How many film cameras do you own?

[Andrew O'Neill]

Before Covid I had 4 or 5, including a Holga and a Brownie... Fast forward 3 years, and I've lost count! The last camera was a small Pentax PS. Stuck a roll of HP5 in it to take to Japan. Forgot it on the kitchen table

 

[madsox]

More than some, but fewer than a lot of people here! I think about 16 total - 7 MF and 9 35mm (I think, I’ll have to go organize things). Oh, and 1.5 view cameras that I don’t know how to use but keep for reasons. So that’s 17. That number just went up from 12 as I checked what is actually on my shelves.

oh bugger - 18, I forgot the Minox B.

do the no-longer-functional Polaroids count? Add 3 more then, I have an old Land camera and a Spectra plus one other I think…

I may be addicted here too!

 

[Mogens]

This was all sorted out years ago. Starts with safety pins...

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwig3YH__aWAAxVKkokEHYHdB5gQFnoECCUQAQ&url=http://www.leprecon.org/w62/OrAllTheSeasWithOysters.pdf&usg=AOvVaw2dRaCFHXOKfwWPZGkxKk-o&opi=89978449

(Won a Hugo award, or was it Nebula.)

Better link

 

[Nicholas Lindan]

Better link

Much better.

So, if your camera collection seems to grow of its own accord and overflows the space allotted to it, have your complaining SO read the story.

 

[Disconnekt]

Lost money & two Kodak folding cameras (Sepcial 620 & Special 616), the person I sent them to get cla'ed repaired sent them back. Trigger lever for Kodak special 616 broke the 2nd time firing it, the lens was the wrong focal length (she put the 101mm lens/shutter from the Specail 620 on it) which the whole setup moves when changing shutter speeds, can't even change it to T & B speeds. And instead of getting the 620 back, she send me a completely different camera, a lower end kodak 616 camera that has holes in the bellows "but the shutter works". -_-

So down to 5

 

[JerseyDoug]

Just nine: three LTM Leicas, two AF Nikons, two MF Nikons, 1 Rollei TLR, 1 Hasselblad SLR.

 

[Mogens]

Just nine: three LTM Leicas, two AF Nikons, two MF Nikons, 1 Rollei TLR, 1 Hasselblad SLR.

This is the right answer.

 

[Dachshund]

Agfa Isolette, Minolta X700, Nikon N55, Nikon N60, Nikon N75, Nikon N80 (2) , Nikon F100

 

[Pioneer]

OMG! Don't ask because I quite literally don't know the answer.

I do have a list but I am not really good at keeping it current. There are 169 cameras on that list. The problem is that some of the cameras on that list have been sold but new ones have been added that I haven't placed on the list.

For example, the list shows a Nikon F6. That camera has been sold. But I also have two Minolta auto focus cameras, a Maxxum 7xi and a Maxxum 5000 that have not made the list yet because they haven't been film tested yet.

Sometimes I inherit cameras like a Pentax ZX-M and a Kiev 4M that do not work and I actually didn't want them, or even know they existed. They came in a box with a couple other cameras I did want and purchased. They have not made it to the official list yet so they don't get counted.

I also own several 8x10 large format cameras that are not actually in one piece, and I am not even sure what to call them since I have no actual brand name associated with them. Again they arrived in a box along with a camera I did want, kind of like a box of spare parts and pieces. In reality they would need some pretty serious wood work, not to mention bellows work, to actually turn them into user cameras.

If I had to give a number, such as when my wife walks into the spare room and says; "My goodness, how many cameras do you have?" The politically correct answer is; "two or three." Then she walks out and says: "You have no idea do you?"

...and that's the truth...

We definitely do not want to talk about lenses...

 

[Xylo]

The inexpensive and affordable cameras are more fun than any other.

That's why I lost count. And my shelves run the entire gamut from Agfa to Zeiss-Ikon.
And it's always the weirdest one that you didn't buy that you regret not getting the most. In my case it was a soviet tin can camera with a pull out metal "bellows" that made a screeching sound when pulled.

 

[Sirius Glass]

OMG! Don't ask because I quite literally don't know the answer.

I do have a list but I am not really good at keeping it current. There are 169 cameras on that list. The problem is that some of the cameras on that list have been sold but new ones have been added that I haven't placed on the list.

For example, the list shows a Nikon F6. That camera has been sold. But I also have two Minolta auto focus cameras, a Maxxum 7xi and a Maxxum 5000 that have not made the list yet because they haven't been film tested yet.

Sometimes I inherit cameras like a Pentax ZX-M and a Kiev 4M that do not work and I actually didn't want them, or even know they existed. They came in a box with a couple other cameras I did want and purchased. They have not made it to the official list yet so they don't get counted.

I also own several 8x10 large format cameras that are not actually in one piece, and I am not even sure what to call them since I have no actual brand name associated with them. Again they arrived in a box along with a camera I did want, kind of like a box of spare parts and pieces. In reality they would need some pretty serious wood work, not to mention bellows work, to actually turn them into user cameras.

If I had to give a number, such as when my wife walks into the spare room and says; "My goodness, how many cameras do you have?" The politically correct answer is; "two or three." Then she walks out and says: "You have no idea do you?"

...and that's the truth...

We definitely do not want to talk about lenses...

You have many more cameras than I do.

 

[drg3rd]

As of today (I just received my Fujica GS645) I have 29 working film cameras. For some reason, despite all these cameras, I'm not sure I take better photos!

 

[Xylo]

As of today (I just received my Fujica GS645) I have 29 working film cameras. For some reason, despite all these cameras, I'm not sure I take better photos!

Photography is a collaboration with the camera, and every camera is unique; our time can’t be captured by a single camera. Using one camera is like being confined to a fixed idea.​

Nobuyoshi Araki

 

[Don_ih]

Photography is a collaboration with the camera, and every camera is unique; our time can’t be captured by a single camera. Using one camera is like being confined to a fixed idea.​

Nobuyoshi Araki

I take from this that I should have a different camera for every photo I take....

 

[Sirius Glass]

Photography is a collaboration with the camera, and every camera is unique; our time can’t be captured by a single camera. Using one camera is like being confined to a fixed idea.​

Nobuyoshi Araki

I take from this that I should have a different camera for every photo I take....

Thus one should never use a camera more than once. I need to talk to my accountant about rearranging my spending to make the adjustment. Thank you for clarifying that for me.

 

[benjiboy]

I sometimes think that people ask these questions to try to normalise in their minds their obsessive collecting, because in it's most extreme form any obsessive behaviour becomes mental illness.

 

[mshchem]

I sometimes think that people ask these questions to try to normalise in their minds their obsessive collecting, because in it's most extreme form any obsessive behaviour becomes mental illness.

So!

 

[chuckroast]

I only have about 17 ranging from 35mm, 6x6, 645, 6x9, and 9x12/4x5 ... HOWEVER, I have a clear reason for it. I have been a film photographer approaching 5 decades. Most of that time, getting a new (to me) camera required selling what I had. Some years ago, I set out to reacquire ever camera I ever owed. The requirement was that it A) Had to be the exact model, color, and feature set I originally had and B) Had to be something I could actually shoot with.

I have now accomplished this, plus a couple of cameras I just always wanted to own. Then Lens Deficiency Syndrome set in and I had to "fix" that "problem". However, I make sure to shoot every camera at least once a year and print the results.

Along the way, this made me become a pretty fair camera repairman for simple issues since many of the cameras need some care and feeding to be resurrected from the dead.

I did give away one of them to a relative (an OM-1with a couple lenses) just because I shoot so little 35mm that having another one around made no sense. Because, you know, getting 'down' to 17 cameras makes total sense.

 

[benjiboy]

I still have 5 Canon S.L.R s and have no plans to buy any more in this lifetime.

 

[John Earley]

35mm:
33 Manual focus Film
4 Auto-focus film

9 Medium format film

16 Large format film

 

[Sirius Glass]

Most actively in use:

1 underwater film camera with interchangeable lenses​

1 box camera​

3 Nikon AF cameras​

2 Hasselblad​

2 4"x5" hand held cameras​

 

[benjiboy]

What interest me is, at what point does obsessively buying far more photographic equipment than one person can possibly use in a lifetime become mental illness?.

 

[Don_ih]

What interest me is, at what point does obsessively buying far more photographic equipment than one person can possibly use in a lifetime become mental illness?.

When you reach the point that you can't convince yourself to sell or give away any of it, because it's "rare" or "hard to find" or "cool" or "useful" or "I only have 3 more of them" or "I might eventually find the other half of it".

 

[mtnbkr]

I can see how someone who is really into photography, the history of it, and so on could end up with dozens or hundreds of cameras representing different technological advancements or other photographic shifts. I fell into a similar pattern with old S&W revolvers a couple decades ago.

As for my own camera collection, I have very few in comparison and would actually like to reduce the number.

1 Canon New F-1
1 Canon FT (actually prefer this to the F-1!)
1 Canon VT rangefinder (I want to like this one but I get consistently better shots with the SLRs)
1 Kodak Brownie Hawkeye (grandparents' old camera, gets a roll of 120 run through it periodically)
1 Argus Seventy-Five (new addition, found cheap at a yard sale. If it doesn't perform, it goes away).

Tallying up what I spent on all of them, it doesn't even add up to the cost of a user-grade Leica M camera, but it still feels excessive to me at times.

Chris

 

[Pioneer]

What interest me is, at what point does obsessively buying far more photographic equipment than one person can possibly use in a lifetime become mental illness?.

When your wife says so...