Ever wonder how you ended up with so many cameras, or how you got started in photography??? Slightly OT...

I have. It was a little over a year ago when I first noticed a

classic camera. It was an Argus C3, I didn't know it at the time,

but I wasn't to interested in it anyway. I was just looking to buy

some old camera junk for my aunt, who is highly interested in

photography. Anyway, there I was in the middle of an auction within

my hometown, looking upon this mysterious old Argus camera. I

remember it looked so awkward, so unwieldy. When it finally arrived

up for bid, I stopped at $10, thinking it was too expensive. The

camera included a case, a light meter, and some other accessories,

but I didn't want to spend too much since I'd be giving these away.

Soon after I lost out in the bidding, a nice old man I had been

talking too commented "yeah, those Argus cameras are nice cameras, I

used on throughout the War." After that, me and him got talking

about his photography for a while, and how he used to be a

photographer for the Army back in WW2. A very interesting guy to say

the least, and talking to him convinced me to buy the next lot of

photographic junk up for bidding. Most of the stuff was plain junk:

fabric and thread for sewing, some Christmas decorations, but there

was an Instamatic 104 and a Polaroid Automatic 100 Land Camera. The

great old guy said "hey, the Polaroid should take great pictures,"

but I still have yet to find out, yet that comment was the spark

that lit a turbulent fire for photography. Today I kick myself in

the butt for letting the Argus go, even though I was clueless at the

time about what it was, and that the winning bid was too much

anyway. And yes, I gave those two camerasI won to my aunt, but later

found a better example of an Automatic 100, so maybe I can follow

that old guy's advice and put the thing to use. Just yesterday I

found 3 more Polaroid cameras to keep the pack film 100 company: a

pack film 215 Automatic, an 80a Highlander (to be converted to 120

film), and a 900 "Electric Eye". These cameras now take the tally

well beyond the level of sanity, to the point where I wonder "how

did I end up with all of these things." A year ago I didn't know

what an f/stop was, now I can't stop picking up cameras!!! If only I

had become interested in photography sooner, I'm sure I could have

learned something from my grandfather who passed away last month,

and who was a professional photographer for about three decades.

Perhaps I'll end up with a few of the cameras he once used,

providing a firmer measure of confidence that if he used them well,

I can use them well. Yet when all is said and done, I come home, and

wonder "how did I end up with all of these, and what was I

thinking!!!?"

I don't know how old you are, Danny, but for many of us of - er - middle years, collecting old cameras is a form of nostalgia. We saw many of these cameras when they were new, and couldn't afford them. Now they are practically being given away, we can't resist.

I'm in my meerschaum years (© Bill Griffith) and I don't collect cameras -- but I do seem to find it very easy to acquire them and very hard to part with them. There's no nostalgia involved: when they were new either I was still in shorts and had no awareness of them or I was a pimply adolescent and looked down on them because (I stupidly thought) all manly cameras should be SLRs with whopping great lenses. I get them because I'm a crap photographer and delude myself that they might work for me, or out of curiosity, or occasionally out of a sense of pity (when they're brassed and going cheap).

I am glad to have found this topic. I suppose it is time to reveal my truly incredible story. This is sure to provide readers with at least a few sentences of entertainment (or maybe not).

 

It all began a couple years ago with the use of my mothers Canonet QL17. She never officially gave me this camera, but it is now on permanent leave within my camera bag. My real interest in classic (perhaps a better word would be "old") cameras only began a few months ago. I thought I ought to try my hand at medium format photography. In looking for information on a couple of low-end folding cameras, I stumbled upon this forum. Now I have added a Mamiya C33, an Agfa Ansco folder from the 30's, and a Kodak Reflex II to my collection. My next goal is to try development of black and white film ( I just hope I have enough talent to do it... hmm).

 

I wonder what is in the future for myself and analog photography as I soon enter the wise old age of sixteen?

I just save them from being tossed. I do feel like an orphanage sometimes.

I was just doing a little thinking. Perhaps I should start a fundraiser for myself. Them monetary issues would no longer rule my photographic intersts. (hehehe)

I don't have to wonder how I ended up with so many classic cameras - they follow me home because we have an affinity for each other - I'm also an old design, slightly brassed and have had my corners knocked off, my leatherette is also wrinkled, I also need a CLA, but I still see good!

I managed to trade in one camera to help pay for the next for 40 years - my 21st present to myself was a Pentax SP500 That was my only camera for 20 years, and was traded in for an OM2 which has lasted another 20 or so, but the I saw advertised an Agfa Flexilette that i had owned in the 1960s, and also an Exa 500 that replaced it and before you knew it I had set myself a mission to collect and example of every camera I had owned - this I have now done, but the infection spread to try to add other Ihaghee cameras to the Exa -I always lusted after a Werra so one of those arrived - I am now collecting so many Eastern Bloc cameras that a few more won't hurt, so the feds and the Zorkis arrived etc etc. Stage 2 was to add cameras that my family owned - I am still working on this - Anyone able to help me with a reasonably prices N&G Baby Sibyl roll film camera like my grandfather's? Stage 3 was to discover Ebay and add cameras that I have always been interested in (my best mate at school had a Petri 7s - now so have I) And better not forget the user cameras I have, Kievs, a Leica IIIa and the Rolleicord, and I'm trying large format with a converted Polaroid...........

 

An addiction pure and simple - I often wonder if I would have been better off continuing to smoke - It cost less and the potential effect on my health whenever my wife sees yet another camera appear on the shelf was probably far far less dangerous :-)

 

I like photography and I love cameras, is that enough?

 

Nick

Like Brian said. Ideally, I buy them (for $10) to run one roll of film through and then resell them (for $10). However many don't work too well so I have to attempt some repair before I can use them and pass them on.

They're starting to pile up. Don't kick yourself about the lost C3, it might not have been in working order anyway, another will turn up. Also I have found a few keepers, a Werra, a Solinette, a Yashica GSN, and maybe a Signet.

Although I had several cameras in the 60s and 70s, my maddness started one day when my wife and I were in the Goodwill Industries Store back in 1980. I picked up a Kodak Brownie Hawkeye for $2.00 and a Kodak Dualflex for $1.50. I used both of these cameras until I couldn't find 620 film at the drugstore anymore. In 1984, I bought a newly hocked Minolta XG1n new in box with lens at a Pawn Shop for $80.00, the previous owner got it for Christmas and didn't want it. Before long I added another Spotmatic to replace the broken one I got new in the mid-sixties. What really got me going though was something my wife calls EVILBAY! I now own 77 cameras, 29 of them are Minoltas, 9 are Pentax, 10 are rangefinders. <p>Randy Jay

I got my start very young at 'round age ten. Mainly Kodaks and Polaroids till my teens, then 35mm bug hit hard. I now have 825 + cameras, 300 + lenses and most every doodad from filters, teleconverters, tripods, meters, flashes etc. under the sun. Might be time to pare down my horde soon, but my latest Ricoh SLR arrived yesterday, I just won my auction for that bulk loader I've always wanted, and I could sure use one or two more Spotmatics, Retinas, and Voigtlanders. What was the question again......?

When I was a kid, I wasn't allowed to touch the camera. Now that I'm a grownup, I'm compensating by buying every one in sight.

 

See, it all goes back to potty training......

Like women, I like the way they smell. I can't collect women though.

Each has such a unique set of design positives and quirks that it can be a lot of fun getting an image out of them. Modern camera designs for the most part are all variations on a theme IMO.

No, I don't wonder. I still remember why I started taking pictures and why I bought my first "real" camera. I even remember why I bought what I did.

 

And I don't wonder why I buy old cameras and lenses. I've always known why. Value for money. This is also why I don't accumulate heaps of cameras that do much the same thing. After I have one of a type, the next one offers very little value.

 

Every once in a while, I feel the impulse to acquire "a set" of something. It usually passes quickly. My set mania of the moment is B&L IIb Tessars. I have two, may get a third. And I think that will be it because I'm having trouble justifying keeping more than one lens in a focal length.

 

One exception to that. I walk around with a 101/4.5 Ektar and a 100/6.3 Neupolar; the Neupolar is much, much better closeup. And I sometimes carry a 4"/2 Taylor Hobson as well; it puts the speed back in Speed Graphic.

 

I went through a spell of acquiring high performance macro lenses. This because I couldn't find out which was especially good/bad. Now I have more than I need, have been selling off the surplus for a while now.

 

Cheers,

My father owned an Aires III and a Minox B which were hands off.I read his photography magazines and lusted for every item in the back pages. I was maybe ten or eleven in those days. When I was in Europe I got my Nikon F2A from the PX in 1978. It was my first camera. I still have it and consider it a classic even if not within this forum's boundaries. It is an old friend. A few years back I had the bright idea of selling Vintage cameras in EvilBay. I amassed an interesting collection of cameras and accessories, and guess what: I can't part with any of them. Over time I want to use each and every one of them, as opportunity arises. I just drank enough Grolsch in swingcap bottles to hold five liters of Xtol. Of course that is no real excuse for drinking good beer, but it will do for now. Because Xtol is environmentally safer than most, I will start developing black and white in my kitchen for the first time in twenty five years. Each camera's output will be posted periodically on this forum. The truth is: photography was ingrained in me early on, as was my love of cameras. I use a Nikon D70 for its convenience, but I delight in the buzz of a Synchro-Compur at the 1 second mark.

I remember watching my dad developing film and/or making prints when I was little more than a toddler. My very own first camera was an Instamatic I took to the World's Fair in Canada (1965?). In Jr. High School I started using my dads old Mercury II half frame, with its near rotary shutter. He had graduated to a Retina IIIc and made the most beautiful Kodachromes when we went on vacation. Because he did his own b&w processing at one time, it was just natural that I did the same. From then on I was hooked. I used the Mercury until my parents bought me a Yashica MAT-124. Mail ordered from NYC, probably Cambridge Camera, it was about $129 new. I shot that through high school, doing sports and yearbook stuff, until I picked up a used Nikon F. I traded in the MAT at the local photo store when they got a nice used Mamiya C2 or C3, can't remember. That proved to be a mistake, as the MAT actually produced higher quality results. Eventually I traded in the F (which had developed a bad shutter brake) for a new FM. My senior year I knew I was going to RIT, so my parents got me a new Calumet 4x5 (yes, my parents are absolutely the best!) which I lugged all over town. After two years at RIT I decided a career in photography wasn't in my future. My skills are technical, not artistic. These days, I collect anything that has unusually high quality, or unusual technical merit, or anything that recreates my childhood. Thus I have a Retina IIIc, a Mercury II, various Nikon SLRs, various 4x5s, and a bunch of other stuff, all of which I had some contact with as a teenager, but couldn't afford then. Cameras multiply so easily. The other day a friend gave me a Minolta X-370 that he wasn't using. I imediately cleaned it up and bought it a new used lens. After all, the teacher who ran the photo club in high school let me use his Minolta SRT-101 (the first SLR I ever used), so of course I should have some Minolta in my collection. BTW, I'm 50, and still use the same FR print tongs my dad did, I use his hard rubber trays, and I was thrilled to find some ancient Agfa "Easyclip" film clips at the photo store the other week, IMO, the best film clip ever invented. Yes, the disease is completely incurable.

Probably lots of us who are "mature" started the same way I did. I had the brownie and the cheap roll film cameras when young. Got my first nice 35mm slr in 1981. It was a Konica FS-1. And all I could afford was the camera and one lens. I eventually picked up a couple more lenses, but couldn't really start being idiotic about it until I could afford it. Since Konicas are not made any more, the glass is superb, and most people don't know about them, you can get the bodies and lenses at very reasonable prices. So I started buying all the stuff I couldn't afford before. When I wanted to venture into medium format, it seemed the natural thing to get a Koni-Omega. Same company. So now I have several T-3's, FT-1's, an FP-1, a Rapid Omega 200 complete system with all four lenses, and a Koni-Omegaflex with a couple of lenses. I can never seem to part with anything, so my kids will have to do that after I'm gone or senile. They'll probably just toss it all and wonder why I ever kept it around. But they'll have a lot of photograph albums to look through.

A friend in high school brought in his old Pentax. I really like to look thru its lens and feel the smooth focus and the shutter firing.

I Knew it was something I would be good at when the time came. Years

later I got into cameras and had 3 pictures published and won a few

awards. I dont shoot much anymore but still look for old cameras to refurbish and resell them.

I don't collect old cameras, they follow me home. No, really......!!!!!!

Over the past twenty years, I picked up 2.5 cameras each year (on the average). It's a wonderful hobby that is peaceful and enjoyful. Don't feel guilty; be happy.

I got my first "serious" camera 34 years ago, when I borrowed a Voigtlander Vitessa-T 35mm rangefinder camera from a friend who had bought it from a Chicago hockshop. After a long weekend trip to New Orleans and its environs in the delta and around Lake Ponchartrain with my lady who would shortly be my wife, I bought it from him outright. It and all its auxiliary lenses (35mm Skoparet, 100mm Dynaret and 135mm Super-Dynaret) and Turnit-3 rangefinder, came in their own distinctive and beautifully manufactured leather cases.<p>

 

That camera and all that stuff accompanied us around the USA and to the middle east and Europe for an extended stay. Some 20 years later, in late 1991, it was still going strong when I lost it in a wayside rest station along an interstate highway east of Pensacola, Florida. Luckily, I didn't lose the extra lenses and other stuff in the fancy little brown leather cases.<p>

 

In Pensacola the next day, I bought an Asahi Pentax K1000 SLR, complete with battery, flip-flapping action, and an assortment of other lenses. It took photographs, and I still own it. But I just never bonded with it, and probably never will.<p>

 

So when we got back here to southern Wisconsin after Amtraking and rental car tripping from northern Florida to southern California, the first thing I did was purchase not one but two -- you guessed it -- Voigtlander Vitessa T 35mm rangefinders. They were never permitted to escape from my sight again.<p>

 

Now I have three more of the same, with the latest purchased off eBay and 50mm Color-Skopar lens for two of the others on the way here from Ritz Camera Collectibles in Phoenix AZ.<p>

 

Then, one at a time, they are all going for a visit to the SK Grimes shop in Woonsocket RI for CLA and fixup work.<p>

 

So, why five Voigtlander Vitessa-T 35mm rangefinders in an age of digital photography?<p>

 

First, I'm a perfectionist, at least at the level that I understand the kind of commitment needed to be one. The optics on these old now 48-year-old German cameras are so fine that I can't imagine a digital camera that will produce the same quality of output. In addition, most of the digital cameras our kids have dragged me off to look at in this or that Circuit City, BestBuy or whathaveyou, all look like cheap plastic crap being greatly inferior to the precision diecast metal camera bodies of the old German Voigtlanders, but sold at astounding prices.<p>

 

And all for what? A camera that wears out its battery in as little as 30 minutes of continuous use? Yes, digital photography probably is convenient, and is almost vital for professional photo-journalists. But I am reminded that a stack of 100 of my 35mm slides can all be digitized for only $5, so that I can see them on a good quality computer screen courtesy of PhotoShop or some similar software.<p>

 

Second, I am an unapologetic nostalgist. I hate to see fine old machinery rotting away in purposelessness, later to be discarded.<p>

 

Third, back in 1957 I bought a fine 1956 Austin-Healey 100-4 roadster, complete with wire wheels, fold-down windscreen, four forward speeds and an electric overdrive. I sold that fine machine in 1962 for a comparative pittance. And have lived to regret it ever since.<p>

 

I will never make that mistake with these cameras.<p>

 

The one thing I regret from all this, however, is that I never took the time to investigate or buy my way into the king of the rangefinders. I am referring to the Leica M3 series that was born around 1954 or so, and is still with us. That's probably my next obsessive compulsion in photographic equipment.<p>

 

Arnold Harris<br>

Mount Horeb WI

For me it is an obsession I can live with. It could be Crack but at least when I die the kids get something other than a funeral bill for a crack head.

Larry<div></div>

I'm probably one of the younger members of the group (at 22) so my intro to photography as well as to classic cameras isn't so much of the nostalgia that I'm reading other people have. Many of these cameras I own have 30-40 years on me or even more.

 

The reason I started picking up classics was because I caught the bug after getting a Diana Clone for free and being informed by a member of the photography club that such things are quite desirable and I should give it a spin. After that, I learned that not all clasics made "weird" or alternative style pictures and I might actually learn a lot more using a classic. Then I got a TLR and it's been all downhill since there as I love TLRs.

ChristopherB I just love cameras Cheap seems better because the older ones that collecters want are never used. like looking at a train on a track that goes no place. But if I have a Pratkia to shoot it with all the better.<div></div>