Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
Im not into this, but I know a chap who has a few. I think a Leika, some Praktika stuff, and most interestingly a Minox spy camera. I'll try and get some pics when im next up his end.
Vintage cameras
- Thread starter Ludwig
- Start date
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Minox was a genuine spy camera but all the ones I saw were civillian. The leash is sized to measure the correct distance for photocopying documents.
Drago
Legendary Member
- Location
- Suburban Poshshire
The one my friend has is a pukka spy one. It has the clamp and frame for holding it at the correct distance for photographing documents. Just been googling them - and 85 year old design, although they still look pretty modern to my eye.
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
Oh dear, where to start... 
Got all sorts of stuff from 1920s boxes to those mini bellows jobbies, rangefinders, a plethora of old japanese, soviet and east german SLRs, assorted compacts in 110, 126 and 35mm formats, as well as my own Canon Eos 5 SLR and 10D and 1D mk2 DSLRs that I bought new, plus a range of good quality glass. And my little stick-it-in-my-handbag IXUS 60 that I picked up in CEX for a tenner.
Can a girl have too many cameras?
My 10D has issues with the flash shoe, and isn't worth fixing. The 1D mk2 is 15 years old and still takes banging photos that can be printed to A3 without any issues. At typical print size, it would still hold its own against much newer bodies. Where it does fall flat on compared to the current generation of DSLRs is its low light performance.
Got all sorts of stuff from 1920s boxes to those mini bellows jobbies, rangefinders, a plethora of old japanese, soviet and east german SLRs, assorted compacts in 110, 126 and 35mm formats, as well as my own Canon Eos 5 SLR and 10D and 1D mk2 DSLRs that I bought new, plus a range of good quality glass. And my little stick-it-in-my-handbag IXUS 60 that I picked up in CEX for a tenner.
Can a girl have too many cameras?
My 10D has issues with the flash shoe, and isn't worth fixing. The 1D mk2 is 15 years old and still takes banging photos that can be printed to A3 without any issues. At typical print size, it would still hold its own against much newer bodies. Where it does fall flat on compared to the current generation of DSLRs is its low light performance.
Hover Fly
Lazy so and so
- Location
- Besides the lake, beneath the trees
I have an Ihagee: Auto-Ultrix that came from my mother’s side of the family I still like to use, and had one or two photos taken with it published. Some of the very early pictures taken with it were of her cousins in the early days of the RAF, standing by the cockpits of their planes, looking heroic .
mustang1
Guru
- Location
- London, UK
My two favourites cameras are Nikon D40 and a Casio Something (looks like a cybershot kind of body). Both from the mid-2000s.
I bought the Casio in NY from a small store that sold "stuff". I got a 2nd battery, mini tripod, a couple of memory cards and I used it loads.
When I was ready to get an SLR, I was thinking of Nikon D40 or Canon Whatever_the_equivalent was. The Canon had 10MP and a bunch more features yet was the same price as the Nikon. But when I held both cameras side by side, I knew I would get the Nikon. I then bought a Nikon D...uhm... something because the D7100 wasn't in stock and I just had to have a camera. A week later I bought the D7100 as well.
The Casio, D40, D7100 have been my favourite cameras (especially the former two as I used them to photograph loads of fun things that were going on in my life at that time). I also had a Kodak Uhm... (the one where you pull the handle out) which was £16.99 from Argos back in the early 1980s which I also liked a lot even though I did not know much about photography back then (though, the more you know, the more you realize you dont know that much).
Edit: after reading @MichaelW2 's D5300, I realized it was the 5300 I bought the week before the D7100.
I bought the Casio in NY from a small store that sold "stuff". I got a 2nd battery, mini tripod, a couple of memory cards and I used it loads.
When I was ready to get an SLR, I was thinking of Nikon D40 or Canon Whatever_the_equivalent was. The Canon had 10MP and a bunch more features yet was the same price as the Nikon. But when I held both cameras side by side, I knew I would get the Nikon. I then bought a Nikon D...uhm... something because the D7100 wasn't in stock and I just had to have a camera. A week later I bought the D7100 as well.
The Casio, D40, D7100 have been my favourite cameras (especially the former two as I used them to photograph loads of fun things that were going on in my life at that time). I also had a Kodak Uhm... (the one where you pull the handle out) which was £16.99 from Argos back in the early 1980s which I also liked a lot even though I did not know much about photography back then (though, the more you know, the more you realize you dont know that much).
Edit: after reading @MichaelW2 's D5300, I realized it was the 5300 I bought the week before the D7100.
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My Nikon D5300 is a descendant of the D40 but the pixel count went from 6 to 21 gigamegs of pixel.
The cheaper Nikon APS sized dslr handle nicely for me and take good photos. The lens support of smaller APS sized lenses is poor but you can use bigger full frame lenses.
They lack the autofocus calibration of higher end models so if your lens and camera are a poor match there isnt much you can do.
The cheaper Nikon APS sized dslr handle nicely for me and take good photos. The lens support of smaller APS sized lenses is poor but you can use bigger full frame lenses.
They lack the autofocus calibration of higher end models so if your lens and camera are a poor match there isnt much you can do.
raleighnut
Legendary Member
- Location
- One of the 'Elite'
Olympus Mju 11 here as a 'travel cam' when I couldn't be bothered to take my big Pentax rig.
mustang1
Guru
- Location
- London, UK
I've always fancied a full-frame camera but dislike the size of them and I'm not much into micro-4/3 stuff (odd clicky sound when taking photo). My favourite lens is my cheapest one: Nikor 35mm prime and connected to the D7100 (I realliy like the physical buttons on it). I actually used the 5300 a couple of days ago and forgot how to use it!
Talking of physical buttons, that's one thing I hate about phone cameras...
Reynard
Guru
- Location
- Cambridgeshire, UK
I have one of those. A cracking little camera - absolutely pin-sharp images.
Picked it up on a jumble sale for 50p. And it took much better photos than the Pentax P&S with all the modes and functions that my dad bought about the same time. It was that Pentax that drove me to get my Eos5 SLR - forgot the number of times I wanted to throw that camera into a hedge because it wouldn't do what I wanted it to do. Always a day late and a dollar short, that Pentax...
Mind, when it came to photography, my dad was one of those "all the gear and no idea" kind of people.
Hover Fly
Lazy so and so
- Location
- Besides the lake, beneath the trees
ericmark
Senior Member
- Location
- Llanfair Caereinion, Mid Wales.
I have one like this
my dad bought it for 6d in Germany as the war ended, I thought it was something special, but seems rather common and worthless. The way the lens could be moved to take pictures of building without the normal distortion was interesting but can't get the film any more, so little pointless keeping.
Most my stuff was late 70's early 80's, I ended up with a Ricoh with Pentax K lenses which kept going wrong, and I gave up for years, then restarted with a Pentax K10D which still used the old lenses. Then got sisters Nikon D7000.
The problem with the old cameras is can't get cheap film any more, 35 mm still around, but so expensive now, so gone total digital.
The other is processing the film, dodging and burning is an art with film cameras. And colour processing was expensive, so I ended up with black and white as did not have the kit to do colour, did at one point move to slides and a slide copier, but today went out on my bike, took some photos and can publish already.
To have done that with film would have been very time consuming and expensive, may be not everyone's cup of tea, many don't like tone mapping and combining monochrome and colour, or the vignette, however it would have taken hours to do that with film.
Most my stuff was late 70's early 80's, I ended up with a Ricoh with Pentax K lenses which kept going wrong, and I gave up for years, then restarted with a Pentax K10D which still used the old lenses. Then got sisters Nikon D7000.
The problem with the old cameras is can't get cheap film any more, 35 mm still around, but so expensive now, so gone total digital.
The other is processing the film, dodging and burning is an art with film cameras. And colour processing was expensive, so I ended up with black and white as did not have the kit to do colour, did at one point move to slides and a slide copier, but today went out on my bike, took some photos and can publish already.
To have done that with film would have been very time consuming and expensive, may be not everyone's cup of tea, many don't like tone mapping and combining monochrome and colour, or the vignette, however it would have taken hours to do that with film.
