gben
Contributing Member
Posts: 12 
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Post by gben on Jun 26, 2014 22:07:08 GMT -5
Hi all.
When I was a kid my father had me develop the rolls of film he shot with his new Minolta SRT, a few weeks ago he gave that SRT to me, I guess it is sort of an heirloom. It is not in working condition, maybe a project for next winter.
I always was mechanically inclined so if I see a quality old machine in trouble I will often pick it up and take it home until I can find a new home for it. Old motorcycles, watches, cars, tools, lawnmowers and of course cameras.
Before the digital thing got going strong I mostly took photos with a Voigtlander Vito CL, a nice little camera I still have which still works very well. Since I was Voigtlander-conscious over the years I picked up a Bessa 66 and a Prominent. I have a few Minolta SRT cameras I picked up for peanuts over the years simply because my father made me familiar with them.
I have a few Nikon SLR cameras I took in after tripping over them at various house sales, as some of them were in danger of being thrown in the trash, also a Nikon L35AF I have $2 invested in and am using right now, running a free roll of color film through it. I also have a little Rollei 35 from the 70s that nobody wanted at a house sale and I scooped it for $5.
I know some young people that are interested in film cameras a bit and hopefully I will be able to give them some of those old Minoltas and Nikons. I would like to use the Voigtlanders some more and maybe my father's old Minolta again someday. One of the old Nikons is a Nikomat FT2 from the mid seventies which I am sure is almost valueless as far as money goes, but it works well and I have a beat up wide-angle lens for it so I will try to get some use out of it too.
Oh, I have an old Retina IIIc and an Exa in a drawer upstairs along with an old sx-70 I used to use when film was easy to find for it. There might be a few others stowed away I have forgot about at the moment. The Germans and Japanese built some nice machinery for sure.
I have a bit of tutoring and experience repairing mechanical watches, if I live long enough maybe I will take some of those compur shutters apart and clean them up, not at the top of my wife's to-do list right now though. I spent all day today cleaning the lawnmower carburetor.
Thanks for your time.....
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mickeyobe
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 27, 2014 0:24:36 GMT -5
Idiotic computer!
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mickeyobe
Lifetime Member
Resident President
Posts: 7,280
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 27, 2014 0:34:36 GMT -5
An enthusiast not a collector.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Bill Shakespeare
Welcome, enthusiast.
Mickey
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mickeyobe
Lifetime Member
Resident President
Posts: 7,280
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 27, 2014 0:38:02 GMT -5
An enthusiast not a collector.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
Bill Shakespeare
Welcome, enthusiast.
Mickey
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truls
Lifetime Member
Posts: 568
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Post by truls on Jun 27, 2014 12:21:57 GMT -5
Welcome, gben! We like all people on this forum, especially those who fix cameras  Or collect them, or photographing, showing some images, and so on. >> Idiotic computer! Hmm.. If it wasn't for them we would have been penpals or something? |
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Post by philbirch on Jun 27, 2014 12:41:58 GMT -5
Your Nikomat FT2 is not worth peanuts its a good solid camera, and although not as valuable as the F series it will still sell for $30-$40 (on a good day!)
welcome to the forum, stick around wont you.
Phil
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
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Post by Deleted on Jun 27, 2014 21:06:35 GMT -5
Welcome. The FT2 is built like a tank and a great picture taker. You done good on the Rollei 35, too.
W.
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gben
Contributing Member
Posts: 12
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Post by gben on Jun 28, 2014 19:43:23 GMT -5
An enthusiast not a collector. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Bill Shakespeare Welcome, enthusiast. Mickey I have seen that people often collect various objects for different reasons. They may be doing it simply for profit, or perhaps they have a psychological gap that needs to be filled with material objects, those can be called collectors as much as the one who enjoys the history, the art or the utility of any object. So all who have a bag of cameras or anything else can not be covered by one blanket. I have never bought a camera on Ebay, never belonged to any camera or photography club, and never had any intention of acquiring more than one example of any particular camera. I have simply used cameras as cameras and picked up ones I have tripped over in the course of life, ones that fate has put in my path. They are interesting machines to me that have history current generations can learn from, which are art and can create art, and which also are able to serve a practical purpose of recording images, which is why they were originally invented and made. I am more interested in what I can do for old cameras and their history, not what they can do for me. If I desire any camera, it will be to answer a question or fill a practical need. For instance I have my father's old contact printing equipment which he used as a youth, but I have no camera which takes large enough negatives to use it, so I am keeping my eye out for a 6cmx9cm camera or something about that size, the Bessa 66 that has been sitting around here for many years just will not make big enough contact prints to help me use that old equipment. Other than that simple goal I have none. If I never run across another thrift-shop deal that is okay with me, likewise if I do run across a nicely made old camera that is in danger of being thrown away etc.. and I can save it for a dollar or two then I might do so. I don't plan on using cameras to make a profit and I am not the sort that needs a large pile of shiny objects to feel good about myself. And that is why I don't want to be just a collector...... |
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gben
Contributing Member
Posts: 12
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Post by gben on Jun 28, 2014 19:55:55 GMT -5
Welcome. The FT2 is built like a tank and a great picture taker. You done good on the Rollei 35, too. W. I like the FT2 because it uses readily available batteries, and I like that it is NOT worth anything as a collectible, so if I need a part for it it can be had for the very little money I have in my pockets. My Ft2 came in a Nikon bag with a standard, portrait and wide Nikkor lenses, a tripod, a new roll of film and other bits for $17 and it's shutter and light meter work very well. So it is a shoe-in as my work-a-day 35mm camera as long as it's size is not a factor. For convenience and small size I have a Nikon L35AF I got for $2 at a yard sale two blocks from my house which functions perfectly. The little Rollei is nice but unfortunately it was made to run on one of the old mercury cells. Although there are a few options to use in place of the mercury cells, to me they are either not as good as the originals, or they are too expensive for me. I do have one old mercury cell that still has a good kick to it, and I did put it in the Rollei for a bit to see how it worked, and it did. Maybe when the day comes I have nothing better to do and an extra dollar I will get a new battery for it and run a roll of film through it. I really like the old cameras without light meters, or the meters and cameras that have the light meters that need no batteries, I don't know why they did just not refine those instead of going to the battery meters, that did not make sense to me, but often the things industry does do not make any sense. Recently I found that my old Weston Master light meter had given up the ghost, but a few weeks later I found one that seems to be very responsive and accurate at a local estate sale, so I am ready to have battery-free fun with the old Exa, Prominent and any other meter-free cameras laying around. |
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Post by philbirch on Jun 29, 2014 4:11:42 GMT -5
I understand how you differentiate between collector and enthusiast. I started off the same. When I was young and cash rich I scoured the second hand shops for interesting cameras to hone my skills on, not satisfied with the little Rollei 35B (which I still have 41 years on). So in the course of this journey I acquired a number of interesting and quirky cameras on the way. They were always traded in for something else. A few years ago I re-discovered film and decided to look for a nice camera to use and bought a Nikon FG to compliment my Nikon DSLR outfit.One day I spotted an Agfa Flexilette and bought it. It was like an old friend come home. That kicked it off. After buying several cameras (including the Nikon L35AF which I still use)I had a bit of an odd mix of old and new with no common theme tying them together. My girlfriend (at the time) gave me a box of old cameras of her dads. I wasn't really that interested in old cams that used obsolete film (127 & 620)and put them away. Upon discovering them a year or so later, after we'd separated, I researched them and discovered that all four were from my birth year - 1957. So the theme started. I have expanded it to 1954 - 1957. Whatever was in the shops, catalogues or Photokina that year is now fair game. I am fastidiously trying to avoid models from 1958 onwards (unless it was shown at Photokina in'57). A few creep through from earlier or a little later. I sell them on for a profit. I will provide a link, below, to fotki where my 50's collection is displayed. Batteries. The old PX625 mercury battery can be replaced with a PX625A. It is an alkaline battery with a slightly different voltage (0.15v difference) but I have used them in 6 or 7 cameras and they work just fine. I have used a 1.5v cell with a small rubber band round it to hold it in place. 'Loom bands' are all the rage with kids at the moment. They are half inch wide rubber bands in different colours for making bracelets. A packet of them for a pound will give you about 500 small bands! Selenium cells were phased out in favour of CdS because of the sensitivity. Outdoors was fine but when it came to indoor use they performed sluggishly or didn't respond at all. The cell used light to generate current, enough to move a galvanometer. The technology of the time was such that it was impossible to improve the sensitivity. So cadmium Sulphide cells were used. They used a battery powered circuit. The cell was a variable resistor that changed its resistance proportionally to the light falling on it. It was much better in low light. The CdS cell was sensitive to certain colours and could be a little slow at times so newer cells such as Gallium Arsenide and Silicon Blue cells were developed with faster response times, plus they were smaller and could be incorporated into cameras less obtrusively. I have come across Olympus Trips with dead cells, They aren't dead, the meter they drive is usually stuck and it's a simple repair. With Westons, lack of response is not necessarily that the cell as degraded, the solder connecting it to the galvanometer is usually the culprit. Have fun with sunny 16, most people used that back in the old days when meters were an expensive luxury. Its easy enough to remember, and film latitude always makes up for any errors. Err on the over-exposure side if you are unsure. Also on my fotki is an album of sunny 16's My fotki |
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mickeyobe
Lifetime Member
Resident President
Posts: 7,280
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 29, 2014 6:32:12 GMT -5
An enthusiast not a collector. A rose by any other name would smell as sweet. Bill Shakespeare Welcome, enthusiast. Mickey I have seen that people often collect various objects for different reasons. They may be doing it simply for profit, or perhaps they have a psychological gap that needs to be filled with material objects, those can be called collectors as much as the one who enjoys the history, the art or the utility of any object. So all who have a bag of cameras or anything else can not be covered by one blanket. I have never bought a camera on Ebay, never belonged to any camera or photography club, and never had any intention of acquiring more than one example of any particular camera. I have simply used cameras as cameras and picked up ones I have tripped over in the course of life, ones that fate has put in my path. They are interesting machines to me that have history current generations can learn from, which are art and can create art, and which also are able to serve a practical purpose of recording images, which is why they were originally invented and made. I am more interested in what I can do for old cameras and their history, not what they can do for me. If I desire any camera, it will be to answer a question or fill a practical need. For instance I have my father's old contact printing equipment which he used as a youth, but I have no camera which takes large enough negatives to use it, so I am keeping my eye out for a 6cmx9cm camera or something about that size, the Bessa 66 that has been sitting around here for many years just will not make big enough contact prints to help me use that old equipment. Other than that simple goal I have none. If I never run across another thrift-shop deal that is okay with me, likewise if I do run across a nicely made old camera that is in danger of being thrown away etc.. and I can save it for a dollar or two then I might do so. I don't plan on using cameras to make a profit and I am not the sort that needs a large pile of shiny objects to feel good about myself. And that is why I don't want to be just a collector...... Glen, you are perfectly describing some of my sentiments, yet I proudly call myself a Camera Collector (Note capitals) and choose to associate with others who feel 100% or even 2% as I do. Some collectors in other fields have fancy names for the most serious members of their groups. e.g. Stamp Collectors - Philatelists. Coin Collectors - Numismatists. Car Collectors - ? ? Car Collectors? Autograph Collectors - Autograph Hounds. Animal collectors - Zoos. There is a great difference, though, between a collector and a hoarder but even a hoarder has reasons for his/her actions. Mickey |
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Post by philbirch on Jun 29, 2014 7:59:34 GMT -5
My wife thinks I'm a hoarder. When I mention all her handbags and linen tablecloth 'collection' she says its different.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 29, 2014 9:19:25 GMT -5
Based on 13 years personal experience, no sane person collects Soviet era cameras with a expectation of turning a profit. |
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mickeyobe
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Posts: 7,280
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Post by mickeyobe on Jun 29, 2014 22:56:18 GMT -5
I Have fun with sunny 16, most people used that back in the old days when meters were an expensive luxury. Its easy enough to remember, and film latitude always makes up for any errors. Err on the over-exposure side if you are unsure. Also on my fotki is an album of sunny 16's My fotkiI used Sunny 16 for years before I could afford an exposure meter. I still use it occasionally. I also use(d) as a substitute for an 18% grey card: Clear blue sky 90 degrees from the sun. Green grass. Used asphalt road surface. Mickey |
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daveh
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Post by daveh on Jun 29, 2014 23:12:29 GMT -5
Each to his, or her, own.
I would suggest that is is easier and cheaper to collect cameras than many other things, for example cars. I have about 60 cameras most of which have been used (and most of those well used) by me for the purpose for which they were made i.e. taking photographs. I have never sold a camera when I have moved on to another.
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