|
Post by belgiumreporter on Apr 7, 2020 10:40:28 GMT -5
With the corona troubles still going on i had some time to search my photo archive. One of the pics i found was of the first apartement i moved in after leaving my parents home. Exept from the orange bench seat (wich was quite fasionable in the seventies) one can see what is the start of my collection. Back then i had no real theme in mind so any "old" camera would do to expand the collection. Camera's that are now collectable still were in use or weren't even made yet. So the main part of collactables were mostly folders and some zorki's that looked old :-). As the collction grew over the years some theme's did emerge and for some time i was heavy in to polaroids, few of wich i still have today as the polaroid theme was abandonned years ago. The main theme then switched to nikon, but it took many years to come up with something more than 3 cameras.Somewhere shortly after the digital revolution i came up with the idea of an alphabet collection i would attempt to get everything from Alpa to Zenith, something i did succeed in.Still after a while with more interesting cameras coming on the market i got rid of the lesser cameras of the alphabet collection (just because petri has a P in it dosn't mean it is an interesting camera to name just one) so the next theme came up: slr's with interchangeable viewfinders/prisms. That went well and i think there's little i haven't got on that theme. Because i collect nikon-canon-olympus-minolta-pentax-miranda-leica slr's-TLR's,... the moment has come i've got to many cameras and i'm trying to get back to the essential cameras of these makes.The main goal being to eliminate everything that isn't mechanical or pro grade electronic/ digital (or just weird)... So how did you guys and girls started out collecting? did you have a theme in mind in the first place or did it evolve over the years?
|
|
|
Post by John Farrell on Apr 8, 2020 22:12:41 GMT -5
I began back in the late 1990s when I found a Yashica YK in a local second hand shop - I cleaned it up, and put a film through it. Not long after that, I answered an ad in a newspaper, and bought a heap of partly dismantled cameras, each in an icecream container, for $1 each. I managed to reassemble 3 or 4 Canonets from the pile, but failed in getting a Kowa SE and a Topcon Wink E Mirror going. I just kept on from there - buying cameras that needed repairs, and trying to get them going.
|
|
|
Post by paulhofseth on Apr 9, 2020 8:50:06 GMT -5
In my case I never collected , but used, just did not sell off much, and was continually tempted to try variieties, So I chanced to have the Alpa Standard as well as the 11Si together with Riga Minox and LX, the SL2 and the R9 etc. Lately, since i have switched to digital, I find various half-ancient optics both more useful and more interesting.
p.
|
|
|
Post by philbirch on Apr 14, 2020 13:23:37 GMT -5
I was given a box of old cameras by a girlfriend. They all were of the year of my birth (1957) so I started a theme. Anything of that year. I've settled down now. Leica clones and a few choice SLRs now.
|
|
|
Post by yashica1943 on Apr 19, 2020 12:38:06 GMT -5
I have been interested in cameras since I was about 12 (60+ years ago.) I didn't do much photograph from about 1985 to 2013 or so. I then started taking it seriously again. When looking through ebay I suddenly realised that the cameras from the 1960's to the 1980's - mainly manual focus SLRs that I knew a lot about but couldn't afford were going for very low prices. I think that the camera that really got me started again was a nice Yashica FR2 with an F1.4 lens for silly money. I then started collecting good Yashicas and Konicas, going on to Pentax, Nikon, Rolleiflex 35mm Zeiss and others. I did sell some of my nicest ones to pay for a Sony a7 full frame body and lenses, but getting going again, with some discriminating buys.
|
|
|
Post by julio1fer on Apr 19, 2020 18:10:52 GMT -5
I got started when a camera store near my office did a closeout sale back in 2003. I happened to look at the window display...before that I was strictly a one-camera photographer. Later on, my late father, who was an accomplished amateur, started shedding his equipment.
Forums and the rise of Internet commerce did the rest.
|
|
|
Post by barbarian on Apr 25, 2020 16:05:00 GMT -5
Someone gave me an old camera. I was fascinated with the mechanisms and the workmanship. So when I saw another sort of like it... well, you know...
I'm not really a collector; I'm kind of an accumulator.
|
|
|
Post by paulhofseth on Apr 27, 2020 4:32:07 GMT -5
Addendum to my confessions as "an accumulator"above,
In the late 1950es a close friend initiated me in the mysteries of developing prints. He sported an Altix and other friends had Exactas, while I had to do with a 6x9cm rollfilm box while my father recommended Tenax as a replacement for his former wiew camera.
An industrious classmate bought an elegant Voigtländer VitoB and proceeded to make it pay for itself by organizing school photos. Afterwards I have always regarded those as paragons of camera mechanics of times past. And a peculiarity of their film transport, locking up- until a film (or a well informed buyer) moves the sprocket wheel - has helped not paying too much at camera fairs.
p.
|
|
|
Post by belgiumreporter on Jun 17, 2020 4:45:50 GMT -5
And a peculiarity of their film transport, locking up- until a film (or a well informed buyer) moves the sprocket wheel - has helped not paying too much at camera fairs. p. Knowledge is power!
|
|
|
Post by dismayed on Jun 25, 2020 17:28:31 GMT -5
I've acquired cameras that I wanted to shoot. And I've generally sold off cameras that ended up sitting about because I preferred other cameras. Yes, I do have a weakness for well-made mechanical cameras. The Contax IIa that I had produced wonderful images, but I sold it and bought a Nikon SP because the viewfinder of the SP is so much nicer to use. I have a few nice recent acquisitions - a Voigtlander Superb, Zeiss Super ikonta 531A, and a Kodak Retina IIa. And the old standby Mamiya 7.
|
|
|
Post by philbirch on Jun 26, 2020 3:38:45 GMT -5
I've had all the cameras you mentioned except mamiya 7. I look at how I get on with the cameras. With the Contax and Nikon I'm fingers and thumbs, I just cant get used to how they work. The Voigtlander? Well at the time I had it I was buying anything vintage, but as I like to use my cameras. The Superb was okay as a TLR but with a dim finder and it wasnt reliable, so it went. I'm not too big of a fan of folders to use the 531 and IIa
Most of my collection now is some Canons and Nikons Pen F, and a bunch of barnack style rangefinders. See my post
|
|
|
Post by paulhofseth on Jun 26, 2020 9:18:27 GMT -5
An unexpected, but predictable problem occurred when I packed equipment for this summer. I decideed to take slides as well as negatives and brought both my Contax ST and the Leitz R-8 which of course need a tripod as well for the longer lenses . plus the digital alternative and its adapters. those, plus the "necessary" short and long lenses weigh a ton.
So getting into a habit of using analogue stuff will burden you a long time.
p.
|
|
|
Post by dismayed on Jun 28, 2020 12:57:55 GMT -5
I've had all the cameras you mentioned except mamiya 7. I look at how I get on with the cameras. With the Contax and Nikon I'm fingers and thumbs, I just cant get used to how they work. The Voigtlander? Well at the time I had it I was buying anything vintage, but as I like to use my cameras. The Superb was okay as a TLR but with a dim finder and it wasnt reliable, so it went. I'm not too big of a fan of folders to use the 531 and IIa Most of my collection now is some Canons and Nikons Pen F, and a bunch of barnack style rangefinders. See my post The Contax IIa does require an awkward grip because of the long rangefinder baseline. And the finder is very small. The Nikon SP, on the other hand, is far more comfortable to grip and to focus and frame. I can't comment yet on the Voigtlander Superb - it's new to me and it's off for service.
|
|