What!?! Limit ourselves to one camera only? Get away with you, silly OP. To me that is like doing a lifelong search for the best wine ever, or finding the world's best beach (two obsessions many Aussies I know seem to enjoy indulging in). Enjoyable but inevitably futile, but one can always say the true pleasure lies in the search and not the final choice. Too many variables there.
Like all else in life, the only intelligent and sensible answer to the question "what is the best (whatever)?" would have to be, "well, it depends".
But okay, let's play. The Rolleiflex, without any doubt or question. I have three, I use them often, and they produce the very best results for me, and do so with great elegance and simplicity. What more could I possibly want?
My 3.5 E2 I bought new in 1966 soit's now long in the tooth and shows its age (like its owner), but still works just fine and shoots wonderfully. I added two black Ts in the '90s, more for their lightness and ease of handling than the heavier E2, also for smaller images with the optional 16 exposure kits.
Rollei kits can be delightfully minimal, compared to the paraphernalia newer SLRs and today's DSLRs seem to require. Hoods, a few filters and Rolleinar close ups, a Weston Master V, a handful of other (optional) Rollei bits and pieces like the "Rollei mating device" (as it was called in the '50s and '60s) which clips on and easily attaches the camera to brackets and tripods. I have a lovely Rollei prism I bought for A$100, which fits all three cameras. Also 120 film, of course. One small bag, nothing impossible to carry even on mountain treks. Superb results always.
I can easily convert my Rolleis to use 35mm film by putting on a 1949 Rolleikin back and the interior bits. Using the Rollei Tessars and Planar with "miniature" film takes getting used to, the film covers basically the center of the lenses and images are tack sharp, but the smaller format magnifies the 75mm and 80mm lenses by about 1.5x to a short telephoto. Good for portraits and close ups or candid out of windows shots.
Now to return to "it depends". Whichever camera I have with me at any given time, is by and far my best camera. This can be one of my Nikkormats, which are indestructible and continue to produce fine results for their age. Or my Contax G1s (bought dirt-cheaply in circa2009-2010 when film camera prices in Australia hit the ground and sank out of sight) with any Contax Zeiss lens from 21mm to 90mm. Or my Voigtlander Perkeo I, my most minimalist shooter. Or on the rare occasions when I want to indulge in the cosmic treat of a big negative full of details and mid tones for contact prints, my Zeiss Nettar 6x9.
Like everyone else's, my list could easily be endless. Which to my mind, makes the initial quest of THE ideal camera, simplistic and even naive, but nevertheless fun to indulge in as a sort of "what if" verbal game.
To set the record right in all this, I will now go on record as saying I agree with everything everyone said in every post in this thread. So there!
