Do any of you have some of your old, or really old cameras stashed away somewhere? Recently a friend gave me that old Praktica, so I dug out my old (double exposure prone) Argus C-3, "the Brick," and my late father's Kodak Vest Pocket Brownie Hawkeye, which took 127 film.
Nice trio! I have a small collection of old rangefinders, Canon, Leica and a Russian Zorki. The oldest is my Leica IIIf from 1948 and is still an excellent shooter, not to mention it's weathered nicely with much flaking post-war chrome and worn leather. I think my oldest camera overall is an AGFA Billy Record 120 folder (also still in good working order). I love a good vintage camera..! -Cody
I have been using some classic cameras for medium and large format photography. In December I had an article published in the Graflex Historical Quarterly about modifying a process lens for use on a Speed Graphic press camera... http://graflex.org/GHQ/GHQ-15-4.pdf (page 7) Besides this lens, I have a Kodak Ektar 127mm/4.7 lens. I also shoot some with a Graflex RB Series D with a Bausch & Lomb built (under license) Zeiss Tessar. It looks kind of like a really big, boxy, Hasselblad. It shoots onto 4x5 film. I have a pinhole camera that I built that takes a standard 4x5 film holder, too. For medium format, I have a Holga, a few pinhole cameras, and a Mamiya C33 TLR. I also have this funky old TLR called a Weltaflex that, on the side, says "Made in Germany USSR OCCUPIED." I also sling my Pentax Spotmatic quite often. I have a range of glass for this one. I picked up a bunch of it before the DSLR crowd realized that some of these old screw-mount lenses will work on their cameras. For subminiature, I have a Minox IIIs and a Yashica Atoron. The Yashica specializes in blurry photos I have concluded, but the Minox is really quite sharp. Most of these are shooters. I don't really use the Weltaflex anymore because it is prone to film advance flub-ups, and I don't use the Atoron much because it almost never is in focus, but the rest all get regular use.
I still have my old Agfa 110 film camera. Somewhere buried in box mountain downstairs. The next camera I had after that, I cannot think of it's name- Ricoh? Oh well, I sold it for $5 at a yard sale. With the advent of digital and Kodak getting out of Kodachrome, my beloved K64, my Minolta XG7 is stored away. Boxcab E50
Adam, some day I need to visit you and get a Graflex lesson. When I was in college I borrowed one to shoot a celebration for a friend. I focused everything on the ground glass, but when I processed the film, everything was out of focus. Fortunately I had a 35mm for a backup so somewhat salvaged the event, but the photos were not nearly of the quality I had hoped by using the Graflex. How I wish we had digital back then! :tb-sad:
Hmmm... I wonder what was going on there. It sounds like maybe the ground glass and the film plane were not the same for some reason. It is VERY DIFFICULT to focus on the ground glass and then slam in a film holder and shoot hand-held and still get a good result. I tend to use my Pacemaker Speed Graphic more like a large format field camera than a hand-held. I put it on a tri-pod and spend a lot of time composing the shot on the ground glass, and then carefully put the film holder in, close the shutter, set the f-stop and shutter speed, pull the dark slide, and push the cable release to make the exposure. I am just getting my feet wet with the RB Series D. This weekend I will probably develop my first set of shots and see how it is going. I have to say that digital really has an advantage when it comes to knowing, on critical shots, if you got something usable. I use the old film cameras because I enjoy the process.
This is the camera I bought from a friend during my first year at the Academy of Art. I used it for Photo Storyboarding where we learned the most basic in and out's of creative photography. Everything still works great. The lens especially is in superb condition and takes excellent pictures. Anyways, this is all that's left from the class. All 7 rolls are unexposed, 5 of the boxes are still sealed. The negative/slide view piece works great too. I even have the original documentation for the lens (Vivitar 28-210mm f3.5/5.6). I'd love to keep it around for a rainy day sometime when I might actually be able to click off a roll or two, but with outstanding payments to dad for the new DSLR I just bought, I need to scrape together as much as I can. I don't want to steer this thread off course, but If anyone wants to make an offer, feel free to send me a PM (Everything shown included).
