OLD Cameras! Post here what you have or vaguely remember!
 

Take-off from this snark-thread post:

I had one of these when I was a kid! My mom bought it years before I was born, and gave it to me when I was about 10 or so. I took a class in film developing and set up a darkroom in my closet. I found one of these at a garage sale in my late teens, and did some pictures with it, then developed and printed 'em.

If this thread takes off, I'll have more to say.

Oooh! I LOVE this shit!

My first was a Polaroid! Stinky B+W film

Next, Dad ceded me his 4x4 "Baby" Rollei 4x4 negs on 127 rolls

And a Kodak PONY IV 35mm

That was the 60s.

I'll post my darkroom of the late 70s/early 80s and a few more cameras in a bit...

I actually had one of those, too. Specifically, one of these. I put it in the trash a few weeks ago. I'll probably come to regret that. I have been tossing Polaroid Batteries since I was a kid.

Shit. I picked one of those up at a garage sale and actually used it. They're actually pretty good. They beat the shit out of my Brownie.

Looking forward to it...

Throw down your oldest camera. Shit's gonna get REAL!

I just remembered a pic I faked. I made it for Andy. It was a one-off. I took pic of my family, and left a space front/center. Then I put him in that space from another pic. I did it in the darkroom. It's really easy (and fun) to fake pictures. Faking them digitally is even easier.

Lessee--I inherited a Zeiss Ikon, probably mid '50s era, from my grandfather. Impossible to find film for it by the mid '80s so I ended up selling it to a local camera store for like fifty bucks. The leather bellows was in incredibly good shape, it was a nice item but not terribly practical.

Looked pretty much like this:

https://c2.staticflickr.com/4/3779/9...4b2f6cae_b.jpg

I made a shoebox camera in elementary school, that was fun!

Then I had a Kodak Instamatic, pretty much the middle one in this stack, that took me through high school.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2517/...f04ca1fd69.jpg

Then in college I got a real honest to gosh 35mm, a Fujica that I don't remember the exact model but it looked pretty much like this one. It had the viewfinder mirror assembly go tits up and would have cost more than the thing was worth to fix it, assuming the parts could be found.

http://collectiblend.com/Cameras/ima...ica-ST-705.jpg

In the late '90s I early adopted digital with a Casio QV-10, which was a gigantic 320 x 480 pixel resolution and cost almost $400. It was the shit, though, and I sure impressed people with my nifty toy.

https://2.img-dpreview.com/files/p/T...01.jpeg?v=3826

Next I need to get a digital SLR because I have a really hard time framing a shot with them itty bitty screens any more. I need me a viewfinder. I've been using various camera phones and waterproof digitals since then but they're really hard to get the lighting right and make sure I'm getting the shot.

My first camera, given to me by an aunt when i decided to join the photography class at my high school, was a late-model Kodak Retina rangefinder camera.

I'm not sure exactly which model it was, and it's years since i had it, but the closest i can find in my internet searching is the Retina IIIs.

https://www.cameraquest.com/jpg6/Ret3s01.jpg

It was definitely an interchangeable-lens camera, and i had three lenses for it. It also lacked the lens "door" that characterized a lot of the earlier "folding" Retina series cameras.

In fact, the linked page says that "The IIIS was the first and only non-folding Retina Rangefinder with interchangeable lenses," so this MUST be the camera i had.

Oldest I have in my house, a 1914 to 1927 Kodak No 1A Autographic Jr

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...c_Kodak_Jr.jpg

Oldest I still use from time to time, an Agfa Isolette 120 roll film folder. Early 50s vintage.

http://www.collection-appareils.fr/a...solette_II.jpg


My oldest DSLR: Nikon D300 (not s) from around 2010

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._D300_Body.jpg

I have a Kodak bellows 620 cam in the basement (8 shots, 2.25 x 3.25" negs). Not sure of the model number, but I think it was called a "tourist." It was pretty upscale at the time (1942) -- shutter speed, focus and aperture are all adjustable. f4.5 lens, 1/500 shutter, blind focus, 2 viewfinders. I understand 620 film can be had again now, and I'm tempted to try it, but I'm not sure how the film would be developed. I could do it myself, maybe -- I've done hundreds of rolls in the past.

And I still have a Polaroid SX-70. Should work, and again, I understand you can get fresh film, although anything like that or the 620 stock is pretty expensive, especially when you compare it to a digital image on my digital phone.

Until an uncle cleaned out the family basement, my favorite old camera was made around 1900, and was a 4x5 glass plate "changer", that is, it could hold about 8-10 plates, and by turning a crank, an exposed plate would drop down and reveal a fresh one behind it. How it avoided exposing the wrong ones, I don't know. I think this cam was used by my mother's family ca. 1910, and I still have several boxes of developed glass plates that they took of the Lake Mendota area near Madison. There are no buildings around the lake in these images, but Madison has grown up, and now, there are no areas without buildings. Might be interesting to see if someone could compare 110yo images with today.

I lurved my Olympus OM-2, which I think is the best SLR ever made. I had friends who swore by Nikon or the Canon F1, but the OM-2 was just so friggin nimble. I also loved how both aperture and exposure time was at the front. No screwing around on the right hand top.

On Christmas, 1960, my oldest brother got a cheap plastic box camera (620 film). Several years later he gave it to me. So that was my first. Several years later I bought my first camera, a cheap Instamatic.

I have a good SLR, but it's been years since I've used it.

I still have a D50 sitting (ca. 2006) in my cupboard somewhere. Kept meaning to sell it, but never got around to it. I doubt it's worth anything now, but i might see if the local YMCA wants it for their youth group or something.

My first digital camera was a Minaolta Dimage 7i "prosumer" model. I really liked the camera, but what i noticed most about the shift to digital was how slow the autofocus was. I was very happy when i was able to move up to a DSLR.
Great camera. Never had one myself, but played with one a few times, and was always very impressed with the handling.

My first camera was a Canon Ae-1, by the time it died, you could tip it back and forth and hear Ssssshhhh, Sssshhhh like a rain stick. When I bought Action Shots, it came with a bunch of OM-1's and OM-2's I shot my first bike race from inside a tent, in pouring rain. I had, like, six bodies and one lens. I hired a freind to do nothing but manually wind film. I'd spin off the lens set down the body, spin the lens onto another body and kept going.

Later, we got Nikons with power winders, I got to be a gunslinger at rapid film changes. I don't recall the model numbers. Then, we got into digital with a pair of Nikon D-1's at $4500 each.

Even later, we switched to Canons, because the Nikon CCDs tended to impart a green cast, which is bad news in Red Rock country.

I had one of each of those! I used to buy cameras at garage sales and use the fuckers. Had my own darkroom in my closet, after all, so I could actually use just about anything. 50 cents? Deal. Take it home and make it work.

The big one in the first picture I had to cut photo paper to fit, but I got an actual picture out of it. Only one, and it was a negative, and I couldn't actually print it, but... Hey... it worked.

Really??? Where? I tossed mine because I couldn't get film for it. It would suck to find out I tossed it prematurely.

My family had something like this that was used until the bulbs could not be bought anymore. Blue round bulbs. Sometimes instead of a flash there would be fireworks. The bulbs were hot enough to burn after they were used!
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...8f95144145.jpg

Then one with silver cube flashbulbs. When the bulbs were used up a person could pull out a ribbon of silver shiny and decorate things with it. There were craft ideas in magazines for them, they were that cool.https://c2.staticflickr.com/6/5082/5...81073988_z.jpg

When I was 20some I got a flat black Kodak I was so proud of. Picture huge so hidden.

https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com...8ddacea238.jpg

But the best was a faded red plastic box with ridges on top and no flash, and a black plastic wrist strap I chewed through. I can't even find a picture of it. I am still not sure how it took pictures. It was just an empty box with a film winder and a tiny lens. <3 I think we found it in a house we moved to. No-one else wanted it and I loved it because no-one bothered me when I used it - and I got decent pics with it!

Well, it's not really "old", but in my grandma's never-ending quest for an "easy to use" camera, she ended up buying one of those horrible Kodak Disc cameras back in the early 80s. The pictures were terrible, which is not surprising, given the negatives were 10x8mm. But the worst thing was that camera was designed in such a way that by holding it, one of grandma's fingers was always in the picture. No joke: if my grandma took 1,000 pictures with that camera, her left index finger appeared in 950 of them!

As for me, I had no telling how many of those cheap plastic drugstore cameras (that always used some odd film format). I then moved up to an inexpensive 110 camera, then a Minolta SLR, which I still have (but haven't used in 20 years). My first digital was an awful HP camera that literally ate AA batteries. Funny thing is I now own a Sony W800 P&S, and the old HP absolutely spanks the Sony when it comes to "challenging" pictures. Yeah, the 20MP Sony takes much better pictures than the 4MP HP on a bright, sunny day... outside. The Sony is also much more compact and has a decent built-in battery that lasts for hours. But once you try taking pics at concerts, or inside dimly-lit cathedrals in France, the Sony fails miserably, while the HP took quite decent shots in such circumstances. I had good seats for an outdoor concert this summer. I was mostly interested in the second band, who went on when it was still full daylight outside. I brought the Sony camera and took almost 300 pictures. Every one of them suck - I was only able to find 3-4 that were good enough for Facebook. I also took some pictures with my $85 cell phone... which were uniformly much better than the Sony pics!

Oldest owned: Kodak 2A Folding Autographic Brownie (1917 - 1926).

Oldest still used: 4x5 Speed Graphic - the original point and shoot camera. Mine is an Anniversary model from 1946.

Oldest 35mm still used: Leica IIIf black dial (1950-1953). Quite small and pocketable with the collapsible lens.

Assorted FED and Zorki copies of the Leica. Still fun little cameras.

Most used: Olympus OM-1n MD (1979 version - no pentaprism goop).

Numerous oddball cameras like the Mercury - a half-frame 35mm with a rotating disk shutter.

https://static.bhphoto.com/images/im...459_105697.jpg

https://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/produ...hoCSKcQAvD_BwE

Beseler 23C-II XL Dual Dichro with Nikkor 50/2.8 and Rodenstock 65mm, lots of Nikor developer stuff, a color meter, Cibachrome tubes, GraLab timers, and all sorts of other stuff.

I never did buy that cold light head, but I had access to a Beseler 45 with one at a part time I held, they let me use it after hours.

How old IS this thread?

Screwed up quoting.

I could never take portraits with that. i would keep cutting heads off.

I had Stormie's Kodak Instamatic x-15 and later the more rarefied x-35, both of them using 126 cartridge film.