A 35mm camera/lenses with lots of character??

[Ian Grant]

You can find shortish FL projection Petzval lenses at low prices, mount them on some bellows and you can use with an SLR.

Ian

 

[Kirks518]

A great lens for swirly is the Biotar. It's sort of the same lens as the Helios, but it's the original.

If money isn't an object, trioplan - bubble bokeh. Beautiful IMO.

 

[mrjr]

I'm a big wide/ultrawide guy, and I'm a huge fan of the Vivitar Ultra Wide and Slim (which was also reincarnated as the Superheadz Wide and Slim). It's a tiny, cheap plastic camera with a 22mm f11 plastic lens.

Fabulous vignette. Spills light brilliantly in areas of high contrast. I'm impossibly in love with it. You'll want something else for shallow DoF effects, but this camera ought to be in your bag as well.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Speaking of wide WideLux 7F or 8F uses 35mm film and print a negative that is 24mm x 59mm.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widelux

http://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Wideluxhttp://camera-wiki.org/wiki/Widelux