Home at last! Glad to see this forum exists.

Didn't know this forum existed until just now. Very glad to see that

there is interest in people *using* classic cameras not just putting

them on display. I use Leica IIIa (1937), IIIf (1950), M4's (1970),

Rollei 2.8F Planar (1964), Speed Graphic (1956), Canonet (1969),

Nikon FTn's (1968-70), and a lonely Exakta from the 60's. I'm hoping

that there will be enough interest worldwide in these magnificent

picture-making machines that entrepreneurs will see a profit motive

in continuing to manufacture film and/or modify them for digital so

that we can keep on exercising our right to free choice of photo gear

into the future.

 

I also have had a great deal of experience with good sources for

repair of these classics if anyone needs recommendations.

Yes, I was pleased to see the introduction of the Voigtlander Bessa R2C (which is a modern camera but) which takes the classic Contax rangefinder lenses. It shows that there is still lots of life in classic equipment.

I briefly had an Exa sometime in the '60s, but was too stupid at that age to make good use of it. I've seen very few pictures made with the pioneering 35mm slr cameras, and would really like to see some examples of what you have done with it.

That must be a Pacemaker Speed Graphic. Do you use barrel-mount lenses on it?

<i>I've seen very few pictures made with the pioneering 35mm slr cameras, and would really like to see some examples of what you have done with it.</i><p>

 

I have a few pictures taken with an Exa II, back in 1974 or so, but I'd have to scan them from my high school yearbook that year...

I just have a problem with my first camera. a Minolta SRT-101, being called a classic.

My absolute first camera was a Tower box camera (120 film; 6x9 or 6x7 I think, no ability to focus, no aperture setting, no shutter speed) but it did have two little waist level viewfinders (about 1"x1/2"). One for portrait shots and one for landscape. I still have it but one of the chrome rollers that the film ran over has gone missing and the red window where you saw the frame numbers has fallen out. I hate to think what the lens must look like because the viewfinders are pockmarked with fungus!!

 

I remember holding a pair of binoculars to the lens opening trying to get telephoto and, it worked...more or less (if you don't count horrible vignetting).

 

There was a time when EVERYBODY shot medium format!

<b><i>"My absolute first camera was a Tower box camera..."</i></b>

<br>

<br>Hey Meryl, I've got one of those, or at least I think so. Kind of hard to know since the Tower name was slapped on so many cameras. Mine is also missing the red window. If I find a replacement, I may turn the Tower into a pinhole camera as it has a Bulb shutter setting.

<br>   

My first was a Baby Brownie, followed in short order by a Brownie Hawkeye Flash. Don't know what happened to either of those, but I now have two Hawkeye Flashes, and I've done many pictures with them in the past year or so, some of which are posted in my "<a href="http://www.photo.net/photodb/folder?folder_id=229971">Out of the Box</a>" folder.

It just says "Speed Graphic", has the side-mounted Kalart rangefinder and a 127mm Kodak Ektar lens with a leaf-shutter (but the camera has the focal-plane shutter, which I have never used).

Hey, I HAVE some of those!!<P>

<a href="http://www.junkstorecameras.com/">Junk Store Cameras!!</a><P>

Chip, what's wrong with calling an SRT-101 a classic? It was one of the most functional, durable, ergonomic, and practical cameras of it's era, and it remained in production for nearly a decade, which is practically unheard-of today. Even today, it is still one of the finest cameras of this type ever made, and can be entirely practical to use even now.

 

For a basic, manual focus, TTL-metering match-needle SLR, there's not much more that one could want (altough I personally preferred to have some of the added features of the SRT-102).

In his book "Collecting Classic SLRs", Ivor Matanle is very enthusiastic about the SRT series so you would seem to be in good company, Douglas. I once owned a SR1S which was a very nice camera but hell on wheels to find lenses for in the UK at the time (early seventies). If a nice 101 came up at the right price, I'd be tempted.