The Camera Funnel

[Curt]

Just asking the question might be the beginning of recovery. Take the first and hardest step and release yourself from one, then another and another until you have a healthy but small number.

 

[David A. Goldfarb]

I HAVE SOME rationalizations: I have 2 automobiles and therefore I must have one camera in each car at all times with film in it.

Now as I see it, I have no automobiles, so I can justify buying or upgrading a camera occasionally.

 

[Steve Roberts]

I have about five 35mm cameras that I use for anything half-serious plus one medium format. However.... another twenty cameras of various formats are lurking around in the background waiting to be hauled out when I occasionally feel the urge for a bit of retro-photography. I don't see any problem with being both a photographer and a bit of a collector, especially when there are so many bargains around.

Steve

 

[DLawson]

I have enough cameras. Do you?

I have enough, but still want more. The more largely falls under types I've never used. I've never had a system type MF camera. Maybe it would sit in a drawer, don't know. I could probably afford a low-end view camera (not so sure about the lenses), but haven't because I don't know when I'd use it.

I have 7 working cameras (including a "new" one on it's way back from servicing). One is new and has been used once. One is used somewhat regularly. The 3x4 Graphic almost doesn't count, since I don't now how I'd develop the film. The 2 4x5 Graphics will start getting used when I finally get a tank for the film, though both shutters need CLA. I really, really mean to start using the Ikoflex, but keep forgetting.

 

[Blacknoise]

I have about 80 or so. About 20-30 of them are cheapy ones like brownies and other toys and I have quite a collection of former Soviet Union stuff too.

 

[Steve Smith]

Four is sufficiently small to use all of them and sufficiently large to have some diversity with respect to format and features.

That's far too logical.


Steve.

 

[Steve Smith]

Agfa Isolette II : Whenever I feel like a German tourist. I snatched it free from the good soul on APUG who repaired them and gave them away for free. Works great to practice evaluating distances.

I was lucky enough to get one of those too. Mine is the Ansco version of the Isolette III. My first camera was an Isolette back in 1975.


Steve.

 

[benjiboy]

I wouldn't have anywhere to put fifty cameras our house is quite small since we downsized when our children grew up from a five bedroom place to two, I have seven cameras, five of them Canon FD body's, and two Mamiya TLRs and associated lenses, so my gear makes sense as an outfit and I'm only running two systems.

 

[mrred]

I'm just a baby, with about 15. But I do use most of them.

 

[TheFlyingCamera]

I'm at approximately 20, ranging from 35mm autofocus rangefinders to 35mm manual focus rangefinders (no longer any 35mm SLRs) to a brownie box camera to an 11x14. The ones that see the most use are the Contax G series, the Rolleiflex, the Canham 5x7/5x12, the Seneca whole plate field camera, and the Century Master studio portrait camera. The 35mm manual focus rangefinders are mostly just a collection for display purposes.

 

[Kvistgaard]

almost embarrased to admit it, but I only have three - a SLR, a rangefinder, and an MF SLR. I use them all. Oh, then I have a fourth one, a Contax SLR, but there's something wrong with the shutter. Or the winding mechanism. Or both - so that hardly counts, right?

 

[Kirk Keyes]

I have one digital SRL, one 35mm SRL, two 4x5, and one 8x10 camera. I've never needed or wanted a lot of cameras. Now synthesizers, that another story. I have 7 synth keyboards, 5 synth modules, 2 samplers, and 3 drum machines.

 

[Curt]

Now as I see it, I have no automobiles, so I can justify buying or upgrading a camera occasionally.

I often wish I had no vehicles, very often. They're a total expense, they don't save or make money and when a person comes to depend on them and they break down it's even more of an expense.

What this country needs is mass transportation, just look what has happened in California with the 500 pound beam dropping onto the roadway of the Bay bridge.

If I didn't have the vehicles I could have a complete Ebony camera collection with Cooke lenses on each of them.

Curt

 

[mrmekon]

I have two vehicles, and both of them combined probably cost less than the cameras some of you have.

Maybe I can trade them in for a Speed Graphic...

 

[removed-user-1]

I made a strategic error of installing a glass-fronted cabinet in my den and putting all of my film 35mm cameras in it. SWMBO (She Who Must Be Obeyed) had not seen all 18 of them in one place.

I count myself lucky that my wife WANTS to put our collection of old Kodak and Polaroid cameras in a glass case. The only question is where we're going to put the Polaroid twin-shot ID camera... it's rather large.

Surprisingly we don't own that many working cameras. Total of eight, one each: Mamiya RB67, Yashica 635, Canon Rebel K2, Pentax S2 Super, Olympus Stylus 120, Nikon D300 (about to be sold), Nikon Coolpix 5400 with an IR filter conversion, and Polaroid Super Colorpack II for fun. I have no idea how many "collectible" cameras we have that aren't used.

 

[Anscojohn]

Just asking the question might be the beginning of recovery. Take the first and hardest step and release yourself from one, then another and another until you have a healthy but small number.

**********

No

 

[flatulent1]

I'm with Ben on this one; I may have 40 or 50 camera bodies in various stages of disrepair, but they're divided up into five systems, plus two further sub-systems. Not counting the rangefinders and the P&S and toy cameras and folders and box cameras and...

What has me concerned for my own mental (as well as financial) health is everything was acquired within the last five years. And I do think I have enough. Well, I don't have an Olympus, or a Pentax, or a large format, or a Leica...

Man, it's a good thing I'm single.

 

[benjiboy]

I'm with Ben on this one; I may have 40 or 50 camera bodies in various stages of disrepair, but they're divided up into five systems, plus two further sub-systems. Not counting the rangefinders and the P&S and toy cameras and folders and box cameras and...

What has me concerned for my own mental (as well as financial) health is everything was acquired within the last five years. And I do think I have enough. Well, I don't have an Olympus, or a Pentax, or a large format, or a Leica...

Man, it's a good thing I'm single.

There came a time in my life when I realized , although it took more than twenty years, that creativity wasn't a problem you could throw money at, and that the vast majority of the photographers I most admired had become legends with the minimum of equipment.
With reference to your Alfred Hitchcock quote, and the state of my prostate, I don't think anyone makes six exposure films