jamesdak 

Well, for static landscape work I've been using DSLRs for years to get hi res shots that kill my old 120 stuff. Basic techniques is to shoot the scene with a prime telephoto and break it up into as many frames as you can. Then photomerge in photoshop gives you a huge, highly detailed shot that's can be printed at some pretty amazing sizes. It it hit and miss as so much can go wrong as you shoot the frames.

jamesdak 

Well for years and years I had pretty much every 7 series Minolta ever made as well as others. From the SR-7 up to the final Maxxum 7D including some rangefinders in the mix with the SLRs. Most where sold off as it got harder and harder to find places to get slide film processed. I've still got some good ol' Velvia in the freezer, been there forever.



I'm not sure which ones I still have packed away other than the XD-7. This one is pure sex in the hand and I'll never, ever give it up.


I love this camera and still take it out regularly to fondle it.

These little rangefinders were great shooting and really, really sharp.


Wonderful little pocket cameras!

I've still got this old beast floating around too but don't use it.



One of the craziest lenses I had over there years was this old Leica 560mm f/6.8 Telyt r that was really long, but light and pretty dang sharp.


Simple and good.



Shot with the simple old Leica 560/6.8 telyt

And more recently this old Nikon manual focus 800/5.6 ED beast of a lens. It was a workout just to use it but both of these lenses were converted and used on my Canon EOS DSLRs for many years.


Beast was around 12 lbs.


Shot with that big ol' Nikon above

bobwysiwyg

I have to say, had no idea we had so many camera officianados on this forum.

Pompiere

I think old cameras scratch some of the same itches that old bikes do:
Appreciation for fine engineering and craftsmanship
Just because it's old doesn't mean it doesn't can't give you great results
A little more personal involvement in the process vs. letting the device do it for you

MiloFrance

I think Dad's old tripod should get an honourable mention, as it's still in regular use. If anyone is a spelunker/caver/potholer past or present, this is the film that won Dad the 1st prize at the inaugural caving film festival in the Vercors in France, I think it was 1974 or 75. Nearly 50 years old.


Vary versatile wedge legs

bobwysiwyg

Well put. My first "real" 35mm camera was an Ashi Pentax SV I purchased at a PX while in Vietnam in '67. Totally manual! You had to determine exposure, depth of field, etc. yourself. Best learning tool ever. Still have it, it still works and when last tested 3-4 yrs ago, the shutter speed was still pretty accurate. In-hand, it feels like one solid little brick.

Chuckk

Every press from the high school paper to the NY Times had Speed Graphics.
Some came with stories. The Graflex came with a mention that it was from the estate of a north-central nature photographer (and I forgot his name). The Rolleiflex hiding in the back of the German photo was the carry camera for a Chicago Tribune photographer. Have a big Speed Graphic in the back room that belonged to a traveling salesman who had a side business of motel postcards and used it to take motel pictures where he stayed, and then sold the postcards to the owners. Got the entire kit with that one.

bobwysiwyg

Reminded me of Weegee.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weegee

martl

Scanning an 6x6 slide with a Nikon 9000 gives about 6000x6000 pixels, which amounts to 36 megapixels. What do the current top of the line DSLRs have, 20? The Fuji GFX gives 50ish i believe. But pixels are only part of the equation. It takes a *lot* of experience to match the results of modern exposure measurement and autofocus technology (and plenty of opportunity to mess that up) and there is *no way* to emulate the ISO variability.

non-fixie 

Dunno, but it looks sufficiently profi. Cool!

scarlson 

The 1942-1953 Pulitzer prize winning photographs were all taken with Speed Graphics.
I did a little research before buying a broken one for cheap, which I fixed and gained opinions in the process and then bought another one based on those opinions. Basically I think it's worth buying one with a back shutter as well as a front shutter (Crown Graphic, Century Graphic, Super Graphic, and Super Speed Graphic only had a front shutter) and I think it makes sense to buy a later one (sometimes called "Pacemaker") because of three things: 1) you can tilt the front standard, 2) the Graflok back is standard, which allows you to put more different film backs on it, and 3) the back shutter has a more robust speed-governor and the rubberized stuff like bellows and shutter curtain are less likely to be worn out and have pinholes. Extra points if you can find one with a Fresnel in front of the groundglass. These are available (but expensive) aftermarket and they really enhance your ability to view the image on the groundglass, particularly at the edges.

This website is like the Sheldon Brown of Graflex cameras: https://graflex.org/speed-graphic/features.html

You can 3D print lens boards from plans available on Thingiverse and attach old slide projector lenses for funny effects. Or just take pictures. Whatever, really. That's the beauty of them! But only if you have the one with the back shutter.

I like the Grafmatic film changer and the Polaroid 405 or Fujifilm 545i back, but most people prefer the double-sided darkslides because they're simpler.

Now go out and buy one!

martl

Given the fact that the lens cap (or the tripod adapter, for that matter) cost more than a chap Lumix, you may be right

thinktubes 

How about a C&V large-format enlarger? This was in the basement of my dad's house. He moved it down there piece by piece.

He was a hardcore photographer and aquired this from a local newspaper. I believe it could handle negatives up to 18x24.

He was fond of saying: "when I die, this will be your problem". He was right. We tried to sell or donate it without any luck. We ended up dismantling it and selling the scrap.

tiger1964 

Sadly, no photos, and cannot recall if I "donated" our cameras a couple of years ago, or simply threw them in the trash. I recall (A) Argus C-3 35mm rangefinder; my high school drafting teacher in the early 1970's noticed it and said "I had a friend who had one of those, but he went down on the Arizona", I was briefly a photographer for the school newspaper; (B) early 1970's Minolta 16mm 1/4-frame "spy camera"" I bought because of size and weight, to take along cycling; (C) Ansco cardboard-box thingy, perhaps a "sure shot", no idea who gave it to me, (D) IIRC correctly my wife's Pentax 35mm SLR.

Possibly should have kept them but I never bothered to take many pictures!

madpogue 

My OLDEST DSLR is 20MP. 24 is getting "quaint". The pro Nikons are 36 and 43 MP, have been for years.

I bought a used Nikon Coolscan V 35mm slide/negative scanner on CL a few years ago for $50. It scans to 4000x6000, aprx. 24MP. I found out later they were going for hundreds or thousands on eBay.

That said, there are scanners for medium and large format film that peer nearly down to the original grain density of the medium, rendering scans into the hundreds of megapixels. I'm not finding them ATM for some reason, but Ken Rockwell has several articles about shooting medium/large format and scanning to large image files.

And yes, as said, it's about a LOT more than resolution.

Bianchigirll 

I had a Petri my Mother bought at a yard sale or something, unfortunately it took a tumble from my wall locker at N.A.F. Millington and broke

Bianchigirll 

Somewhere in my Storage locker is my beginners Nikon N60 auto SLR. While my basic D3000 pails in comparison to the fabulous old school camera shown here, consider most people don't even have cameras these day that makes them kind of vintage. The smaller Olympus is a souvenir of sorts, that I ought while I was deployed to So West Asia in 2012. the little digital camera I had for a few years developed a dark spot on it and I needed to replace it.

PilotFishBob 

Neat. It looks like something used for interrogations by the Spanish Inquisition (which no one ever expects, of course)...

madpogue 

Cool thing is, your old N60, and even your "basic" D3000, could accept something like jamesdak 's Nikkor 600mm bazooka up there ^^^^^^. With the D3000, you'd be shooting blind wrt. exposure because it has no aperture ring feeler, but still, you'd still have all the advantage of that incredible old Nikon glass.

forresterace

This looks like a graphic arts process camera to me.

Doug

Bianchigirll 

I forgot to post an example of my mediocre photog skills. Somewhere over the Atlantic enroute to the Azores although we went on to Moron AB Spain

Ballenxj

The MX is a wonderful camera, and doesn't need batteries to work, I was last using mine for B&W.

Ballenxj

I would be remiss if I didn't mention my little Olympus XA's. This one is a full frame 35mm, fully manual shirt pocket sized camera.

scarlson 

Beautiful tank killer!

madpogue 

Reminds me of the opening scene of Dr. Strangelove. So was that shot with the D3000?