 126. I need to scan those. My apartment flooded several times last year due to an upstairs apartment plumbing problem, and it was a nightmare trying to keep those old photo albums, carousels of slides, etc., high and dry. I doubt anyone in the family will be interested in them, I'm the last oldtimer in the family and most of the others never knew my grandparents. But I'll scan them to an archive they can use for genealogy archives if they're interested in the future.

ascherer 

In 1973 I worked a summer job in a textile mill in central New York and saved my money to buy a Zeus Professional and a Hasselblad 1000F. I was a year into cycling but a good 4 years into photography. I wanted to be a photojournalist but I became an art director. These photos date from 73 or 74. Sadly I don't have either any longer, and our darkroom equipment is long gone except for a few film tanks for old time's sake. My Hasselblad got stolen in college, I replaced it in 78 or so with another, but the mojo wasn't the same. I have that and a Minolta Autocord TLR, and a few antiques that I never shot with. My wife has a Hasselblad 500C, a few Nikons and a 4x5 view camera, I forget which brand. She currently shoots with Fuji digitals. I borrow one of hers when I'm feeling the mood but otherwise use my iPhone in the spirit of: the best camera is the one you have with you.

George Mann

I have a large collection of film cameras and lenses (mostly Nikons).

They include a late F2 Photomic, a Nikkormat FT2, an FM and FG, and an F90x.

madpogue 

https://shopgoodwill.com/item/181454618 - the serial number appears to begin with 048, which, based on a few samples found on eBay, I *THINK* means it's in the range of ISO1000 version cameras. Based on the bidding, at least a few people seem to know what it is.

George Mann

These are known to suffer from failing shutter buttons, so keep this in mind.

polymorphself 

That's the one, thanks, I'll keep an eye on this.

Thank you, I've read this and haven't had the best luck on ebay with cameras so trying to find one elsewhere, unless the price is right then I'll risk it.

I used to have an Olympus Stylus that was nice for throwing in a bike bag. The camera has failed me and I've been looking at alternatives. This little Nikon has very nice reviews, pictures it produces look on par with the Olympus and the aesthetic is charming.