Crappy but interesting cameras

[gene m]

What's your favorite crappy but cool camera ? Here are a few of mine.

1.Diana

2.Anscoflex

3.Traveler 120

4.Agfa Click

[curt_saxton]

1. Cosmic 35

2.Detrola model G

3.Spartus 35 F

4.Lubital 2

[rickaubin]

I've got a Lubitel 166U with a fairly soft lens that is fun to use. The plastic on it is so cheap that it should sport the recycle symbol found on 2-liter Coke bottles.

 

Much older, is my Petri 2.8 Color-Corrected Super. It also has a soft lens, but it has that great mechanical feel of the 50's. It is all metal--right down to the lens cap.

 

They are both a great departure (albeit a meterless one) from my reliable modern-day wonder.

[connealy]

I treasure my Ricoh 500. It has a great classic feel to it, and the the fast trigger-action film advance is really cool. If the lens should get damaged, you can substitute the bottom of a beer bottle with no significant degradation in image quality.

[lex_jenkins]

Technically, not pre-1970 but cool and crappy nonetheless were a few 110 cameras, especially one made by Canon and another by Minolta.

[moore_photography]

I have an obviously post-1970 Holga and a Brownie Hawkeye from way before 1970. I picked it up on Friday at a garage sale for $2, cleaned it up, and loaded it with film.

 

I've attached a shot.

 

FP4+ @ 50iso in HC-110 Dil E<div></div>

[pensacolaphoto]

How about a crappy Flexaret TLR ... ?

[david dutchison]

My nomination goes to the Kodak Duo-Flex, which is actually a tremendously well made, single element lensed, non focusing TLR with an very bright viewfinder. This was also my first camera, for which I am gratefull.

[larrydressler]

my Kodak Pony IV no range finder on this bakelite baby use the zone. now if I just had some Kodachrome 25.

[charles_stobbs3]

If I just had some Kodachrome 25!

[mfophotos]

With all the old cameras I have, I guess the nod to cool and crappy goes to my

Brownie Hawkeye for medium format. Crappiest goes to my Spartus 35. My favorite

to actually use would have to be my Argus 75.

[h._p.]

I'll nominate the Halina 35X which introduced untold thousands of young British photographers to the world of 35mm. The lens was suspect at any aperture (I seem to remember that there were only 3 settings) and the chrome was so bright it was a genuine health risk on a bright day but it's amazing how many people it infected with the photography bug.

[jonathan_bundick]

My very light Ansco Commander. A 6x9 folder with a single coated three element lens, that yields great contrast, while a little soft photos. So light you almost forget you have the thing in your pocket. Cost around $25 on Ebay a few years ago.

[david_bedell]

<img src="http://www.photo.net/photodb/image-

display?photo_id=2194335&size=lg">

<p>

The Ansco Shur Shot, with a "surprisingly sharp" uncoated

meniscus lens, can be fun.

[dan_fromm1]

You folks amaze me.

 

I've owned some crappy cameras, still have a few, but I never found anything endearing about any of them. Some, like my first Beaulieu 4008 (a ZM, with a not very sharp 8-64/1.9 Angenieux that t-stopped at about t/3.3), were simply bad mistakes and sources of pain. "Will it/won't it work correctly this time?" gets old very fast.

 

I try to avoid getting crappy cameras, sometimes fail. They're sometimes cheap, but they don't make me cheerful. And some have been expensive disappointments. Good equipment is so much nicer.

 

Don't forget crappy lenses. I've had a pile of them, in fact I have some now, and never found anything endearing about them. Unusable, therefore uninteresting and definitely uncool.

 

Whenever a new used lens arrives and turns out to be a dud, I don't feel I've been blessed with an opportunity to be creative. I feel I've cursed myself by squandering money and been rewarded with a piece of junk that will thwart, not help, me.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[gene m]

Oh come on. Crappy cameras are cool, It's not all about sharpness and perfection. Each camera has its place. An Ancoflex ain't no Linhof but it has it's charms.<div></div>

[curt_saxton]

Oh come on Dan, not everyone owns or even wants to own Leica, Nikon, or Rollie. Some of us find just as much fun collecting and using everything from Argus to old Zeiss folders. If everyone had to conform to one or two ideals, there would only be three or four cameras ever discussed here. While I agree on receiving something from E*** that doesn't meet my expectations as being a bummer, I still take just as much joy from unwrapping my latest Yashica Electro GS or Fed as you might from receiving an M6 or Summitar. The point of collecting/using is diversity and we can't all collect the same thing. Where is the fun in that? Just my take anyway. Life is too short to be caught up in following the crowd, it's more interesting to march to a different drummer.

[gene m]

I unwrapped a beat up RediFlex last night. It was filthy but cleaned up nicely. I'll use it this weekend.

 

I've got "quality cameras" (Toyo views, Rolleiflexs' ertc.) and I love them but crappy cameras have a special place in my heart.

 

http://westfordcomp.com/classics/traveler.html

[lee_osborne]

I've got a Brownie Reflex Synchro Model - fabulous beast! It really looks the part. I don't use it much, as 127 film is both scarce and expensive, but it is a great looking thing, and takes some nice pictures. I took a really great one at night on Rhyl railway station in North Wales, with the camera wedged between my knees, and the shutter open for ten seconds. It came out remarkably well.

 

Crappy is great fun. I've just got a Holga!

 

Lee

[dan_fromm2]

Of course you're both right when you say that there's wide divergence in tastes. Variety is the spice of life. This is a great wide world with room for many, many. I'm baffled by your preferences, but as long as you're happy I'm happy. No kidding on any of these points. We don't agree completely and the wonderful thing is that we're all right.

 

I'm sorry to inform you that I don't have any German cameras to speak of. We won't mention the kaput Bessa 66 that I once bought on impulse for $20. I have only one German lens for out-and-about photography, a 38/4.5 Biogon, for which there are few substitutes. It isn't attached to a Swedish camera, I use it on a Century Graphic. Its a "classic," baujahr 1969.

 

I plead guilty to having Nikons, but they're relatively modern, as in I bought them new in the mid-80s. My wife bought hers in the mid-70s. Not classics by local standards, but certainly not plastic marvels of automation either.

 

I also have the crappiest of all crappy cameras, a plastic Lubitel. Sometimes the shutter works, sometimes it doesn't. The plastic Brownie I was given at the age of seven worked better, after I learned that its shutter fired on the up as well as the down stroke. Got some interesting double exposures before I learned what I was supposed to do. The Lubitel is too unreliable to use even for astounding on-lookers.

 

Do you two truly love cameras that function randomly? I'm sorry, but I can't do that.

 

I want the machinery to function as expected. And given the choice between mediocre and better than merely ok, I go for the better than merely ok.

 

I appreciate collecting anything at all, even Hits or low-end Instamatics. The collecting impulse is mysterious. But I just can't see using anything at all. Let's agree to respect each others' choices and go on disagreeing.

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[curt_saxton]

Hi Dan,

Sorry if it came out sounding like I was flaming you for your preference in cameras. I really didn't mean to, I just find that almost all cameras have at least one good point, so I had a hard time agreeing with your point of view. I'm not saying run out and shoot weddings with an Argus C3 or shoot assignments for National Geographic in the jungle with a Lubitel, I'm just saying that you can appreciate them for what they were intended for: lower priced cameras with less features for the masses. Obviously if you really need top optics, blazing shutter speeds and 100% reliability, so called "crappy cameras" may not be the wisest choice but if you were needing 100 % reliability, chances are you wouldn't be using anything old enough to qualify for this forum anyway. Personally I have a few over 540 in my collection (so far) with the bulk of them in user or average condition but I try and shoot with 1/week or so, weather and time permitting. Yesterday it was a Ciro 35 mm, today a Tower 57, and tomorrow a Lordomat. I don't expect to get the pictures I might with an SLR (I have 64 SLR's also) but I really enjoy just getting out there and using them rather than having them sit on a shelf. My shooting partner has several Nikons, a Nikon S2, 2 Leica lll's, and a top Olympus digital, but still gets a kick out of me plodding along with my old stuff. I respect your point of view and for yourself, it's probably the way to go, just for me I need something a little different in my camera bag once in a while. Again sorry to sound so jaded, I really enjoy reading your postings as well as everyone else's. We're all different and thank goodness for that or we'd have nothing to discuss. Enjoy yourselves and I hope to read all of you again. Curt in Canada.

[silent1]

One of my favorite cameras is in this category: my Ansco B2 Speedex Jr. Made around 1950, this 6x6 has fixed focus uncoated double meniscus, f/11 to f/32, I or T (true T, press once to open, again to close) with I about 1/25. It's a folder, similar (other than lens and shutter) to other Speedex models from the same time frame. It was the cheapest folder Ansco ever sold, AFAIK.

 

I find it moderately difficult to screw up a shot with this camera. Despite the slow shutter, I seldom have motion blur because it's so easy to hold steady. Everything from five feet or so on out is in acceptable focus, at least for small prints, and beyond about ten feet more than good enough to blow up a 35 mm size crop to 8x10, and the lens is good enough to count bricks on a small print at a half block or more distance.

 

The camera cost me $7 plus shipping on eBay, I've had to repair the shutter twice (once when I first got it), and I hope I never *don't* have a Speedex Jr. again.

[jim_nelson2]

A number of years ago I bought an Argus C-4 for five bucks at a yard sale. The question with C-3s or C-4s was always who made that particular "Cintar" lens, and just how awful was it? I ran one roll of film through it, and recall being surprised how nice the images were. Sort of wish I still had the beast. A post 70s (I think) crappy camera I also purchased at a yard sale was a very compact Yashica with no rangefinder. I think it set it's own shutter speeds (might have been an "ME" model). The images were no better than those one could obtain with a disposable camera.

 

Jim N

[dan_fromm2]

Hi, Curt, no need to apologize or backpedal. I wasn't feeling flamed, just a little misrepresented or misunderstood or something like that.

 

About 100% reliability, the Nikons I bought in '86 (replacements for some bought earlier that were stolen) and the one my wife bought used in '75 still have it. So do my Graphics. Aged cameras don't have to be prone to failure.

 

Top optics? Why not? These days they're not very expensive, and thanks to eBay trying things out can cost very little.

 

We haven't added a lens for our shared 35mm kit in ages, I think our oldest is a 24/2.8 Nikkor I bought in '72. The lenses we have for the Nikons do what we need them to, so there's no need to replace them.

 

My 2x3 kit's another matter, but most of its lenses are pre-'70. Zooms aside, lenses haven't got that much better since then. Yes, I know, the latest LF glass has more coverage than the older stuff, but I don't need that so not having it just doesn't matter much.

 

As we've agreed, there's no disputing tastes. That said, I'll always be puzzled by the people who prize 6x6 and 2x3 folders that weren't even very good when new. More power to them, and I'm glad they're happy, but what pleases them wouldn't please me. One Agfa folder (a Ventura 66 Deluxe) was enough for me. One Voightlander floder (a kaput Bessa 66, nice artifact and sooo small, sooo elegant) was enough. On the other hand, many people see my small Graphics as ugly ducklings that will grow up, if they're allowed to live that long, to be ugly ducks.

 

You must have an amazing heap of equipment. So many cameras to choose among! How do you maintain equipment proficiency? How do you even keep track of them?

 

Cheers,

 

Dan

[curt_saxton]

Hi Dan,

I do have a bit of a storage problem for all my goodies and from time to time I have to resort to the old Ronsonol to loosen a shutter or two as I find it too easy to forget to exercise the shutters on some of my oldies. I have a 4x5 Anniversary Speed Graphic myself but haven't used it much since the bellows developed a small tear. I had a chance to buy another with the full kit and kaboodle (tripod included) for $60.00 Can. last summer and passed on the chance as I wasn't sure I'd ever use it enough. Still kicking myself for that one. As far as keeping track, that's relatively easy since I list everything that I buy in a spiral book as soon as it enters the house.