Most disappointing cameras?

[coigach]

I think I am more likely to disappoint my cameras.


Steve.

Very good

 

[Ian Grant]

Leica M. Never lived up to the online eulogies.

Mine surparassed the eulogies.

Ian

 

[Edtog]

I was given a Nikon F4, after using an EOS-1.
It was like going back 20 years compared to the Canon, the AF was slow, all those buttons and dials and to cap it off it never "hung" correctly on my shoulder.

Best thing I did was drop it....

 

[Jeff Kubach]

never really had a camera that disappointed me ..

Same here.

Jeff

 

[fstop]

Canon A-1-plasticy cheap feel,cloth shutter

Minolta X700- see above

Nikon FM10-rebadged cosina

 

[narsuitus]

The Miranda Sensorex was highly rated by Consumer Reports.

However, I was very disappointed when this highly rated camera broke three times within the first two years of its three-year warranty. The third time it broke was when I was hundreds of feet in the air covering the maiden voyage of a new aircraft that the local university had just acquired. Thank goodness a backup twin-lens reflex camera that I carried allowed me to complete my assignment.

 

[Mark Fisher]

It had to be the Pentax 645. The images were fine. Easy to hold. Great images. Whoever thought that a bunch of buttons could replace dials really didn't understand how cameras are used. I just couldn't deal with the interface. The Hasselblad that replaced it is so simple and elegant by comparison (and a lot more expensive, bigger, etc).

 

[lxdude]

Same here on the Pentax 645. I tried it when it first came out. I didn't like the buttons, didn't like the viewfinder with the intrusion for meter info on one side, didn't like the meter readout. About 7 years ago I got an ME Super dirt cheap, liked its tiny size and clear finder and have gotten used to the button thing and warmed to it somewhat. I'm now used to changing speeds only with my eye to the finder when using it. So maybe I'd be okay with it now, though if I were to get a 645 Pentax I think I'd get the 645N.
I still don't like all the commotion with a full time winder though. I like my manual winding Bronica. The crank and Speed Grip are both about as fast as the winder.

 

[lxdude]

Another camera I was disappointed in was the original Nikon FM. As a glasses wearer I found the viewfinder squinty, hard to see compared to, say, the OM-1 or even the Nikkormat. It felt great in the hand though, with typical Nikon smoothness and solidity.
My biggest disappointment with Nikon products was not with cameras, but with lenses, specifically autofocus ones. The first time I picked up a plasticky feeling lens with a loose, wobbly barrel and manual focusing that was sticky and without feel, I was distressed to see the name "Nikkor" on it. It seemed like a betrayal of the Nikkor heritage.

 

[garysamson]

Mine surparassed the eulogies.

Ian

+1

 

[Paul Goutiere]

Brand spanking new Canon A1 with a fresh battery on a -20C day, froze up solid until later at home.
Someone else's old beat up Pentax Spotmatic took all the pictures.

I sold the Canon a month later.

 

[tomalophicon]

I traded a 645 Pro TL kit for a Hasselblad 500CM and was bitterly disappointed with my new camera.

 

[lxdude]

I traded a 645 Pro TL kit for a Hasselblad 500CM and was bitterly disappointed with my new camera.

Care to elucidate why?

 

[tomalophicon]

Sure, dude.

The ergonomics of the blad didn't suit me.
It jammed on me once a day.
The lens hood wobbled.
I only had one lens to the Mamiya's 4 (not that camera's fault).
I could never get my pictures as sharp when I wanted very sharp pictures.
It was expensive to build a respectable system.
It was rusty.
All the pictures were square for some strange reason.
Other reasons that have been deleted from my mind.

I sold the Hassey for an RB67 and am happy again, though I'd like a simple 645 kit again at some stage.

 

[lxdude]

Well, I'd call that elucidated!
Rusty? Unsharp? Sounds like maybe it was thrashed. The square pictures thing, yeah, that seems to be common with those cameras.

 

[tomalophicon]

Well, I'd call that elucidated!
Rusty? Unsharp? Sounds like maybe it was thrashed. The square pictures thing, yeah, that seems to be common with those cameras.

Maybe it was trashed. The lens looked nice (CFT) and the body had only surface rust present. But still, it just wasn't for me.
The square is Ok sometimes. I've borrowed a C220 for squareness if I ever get the desire.

 

[Poisson Du Jour]

Minolta Dynax 9000i.
Slow, tedious and unrefined autofocus.
Fiddly, imprecise mode buttons
Dodgy internal display and poor ergonomics
Optics for the era were substandard and cheaply constructed.

Apples and oranges. Every photographer will have his/her pet hates in terms of cameras. There was a big following of the Dynax-series cameras at the time.

 

[Luc More]

My nomination: the Chinon CE-3 Memotron.
Idea: auto-exposure on any M42 auto lens.
Failure: cheap build quality feels and sounds well cheap.

Well, I respect this feeling but I disagree. Depends of course what you compare it to I guess. I have a CE-II and CE-3 and I like both, cameras were still made out of metal at that time, and did not require batteries that would cost more than the lenses...

Comparing to bodies with similar features (aperture priority AE on M42 lenses) I also have a Cosina HiLite EC and a Spotmatic EES II. I prefer the CE-3though I'll admit that the shutter release needs some time to get used to, that's about the only thing I regret on this one.

 

[Roger Cole]

Before the Rolleiflex my biggest disapointment was the Nikon F4 that shoots color negative film just fine and if that is what I shot there would be no complaints from me, but it underexposes just enough that slides come out annoyingly dark. What really sucks is that I like the layout of the camera. I should get it serviced, but I'm just too lazy.

Honestly that's a pretty strange "disappointment." It's just a meter adjustment and should be cheap. More to the point, just change the film speed (you can over ride the DX code, I presume - if not set an exposure bias.)

I had a camera whose internal meter consistently underexposed by two stops. I just set the film speed to a speed two stops slower and shot away, for years. I would have hit a limitation with film slower than 64 as I think the speed went down to 16, but I never used anything slower than that. Well come to think of it, I think I did put one roll of Panatomic-X through it, but shot that on manual.

I've never owned a camera that read DX coding. (Yet, I'm sure I will, but I'm more into large format and medium these days. For times when only 35mm will do, my Pentax LX does the job fine.)

Speaking of the LX - while I'm far from disappointed, it does have two serious lacks, one well documented and one that may be unique to me. The well documented one, that I didn't research before buying it, is the lack of exposure memory lock. Even my little Ricoh XR-7 has this. Meter the area you want, push the button to lock it, re-compose. The lack of it on the LX often forces me to manual mode or watching the changing indications and then selecting an appropriate bias when I could shoot much quicker and easier with memory lock. A very weird oversight for such a high grade camera. The other that may be unique to me is that I find the viewfinder indication of manual mode extremely easy to overlook. This causes two problems: first, all too often when I load film I set 1/2000 second to bang off the blanks at the start, then forget to set the darned thing back and waste frames before I notice. The second problem is that when I use manual, if I forget to set it back to auto right away, the same thing happens. Neither of these would happen if I used the camera all the time, but as I said I'm more often shooting with my Yashica Mat or my Linhof these days.

Can't say I'm disappointed with it though. It's a very capable and well constructed camera.

 

[alexfoto]

All the plastic AF lens and camera especial from canon, what a jock when i by a lens in box, i think the lens missing but its inside!!
Also all the kiev medium format, the shutter never work right.:confused:

 

[chiccosinplici]

COSINA CT-1
I bought it in a flea market, with a good kit of lenses (24, 50 and 150mm) for very little money, but it wasn't even worth that handful of euros. The worst issue is that the back part of the body opens at every small stroke (even the softest), letting the light come in and burn away all the pictures. I had to put a whole roll of tape all around the body to get some usable negatives, which quality was (as expected) very poor.

 

[David Lyga]

darkosaric and all: Soviet cameras are fully capable of high quality results (ie, Zenit, or RF type). It's the quality control that leads many of them into the garbage pail. When they work right they are surprisingly competent, but limited in attributes.

The Soviets also made a VERY cheap, plastic 35mm camera 'for the masses' way back in the fifties or sixties (?) but the lens is much better than one would find on a 'Brownie' and has limited aperture and shutter speed settings, unlike the box cameras and most Instamatic models made by Kodak. Other countries did not 'dumb down' photography for the masses as did Kodak. My opinion: I think that Kodak did more with cameras to denigrate status of quality photography than most manufacturers did. They made up for it with their film.

The The Russian lenses are rightfully compared with the finest in the world. - David Lyga

 

[darkosaric]

I like soviet lenses - they are very good: I have jupiter 11 - excellent lens; had jupiter 8 - also excellent, I have jupiter 12 - good, industars are good, but I use them on M3 with adapter. Viewfinder on zorki 4 is very bad, kiev viewfinder also, and overall feeling of soviet cameras - not for me. Maybe M3 spoiled me - having nice and big viewfinder.
Also winding of films often destroyed film in my case - but this is probably because I got bad example of cameras (as you sad: quality control problem).

 

[steven_e007]

Kiev 60. I didn't expect refinement - it was built like a tank, weighed a ton and smelled of oil and grease. I did think something so heavy and industrial would be tough and rugged and - in it's own way - be reliable. In reality it was fragile, temperamental and riddled with faults. Shutter and film transport, mostly. The first one went back for a film spacing fault. The replacement had a lesser film spacing fault, but the shutter juddered and jammed. I never got a fully working one. The dealer did the honourable thing and refunded my money after about 3 months.

Shame - there was something about them that appealed - including lots of interesting lenses. I got a Pentecon 6 instead, a much better buy

 

[BradleyK]

Agreement here on the F4. I have owned and used Nikon F series cameras going back to F2s in the late 70s. I currently own a pair of F2s (DE-1 variety), an F2A and a pair of F2ASs, an F3, F3HP, an F4s and an F5. I bought the F4s on a sort of whim (big mistake): it was the newest thing, it had autofocus, etc. Somehow the camera has never really felt right: ergonomics are awkward, changing batteries in a hurry is a pain in the *** and, compared to the marvelous F5, the auto-focus is slower than molasses in January. As a result, on most shooting excursions, an F2AS, F3HP and F5 are first into the bag; the F4s tends to get pulled from the shelf only in the rarest of instances.