Camera Collection
Look around this site and you'll see how much I love photography and how much it has become an integral part of my life as well as part of chronicalizing all that I experience. For over the past 10 years, I've been learning, teaching, lab teching and experimenting with photography, but it has only been recently that I've taken a concentrated effort to learn and use all different kinds of cameras. I was traditionally taught on a fully-manual 35mm SLR camera with a light meter - for the life of me I can't remember which Sears model camera I carried around in high school, but lets just say I've gone quite a far way from then.
What I'm planning to do with this page is to showcase what cameras I'm currently using and what kind of end product I'm getting out with them, why I like each camera as well as a listing of either broken cameras I've got or ones I haven't tried out yet. I've got quite a few examples of my work with some of my oddball cameras over in my gallery, but with each camera I'll have a link to its respective body of work. As I say with all the pages on this site, this is a work in progress - probably one I'll never finish, especially with how often I get new cameras, but nonetheless, enjoy.
35mm Film Cameras ~ 120mm Film Cameras ~ Half Frame 35mm Cameras ~ Digital Cameras
Minolta Maxxum 70 - this is my main 35mm cameras these days. I was one of those sad inidividuals that pretty much blindly bought into Minolta within their last few months of business, completely unaware in but a few short months I'd be unable to get new gear for my cameras and have to rely on third-party lenses as well as used equipment. That being said, I haven't been hurting at all with this camera - it's proven to be an excellent workhorse and basically 95% of all my 35mm pictures have been taken with this camera in the last three years. No need to show examples of work, as most of my non-digital work is compromised of mostly end-product from this camera. I suffered through almost a full year of having this camera before I got a new lens for it - somehow managing to work with the basic 28-100mm that the camera came with. The second lens was a 28-300 Tamron f/3.5-5.6. Nice, inexpensive second lens that I have yet had much of any complaints against. The third lens, bought in the spring of 2007, is a Minolta 50mm f/1.8 - a gorgeous lens and probably my favorite yet - those extra couple of stops on the aperture truly do help out in making exquisite shots.
Argus C4 - Examples of work - this is currently my one and only rangefinder camera and it is one of my favorite cameras out of the bunch. Over 50 years old, this camera has exquisite style, built well and sturdy and yet is still extremely compact and light. Never left home on long trips, this camera's lens has something about it that just makes the pictures glow and have a style that more modern cameras, like the Minolta, just plain don't have. A garage sale find of my mother-in-law's, this exquisite example of what I'd have to call a late art deco design has found a place in my heart. Although I do have to admit the shutter is a bit slow both in accuracy and in options, I still love this camera. I'm hoping to manage to master this camera and have even more examples online soon enough.
Pentax ME Super - My wife just recently (July 2007) picked this one up for me and I haven't had the opportunity to play with it nearly as much as I was hoping to. I suppose the best aspect of this camera is the amazing deal I got on it - The body with three lenses: a 50mm f/2, 135mm f/3.5 and a 70-210mm as well as a 2x teleconvertor - and a cleaning kit, a manual flash as well as a power winder - all for $40! Talk about the find of a century. Nonetheless - I love the way that this camera feels in my hand - unlike some of the older modern 35mm cameras, this one is by far the least bulky model I've ever held - it's simply as light as a feather! We'll see in the coming weeks if the good karma continues and we get good shots out of it!
More to come later - I've got quite a few.
Seagull Twin Lens (no model number) - Ever since I first picked up a Holga, I've always been interested in medium format cameras - and I can't imagine a time that I wasn't fascinated by the old style twin lens cameras that were so popular back in the late 60's and 70's and are typically featured in any movie where the main character is a stereotypical "photographer". Although not known for its exquisite quality, Seagull Twin Lenses are extremely cheap and easily accessable to even the most novice of photographers. After dreading spending hundreds to thousands on one, I found this beauty down in Anchorage for only $100. Sure it doesn't have a light meter, sure right now I have no idea why it's decided to flip 1/15th of a second with 1 second exposure and neither does anyone that I talk to about it - but heck, for the price it's definately worth it. For the experience that I get with a camera format that relitively few photographers use - especially since the digital age explosion, it's worth it. And above all else, albeit annoying, I do slightly enjoy it every time I get a "wow you've got a nice camera there" because to most of the public anything that doesn't look like an SLR or a PnS must be amazingly expensive or old, thus the reservation of the "nice" adjective.
More to come later. I do have a Argus Argoflex and 2 Brownie Hawkeyes as well. Must get pictures of all these cameras!
Ricoh Auto-Half - I managed to find this beauty in Santa Rosa, California in January of 2007 and have loved it ever since. I'm always very stingy with my film - always concerned that I'm wasting film on a casual shot that could easily suffice on digital and then curse myself when I get in the darkroom because I don't have a copy of it to print out - this camera has been my saving grace for casual quick snapshots - and to boot, it adds a bit of style to the pictures taken with it. These types of cameras are extremely hard to find in Alaska but are apparently pretty plentiful other places. I'll have to admit, before getting this camera, I hadn't ever heard of Half Frame Cameras - now I'm grabbing up every one I can find. This model in particular has a mechanical winder to automatically advance the film after each frame is clicked - it has a rudimentary light meter that keenly shows red (not enough light) or yellow (enough light) while on automatic. You are able to alter the aperture settings slightly but the light meter won't tell you how that effects your exposure - but you do have the capability to change it from 2.8-22. Fixed lens at 25mm and a timer rounds out the rest of the features - and to be honest, it's a fully capable little camera and well worth the $28 I spent on it at an antique store. If you ever want a cute little camera to make awesome 5x7 prints with - these half frames are perfect!
More to come later, I do also have a Samurai x3.0 25-75mm that I need to get pictures of. Problem with having so many cameras - people want to borrow them!
Work Under Progress. Please bear with me.