Confessions of a camera junkie.

[Stephanie Brim]

I just gambled a bit. Dead Link Removed I'm nuts. If anyone has some 127 film that's older than the hills that they want to get rid of, let me know.

The Petri is going to be interesting if it works...the Falcon even more so. I think I'm going to like both cameras.

Edit: Note that I am semi-serious about the film thing.

 

[gnashings]

Hi Stephanie, my name is Peter and I... too... am... a camera junky.
I have a rare mental disorder that prevents me from understanding the word "need" - as in: "Do I really need that camera?"
I am afraid there is no cure

 

[Nikki]

I'm so glad I'm not alone anymore!

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Yes...it is good to know that you're not alone.

 

[Ryuji]

My favorite junk camera is world's very first autofocus camera:
http://tibikoron.web.infoseek.co.jp/konicac35af.htm

I also have the world's first camera with automated film winder, the world's first camera with built-in flash, the world's first camera with exposure automation, etc... ALL from a single manufacturer.

Now that company abandoned camera business altogether!

 

[Kevin Roach]

ya me too

I picked up a Yashica 127 instamatic. It is the nicest made cameras of its type i have seen. Really solid and well finished. too bad i don't have any film for it.

 

[Mike Kennedy]

My name is Michael and I am a cameraholic.
Thought about setting up a 12 step group to assist and counsel fellow addicts but we could never gather enough members because everyone was off getting wasted on a deadly combination of rangefinders and Tri-X- .
If it holds film a need to have it. NO,I MUST have it!

There is a way to manage your addiction. A methadone treatment for those of us who are fixated with things that go "click" in the night.
Step #1 : Bail out of paypal. That racket is the crack cocaine of camera addiction. One hit of a button and the object is yours.
I found myself at rock bottom last winter. Three in the morning sitting at the computer, staring at an auction that was almost over and just waiting to out bid the other guy for some ole' beater. Knowing all the while that the shipping charge was twice the price of the camera. YIKES!!
Its a sickness but it can be managed.

My name is Mike (not Bill)

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I'm seriously *always* looking for neat old cameras. I love toy cameras and junk cameras.

 

[benjiboy]

Seriously

Hi Stephanie, my name is Peter and I... too... am... a camera junky.
I have a rare mental disorder that prevents me from understanding the word "need" - as in: "Do I really need that camera?"
I am afraid there is no cure

Been there, got the T shirt Peter, I know we all joke about being camera junkys, myself included , but there are serious questions to be asked here like, what do you do when you have every conceivable camera and accessory known to man, and your pictures are still crap ? at what point does buying photographic equipment become mental illness ?.

 

[rjs003]

Let's see I have a brother with a 32 foot cabin cruiser another brother with his own airplane and yet another brother with a winter home on a golf course in florida. Sooo collecting cameras isn't such a bad thing. Other then the fact that I may have to buy a bigger house to store all of them.

 

[Max Power]

My name is Kent, and I too am a cameraholic.

The best thing that ever happened to me was when (last year) I hit my PayPal spending limit and I couldn't use it until I became a 'verified' member. It forced me to really reflect on whether or not I really 'needed' an item

Last month, I became a 'verified' member, and I've found myself saying to my wife, when yet another parcel arrives: 'But keep it in perspective honey, I don't drink and don't smoke, this is my addiction!!!'

Even though I have a perfectly functioning FED 5V, I just had to go an order a Zorki 4 from Alex last week...Well, I really 'need' a better viewfinder, and it comes with a J-8, and, well, it's not as ugly as the FED etc etc. Justifications be d**ned, I just wanted another FSU rangefinder! I haven't even received the Zorki yet, and I'm already thinking that I 'need' a FED 2.

I'm with Mike on this one, PayPal is like Crack.

Kent

 

[Ole]

Would some of you experienced camera junkies please convince me I don't need a Horizon panorama camera???

 

[colrehogan]

Or that I don't need a Westminster Whole Plate Field Camera?

 

[benjiboy]

Remembering.

Would some of you experienced camera junkies please convince me I don't need a Horizon panorama camera???

It reminds me of my schooldays when the photographer used a similar panoramic camera with a swinging lens to take the class photograph, and if at the moment of exposure the kid at the end of the back row ran from one side of it to the other he could be in the picture twice, but I digress.

 

[BradS]

Hi my name is Brad and I am an equipment junkie.

(ALL): "HI Brad!"

It all started some thirty years ago. I was just a teen. Someone put a beat up, old pentax in my hands, taught me how to dev and print my own and I was hooked. Over the years, the addiction waxed and waned. I stayed off the equipment for almost ten years once.

A few years ago, after all those years of experimenting with the 35mm gateway equipment, the old addiction flared it's ugly head again and this time, it had taken a bigger form...er, format. I stepped up to 4x5...then a week ago, almost by accident, I moved into the heavy stuff....5x7. I need help. I tried quitting ebay to no avail. A new account under a new name and I was back up and running.

I've got a sinar in the closet. I keep a Crown Graphic in my lunch box and sneek out at lunctime to shoot E6. There's 5x7 Burke and James enroute....and then there's the glass...Oh, G-d, the glass....(sobbing uncontrollably)

 

[sionnac]

Stephanie, I have a Falcon Miniature Deluxe (same basic camera) that I use a lot. It takes half-frame 127 images. Tiny but I love the Holga-ish vignetting. One of my favorite images is actally a triptychy set from a shoot in the Blue Hills Reservation: here. I use it for the header image on my blog (here )

 

[gnashings]

Been there, got the T shirt Peter, I know we all joke about being camera junkys, myself included , but there are serious questions to be asked here like, what do you do when you have every conceivable camera and accessory known to man, and your pictures are still crap ? at what point does buying photographic equipment become mental illness ?.

Ben,

I think you are onto something here, perhaps a significant medical discovery!
I think we have identified a different strain of this illness: I for one, have no hope that the next camera will make my pictures anything other than crap - I just get giddy holding another old, forlorne camera in my hands, giving it hte love it needs (I guess I am an aspiring co-dependant)
Then there are the people who chase the "magic bullet", the people who thin that if they just got that (insert camera/lens name here), they would solve their problems!
I wonder if we would need separate support groups for those two sub-sets, I would hate to see brawl break out over the motives

Be well,

Peter.

PS. Sorry about my posts today being riddled with typos - I cut my finger and have trouble typing...

 

[rbarker]

Anybody know where I can get some Autographic A-122 film?

 

[digiconvert]

What about the related addiction, you know the one that causes you to say "..but if I just try this developer and film it might just be the last one, and while I'm buying those it makes sense to use the postage for that processor/enlarger/washer (delete as appropriate) that I was thinking about" or is it only me ?

 

[colrehogan]

Ralph,
Film for Classics sells 122 film. Check their website. http://www.filmforclassics.com/

 

[Ole]

Diane, I think he meant the A-122 film which you can write upon if you have an Autographic camera...

So far I've avoided the most "special" sizes, although 24x30cm might qualify...

 

[Andy K]

I don't think I'm a camera junkie. I have maybe a dozen or so cameras. Of which I probably use four regularly. The rest just sit in a drawer gathering dust.


Ps. Great photograph Ralph!

 

[gnashings]

What about the related addiction, you know the one that causes you to say "..but if I just try this developer and film it might just be the last one, and while I'm buying those it makes sense to use the postage for that processor/enlarger/washer (delete as appropriate) that I was thinking about" or is it only me ?

No, not alone... count me in

 

[Stephanie Brim]

Would some of you experienced camera junkies please convince me I don't need a Horizon panorama camera???

Me too, please...this is *really* getting tempting. If I have $200 sitting around I may be tempted to get one of these in the near future. One of the Really Bad Things, in my opinion, is the fact that I want a 4x5 Crown. Yes...you read that correctly. I want a large format camera. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it) I have no funds. I have plenty of 35mm film, though...just got a 20-roll box of Tri-X in the mail.

 

[Ole]

Stephanie, I just happen to have a "slight surplus" of LF cameras

The spare one, at the moment, is a 100+ years old German 13x18cm plate camera. It looks great, but unfortunately it just isn't a great camera. It's adequate though; and I can let some "lucky" APUGgian have it (and a lens, and 50 sheets of appropriate film, film adapters, and a usable lens) for the price of postage.