Cameras you don't click with.

[KerrKid]

For me….

Pentax Zoom 90WR. I have two. Couldn’t resist a bargain. They are still stupid cheap on eBay. Supposed to be a great camera but I have yet to put a roll of film through them. They are like holding a blob of black plastic and have no personality.

Pentax 928M. They are selling now for twice what I paid for mine but, meh. It, too, has no personality and feels like a fat plastic bar of soap that should stop working any minute.

Pentax KM. Supposedly a great camera and often overlooked compared to the K1000. Dunno. Somehow it just isn’t “friendly” and I don’t have any overwhelming desire to hold or use it.

Yashica T4 Super D. I rarely use this camera even though it produces good pictures. It has no personality and isn’t worth anywhere near what they’re charging for them these days.

 

[madNbad]

Hassleblads. I’ve owned two and didn’t miss them when they were sold. Loud, finicky and everything is way too expensive.

 

[Craig]

Hassleblads. I’ve owned two and didn’t miss them when they were sold. Loud, finicky and everything is way too expensive.

Same for me. Had one and sold it after a year. Awkward to hold and use and the one I had was a shop queen.

 

[mshchem]

I love my blads. Never had any real problems. Can't let them sit.

I don't use my ginormous Deardorff 11x14 enough.

 

[mshchem]

11x14 Folmer and Schwing

 

[flavio81]

Olympus OM-1: Shutter speed control in the wrong place, flimsy film advance mechanics, gimmicky screen that is too big to be useful. And the worst part is the owners -- they're part of a horrible Koolaid-drinking club that thinks this is the ultimate camera system.

Olympus Pen F (pictured):

A candidate for the worst SLR camera ever. Horrible mechanics, horrible shutter (reflective!), horrible porroprism finder optics. I pity the technicians that have to work on them. Ugly big "F" letter on their front fascia probably means "F--k you", a message from Mr. Yosihisa Maitaini to mankind.

Olympus OM lenses: Made with "compactness" as priority #1 above all, which means compromised on everything else.

Olympus 35SP: Meter can't be turned off, not even placing a cap on the lens. Loooong shutter button travel and the loudest leaf shutter ever put on a compact camera.
Do you see a pattern here? But some of my favorite cameras are Olympus: Trip 35, Pen S, Pen W.

Nikon F3. Lol. It could have been a great machine. I could write a book on all that's wrong on that camera. I've already written enough here.

Nikon FM2/FE2: The fact that they don't take pre-AI lenses, while their predecessors could, is an insult from Nikon towards its fanbase.

Nikon FM: The FE is a superior camera in every respect.

Nikon EM: It's ergonomically superb, however very poorly made.

Canon EF. Horrible ergonomics due to the stupid ON-OFF switch, and if you don't turn the camera off, the batteries will drain.

Canon T50: Ugly crap.

Prakticas with the vertical shutter: Shutter has very strong vibrations.

Rollei 35: Great optics and cute looking, but a camera for masochists. Controls completely awkward and whichever distance you set into focus will promptly be resetted as soon as you put it into your pocket.

Leica M system: If I had the money for such a system i'd be buying a Mamiya 7 instead.

Contax RTS: Glorified Yashica. I'd buy a Yashica FR instead. Which is a nice camera (!)

Mamiya TLR system: Most of the interesting lenses are very slow and/or throw the camera off-balance.

Mamiya M645: Bronica does it better.

Hasseblad 500C series: Bronica does it better.

 

[GCShootsFilm]

Bronica SQ-A for me. I loved the quality of the images, but the form factor of the camera drove me nuts.

 

[guangong]

Leica R cameras. Why? Battery dependent.
Also at the top of the list...Minox 35mm cameras. Great exterior design but mine always seemed to die at the wrong time and eat batteries.On the other hand, Minox 8x11 camera’s rugged and dependable.

 

[Sirius Glass]

I love my Hasselblads too, but you would never guess that. Every three months, per the advice of my Hasselblad repairman, I take each lens and fire it at 1 second fifteen to twenty times. He advised that for all camera shutters, but I schedule the shutter exercise for 1 January, 1 April, 1 July, 1 September.

 

[Kodachromeguy]

I am having trouble warming up to my Kodak Retina IIa. My fingers don't fall onto the right places. Great lens, precise, compact, perfect film advance, but it (I ?) doesn't fit. The lens is a coated 6-element Xenon - very nice.

 

[Craig]

Nikon FM: The FE is a superior camera in every respect.

I don't like the FE because the film advamce lever needs to be pulled out to turn the camera on and unlock it. Since I'm left eyed, that pokes me in the eye and made the camera basically unusable.

 

[Huss]

Leica R cameras. Why? Battery dependent.
Also at the top of the list...Minox 35mm cameras. Great exterior design but mine always seemed to die at the wrong time and eat batteries.On the other hand, Minox 8x11 camera’s rugged and dependable.

R6 is not battery dependant.

Personally I have greater issues with film cameras being film dependent than battery dependent. Never had an issue sourcing batteries, and they last a long time. But many films have had, and still have, a serious supply line issue.

 

[Huss]

Olympus OM-1: Shutter speed control in the wrong place, flimsy film advance mechanics, gimmicky screen that is too big to be useful. And the worst part is the owners -- they're part of a horrible Koolaid-drinking club that thinks this is the ultimate camera system.

Olympus Pen F (pictured):

View attachment 324605
A candidate for the worst SLR camera ever. Horrible mechanics, horrible shutter (reflective!), horrible porroprism finder optics. I pity the technicians that have to work on them. Ugly big "F" letter on their front fascia probably means "F--k you", a message from Mr. Yosihisa Maitaini to mankind.

Olympus OM lenses: Made with "compactness" as priority #1 above all, which means compromised on everything else.

Olympus 35SP: Meter can't be turned off, not even placing a cap on the lens. Loooong shutter button travel and the loudest leaf shutter ever put on a compact camera.
Do you see a pattern here? But some of my favorite cameras are Olympus: Trip 35, Pen S, Pen W.

Nikon F3. Lol. It could have been a great machine. I could write a book on all that's wrong on that camera. I've already written enough here.

Nikon FM2/FE2: The fact that they don't take pre-AI lenses, while their predecessors could, is an insult from Nikon towards its fanbase.

Nikon FM: The FE is a superior camera in every respect.

Nikon EM: It's ergonomically superb, however very poorly made.

Canon EF. Horrible ergonomics due to the stupid ON-OFF switch, and if you don't turn the camera off, the batteries will drain.

Canon T50: Ugly crap.

Prakticas with the vertical shutter: Shutter has very strong vibrations.

Rollei 35: Great optics and cute looking, but a camera for masochists. Controls completely awkward and whichever distance you set into focus will promptly be resetted as soon as you put it into your pocket.

Leica M system: If I had the money for such a system i'd be buying a Mamiya 7 instead.

Contax RTS: Glorified Yashica. I'd buy a Yashica FR instead. Which is a nice camera (!)

Mamiya TLR system: Most of the interesting lenses are very slow and/or throw the camera off-balance.

Mamiya M645: Bronica does it better.

Hasseblad 500C series: Bronica does it better.

Nikon F3 - so terrible it was adopted by pros all over the world and was in production for over 20 years.

Leica M - complaint is can’t afford it but if could would get something else that you can’t afford.

 

[Huss]

For me….

Pentax Zoom 90WR. I have two. Couldn’t resist a bargain. They are still stupid cheap on eBay. Supposed to be a great camera but I have yet to put a roll of film through them. They are like holding a blob of black plastic and have no personality.

Pentax 928M. They are selling now for twice what I paid for mine but, meh. It, too, has no personality and feels like a fat plastic bar of soap that should stop working any minute.

Pentax KM. Supposedly a great camera and often overlooked compared to the K1000. Dunno. Somehow it just isn’t “friendly” and I don’t have any overwhelming desire to hold or use it.

Yashica T4 Super D. I rarely use this camera even though it produces good pictures. It has no personality and isn’t worth anywhere near what they’re charging for them these days.

All the cheap P&S cameras feel like squeaky blobs of plastic. But force yourself to shoot a roll of film through that Pentax and check out the results.

 

[Huss]

I think the point of this thread is not to air grievances of cameras that you have not actually owned and/or used, but to those mention those that you have!

I didn’t like my Kodak Retina SLR - the one w the wind mechanism on the base plate. Everything seemed in the wrong place and backwards.

Didn’t like my Moscva 5 - after a couple of pics it became literally painful to use. Advance mechanism was very heavy and the focusing was not reliable with vague framing.

Absolutely hated my Widelux F7 and F8. Bought them because The Dood used them and made super pics. But then I realized one reason that his pics were so interesting was because he was able to take pics on set while he was filming his movies. The handling of those cameras were about the worst I’ve experienced, severely limited feature set compared to the infinitely better Noblexes and Horizons, terrible viewing, unreliable. Upside - made money on them when I sold them.

Couldn’t stand my Kiev and Zorki rf cameras - they just made you want to get a better job so you could afford something from Japan or Western Europe. The Fed was ok. Lubitel 166 was garbage too. A super lens that gave unique images wrapped in a camera body that could not focus w any degree of accuracy, and a film advance mechanism that failed after 3 rolls.

Olympus Mju 3.5 - mash in the shutter button, camera would take a pic when it decided it wanted to. insane prices for those little black turds nowadays.

Bessa R3a - just felt clanky and agricultural to use, very weak plastic gear film drive mechanism, with vf readouts that washed out in daylight. More expensive than many Leica Ms nowadays which is nuts.

Zeiss Ikon ZM - ballyhooed as better than a Leica M7. As long as you ignore the flaring finder, the invisible in daylight led readouts, the rf patch that does not move with the frame lines when you focus, the delicate film transport mechanism and the soft metal build. Now same money as an M4…

Lomo LC-A 120. I actually loved this camera but they break. Real quick. Shutter failures. $450 and they last maybe 10 rolls. With two that I had. This camera can give such awesome results that if they charge $1000 for it and it was reliable, I would have one for ever.

Nikon F - looks cool but when you then use an F2 you think, oh yeah, this is much better. Sold off my Fs.

 

[KerrKid]

Olympus OM-1: Shutter speed control in the wrong place, flimsy film advance mechanics, gimmicky screen that is too big to be useful. And the worst part is the owners -- they're part of a horrible Koolaid-drinking club that thinks this is the ultimate camera system.

Olympus Pen F (pictured):

View attachment 324605
A candidate for the worst SLR camera ever. Horrible mechanics, horrible shutter (reflective!), horrible porroprism finder optics. I pity the technicians that have to work on them. Ugly big "F" letter on their front fascia probably means "F--k you", a message from Mr. Yosihisa Maitaini to mankind.

Olympus OM lenses: Made with "compactness" as priority #1 above all, which means compromised on everything else.

Olympus 35SP: Meter can't be turned off, not even placing a cap on the lens. Loooong shutter button travel and the loudest leaf shutter ever put on a compact camera.
Do you see a pattern here? But some of my favorite cameras are Olympus: Trip 35, Pen S, Pen W.

Nikon F3. Lol. It could have been a great machine. I could write a book on all that's wrong on that camera. I've already written enough here.

Nikon FM2/FE2: The fact that they don't take pre-AI lenses, while their predecessors could, is an insult from Nikon towards its fanbase.

Nikon FM: The FE is a superior camera in every respect.

Nikon EM: It's ergonomically superb, however very poorly made.

Canon EF. Horrible ergonomics due to the stupid ON-OFF switch, and if you don't turn the camera off, the batteries will drain.

Canon T50: Ugly crap.

Prakticas with the vertical shutter: Shutter has very strong vibrations.

Rollei 35: Great optics and cute looking, but a camera for masochists. Controls completely awkward and whichever distance you set into focus will promptly be resetted as soon as you put it into your pocket.

Leica M system: If I had the money for such a system i'd be buying a Mamiya 7 instead.

Contax RTS: Glorified Yashica. I'd buy a Yashica FR instead. Which is a nice camera (!)

Mamiya TLR system: Most of the interesting lenses are very slow and/or throw the camera off-balance.

Mamiya M645: Bronica does it better.

Hasseblad 500C series: Bronica does it better.

LMAO. That’s so good.

 

[gone]

There is not enough space here.

If there was only one camera available, I would be perfectly happy w/ it, whatever it was. If Foma 200 was the only film out there, then I'd learn to make it work. Maybe.

But just to name one out of a hundred, it was a Fuji 6x9 rangefinder. I was so looking forward to owning one. When it came out of the box, my wife and I looked at it and burst out laughing. It went right back in the box and back to KEH the next day.

That camera was BIG, comically big. Felt like I needed striped pants, a red nose and floppy shoes to use it. Even if I had taken a pic w/ it that got me on the cover of Life magazine, that wasn't enough to get me out of the house w/ that camera.

 

[KerrKid]

All the cheap P&S cameras feel like squeaky blobs of plastic. But force yourself to shoot a roll of film through that Pentax and check out the results.

Yeh, yeh, I know. But they’re like the Honda ST1100 I used to own. Stone reliable and comfy but all the personality of a toaster.

 

[Huss]

There is not enough space here. Like many, many of us, I have tried just about all of them. It's as if the camera makers purposely leave out just one feature, so you think, I'll just sell this thing and get another thing. But then it has a feature missing.

If there was only one camera available, I would be perfectly happy w/ it, whatever it was. If Foma 200 was the only film out there, then I'd learn to make it work. Maybe.

But just to name one out of a hundred, it was a Fuji 6x9 rangefinder. I was so looking forward to owning one. When it came out of the box my wife and I looked at it and burst out laughing. It went right back in the box and back to KEH the next day.

That camera was BIG, comically big. Felt like I needed striped pants, a red nose and floppy shoes to use it. Even if I had taken a pic w/ it that got me on the cover of Life magazine, that wasn't enough to get me out of the house w/ that camera.

Good point, I happily sold my GW690III recently. Just not enjoyable to use.

 

[awty]

View attachment 324604

11x14 Folmer and Schwing

Give it to me! It's obviously taking up too much space. You put a lovely plant on the shelf instead.

 

[Huss]

Yeh, yeh, I know. But they’re like the Honda ST110 I used to own. Stone reliable and comfy but all the personality of a toaster.

All the cheap p&s cameras are like that. every single one.
You have to step back to the pre AF generation cameras to get a nice cheap 35mm camera that also feels like it has some personality to it. Like the Konica c35s. Even the last of the line - the C35 ef3 with zone focus and limited exposure range - feel and are good to use.

 

[Steven Lee]

Two:

• Mamiya 7. So ugly to look at... it hurts. Just can't imagine having an object like that in my house. I am not an industrial design aficionado, but come on...
• Fuji GF670. Cool looking camera, amazing lens, but not engaging to shoot with. It makes all the wrong sounds and constantly sending "I am about to fall apart" signals through your fingertips when you're holding it.

 

[KerrKid]

I think the point of this thread is not to air grievances of cameras that you have not actually owned and/or used, but to those mention those that you have!

I didn’t like my Kodak Retina SLR - the one w the wind mechanism on the base plate. Everything seemed in the wrong place and backwards.

Didn’t like my Moscva 5 - after a couple of pics it became literally painful to use. Advance mechanism was very heavy and the focusing was not reliable with vague framing.

Absolutely hated my Widelux F7 and F8. Bought them because The Dood used them and made super pics. But then I realized one reason that his pics were so interesting was because he was able to take pics on set while he was filming his movies. The handling of those cameras were about the worst I’ve experienced, severely limited feature set compared to the infinitely better Noblexes and Horizons, terrible viewing, unreliable. Upside - made money on them when I sold them.

Couldn’t stand my Kiev and Zorki rf cameras - they just made you want to get a better job so you could afford something from Japan or Western Europe. The Fed was ok. Lubitel 166 was garbage too. A super lens that gave unique images wrapped in a camera body that could not focus w any degree of accuracy, and a film advance mechanism that failed after 3 rolls.

Olympus Mju 3.5 - mash in the shutter button, camera would take a pic when it decided it wanted to. insane prices for those little black turds nowadays.

Bessa R3a - just felt clanky and agricultural to use, very weak plastic gear film drive mechanism, with vf readouts that washed out in daylight. More expensive than many Leica Ms nowadays which is nuts.

Zeiss Ikon ZM - ballyhooed as better than a Leica M7. As long as you ignore the flaring finder, the invisible in daylight led readouts, the rf patch that does not move with the frame lines when you focus, the delicate film transport mechanism and the soft metal build. Now same money as an M4…

Lomo LC-A 120. I actually loved this camera but they break. Real quick. Shutter failures. $450 and they last maybe 10 rolls. With two that I had. This camera can give such awesome results that if they charge $1000 for it and it was reliable, I would have one for ever.

Nikon F - looks cool but when you then use an F2 you think, oh yeah, this is much better. Sold off my Fs.

I do not get the whole Mju attraction. I wish I could figure out a way to turn a crappy camera into a cult item.

 

[Steven Lee]

I love my Hasselblads too, but you would never guess that. Every three months, per the advice of my Hasselblad repairman, I take each lens and fire it at 1 second fifteen to twenty times. He advised that for all camera shutters, but I schedule the shutter exercise for 1 January, 1 April, 1 July, 1 September.

Only 1s? Not the faster speeds?

 

[KerrKid]

All the cheap p&s cameras are like that. every single one.
You have to step back to the pre AF generation cameras to get a nice cheap 35mm camera that also feels like it has some personality to it. Like the Konica c35s. Even the last of the line - the C35 ef3 with zone focus and limited exposure range - feel and are good to use.

I'm bleeding Konica RF's. I steal away at night and hold them. Just for a moment. No one has to know.