What is the rarest camera/lens you own?

benjiboy · Jun 17, 2018

My Conon FD 85m f2.8 soft focus lens which is much appreciated by "ladies of a certain age" whose portraits I shoot.

jscott · Jun 17, 2018

I have several low-number Rolleiflex Originals from 1929, and a few of the funky stereo Heideoscopes from the 1920's.

flavio81 · Jun 18, 2018

This week I got a "rare" camera, my new Spotmatic F from Asahi Optical Co.

"Rare" in the sense that i had not seen one for sale in my country for years. While in the same period i must have found about 30 spotmatics and 5 SPII cameras.

Makes perfect mate with my SPIIa which is one of the rarer spotmatics.

Now, a really rare camera I missed buying was the original Electro-Spotmatic. So beautiful!!

removed account4 · Jun 18, 2018

jnanian said:
there was some guy
( can't remember the link, i remember we exchanged
emails before my hard drive crashed and i don't remember the thread/link
where i posted the link to his work ) who documented a circus on tri x or something
then transferred all those imags onto glass plates coated himself, then made a stop action movie
from theplates .. like a kinora on steroids ! if i ever find the linkagian i'll post it !

found it

800+ plates
film shot and plates printed in the darkroom then assembled into a stop action movie

https://boingboing.net/2013/06/07/tintype-stop-motion-animation.html

Arthurwg · Jun 18, 2018

I did own a Dallmeyer Bergheim soft focus lens for awhile, mostly because that lens had been used by Pierre Dubrueil and Frederik Evans, photographers I idolized at one time.

Theo Sulphate · Jun 18, 2018

flavio81 said:
This week I got a "rare" camera, my new Spotmatic F from Asahi Optical Co.
...
Now, a really rare camera I missed buying was the original Electro-Spotmatic. So beautiful!!

Now you can search for all the SMC lenses for it - congratulations!

As for the Electro-Spotmatic, did that have a not good reputation?

flavio81 · Jun 19, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
Now you can search for all the SMC lenses for it - congratulations!

As for the Electro-Spotmatic, did that have a not good reputation?

The electro was broken and i was afraid not being able to repair it, knowing its reputation and apparently no circuit diagram available.

As for the S-M-C Takumars that give full aperture metering, i am a happy camper:

28/3.5 (last version)
55/1.8 SMC version
135/2.5 (last version)
200/4

add to this some additional m42 lenses:

Helios44-2 58/2
Jupiter-9 85/2
Carl zeiss jena 35/2.4
Carl zeiss jena 135/3.5
Soligor 21/3.8

I think this lineup is as strong as my Canon and Nikon lineup, despite not having any exotic or ultra-fast lens.

benjiboy · Jun 20, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
Now you can search for all the SMC lenses for it - congratulations!

As for the Electro-Spotmatic, did that have a not good reputation?

They were totally battery dependent Theo and notorious for eating batteries.

Ian Grant · Jun 20, 2018

benjiboy said:
They were totally battery dependent Theo and notorious for eating batteries.

Didn't they have a 1/100 or something not far off default shutter speed if the battery was flat, seems to ring a bell. I'm abroad or could check my Pentax archive

I find this thread amusing as I'm with my rare camera here in Turkey, there's no other 110 camera like it on the Internet, it later became an Ensign camera. It's like the Thornton Tourist camera I saw last year with a 10x8 roll film back, exceedingly rare, possibly unique a prototype, later Thornton Pickard Tourist cameras are more common.

Ian

Theo Sulphate · Jun 20, 2018

Ian Grant said:
...
I find this thread amusing as I'm with my rare camera here in Turkey, there's no other 110 camera like it on the Internet ...

So it's a portrait orientation then and the 109 format is landscape?

Ian Grant · Jun 21, 2018

Theo Sulphate said:
So it's a portrait orientation then and the 109 format is landscape?

No, that depends on the camera, my Alliance Roll Film 110 camera is portrait mode, but not all the models were - others were landscape mode, it's the same with the Kodak 110 cameras as well, the designs differ. The Portrait mode 110 roll film cameras are like scaled up Ikonta and similar folding cameras although much older, whereas the Landscape mode 110 cameras are more like the Kodak 4 , almost roll film backed field cameras often with rise/fall. Off course both can be used on their side.

I can't check Wikipedia until next week, it's blocked here in Turkey, but 110 is a nominal 4" width film and I think 109 is actually a 5" wide roll film.

Ian

lobitar · Jul 17, 2018

darinwc said:
View attachment 169605 I've had a few rare items in my time.
Such as a komura super wide 47mm. I think there must have only been 100-200 of those made.
I think currently my Olympus Wide-S with 35mm f2 is the rarest I own. They only come up a few times a year. I'm not sure how many were made. I estimate less than 10000 but I'm not sure how less.

I find it interesting that really rare items don't necessarily fetch high prices. Maybe if there aren't many around, not many people talk about them.

I'm the happy owner of the Komura Super-W-Komura 6,3/47 mm. Reportedly it was bought on foto-kina in Köln in 1970. It was reported on and pictured in (english) 'Photography' mag. May 1971 issue. Mine is for my Linhof 70, but I didn't try it out yet. The srl. nbr. appears to be under 20? But thanks for the hint at its rarity.

Patrick Robert James · Jul 17, 2018

I don't think I have any really rare stuff, but I don't really know. I have a Rodenstock Eurynar that is a 150mm f/3.5. Doubt many of those were made. Got it attached to a folding camera a decade or so ago from Europe. I suppose the Orthoplanar I have counts. I also have a KW Patent Etui 6x9 camera that you don't see too often. That is a mind blower let me tell you. When you look at it, then unfold it, your only response is No Way! Thing is so small.

Fotoguy20d · Jul 17, 2018

I hate that word rare (when seen on the auction site). I have a 4000s serial Cycle Graphic A and a 5000s RB Cycle Graphic with its original Dagor - both date to 1896±3 years. A 1A Speed Kodak. A 45 Combat Graphic (actually, 2 - one black, one olive drab). An 1881 Voigtlander Euryscop. A Manhattan Optical "New Anstigmat" thats a mere 115 years old - couldnt have been more than a couple of hundred made. None of it "rare" as in valuable, but cool to own.

Arthurwg · Jul 18, 2018

Graflex "C" SLR with 6 1/2" F2.5 Taylor, Hobson & Cooke lens.

Sirius Glass · Jul 19, 2018

Arthurwg said:
Graflex "C" SLR with 6 1/2" F2.5 Taylor, Hobson & Cooke lens.

Now that is rare. And having one that is in working order is even rarer.

Chan Tran · Jul 19, 2018

Must be the Canonflex although I have sold it recently.

Arthurwg · Jul 19, 2018

Sirius Glass said:
Now that is rare. And having one that is in working order is even rarer.

Actually working. Close to MINT.

ph · Jul 21, 2018

Not knowing how many were produced, nor how many have survived , I do not really know if they are rare. My Spectros, made in Switzerland , lenses in Alpa mount are reputedly optically identical to Oude Delft creations.

p.

Ron (Netherlands) · Jun 14, 2019

Mars camera by Emil Wünsche (about year 1893)

and - if it counts - a Leica M6 Millenium (year 2000 and 2000 were made)

benjiboy · Jun 14, 2019

Some of my lens hoods are quite rare these days, the rubber hood for my Tamron SP 17mm f3.5 lens, and the Canon FD hood for my 20-35 L zoom lens.

mckay3d · Jun 26, 2019

My most rare camera is a 1939 Franke & Heidecke 35mm stereo Kineidoscop. One of about 10 made.

BradS · Jun 27, 2019

I'm gonna guess that the ca. 1951 Franka Rolfix Jr. Deluxe is the most rare piece of photo gear that I own. It's really not rare at all but nothing I have is.

oh, wait! I forgot. I have a 300mm f/4 Super-Takumar too...perhaps, these really were produced in relatively small numbers?

Theo Sulphate · Jun 27, 2019

BradS said:
...
oh, wait! I forgot. I have a 300mm f/4 Super-Takumar too...perhaps, these really were produced in relatively small numbers?

One of these, eh?

They were made from 1965 till 1971 and then there was the SMC version. I don't think they're rare. I got mine for a song and a dance. The optics are clear and the aperture blades operate very quickly. What I didn't get is a tripod collar. Maybe that's not a bad thing: when I used both a 500/8 Nikkor and a 300/4.5 Nikkor with tripod collars, mirror locked up, cable release, I still got vibration. Nasty. I found it best just to use bunched up towels on a flat surface to steady the camera and lens.

benjiboy · Jun 27, 2019

mckay3d said:
My most rare camera is a 1939 Franke & Heidecke 35mm stereo Kineidoscop. One of about 10 made. View attachment 225928

Wow, I'm impressed sir, that really is rare, my late father was one of the British officers who "liberated" the Frank & Heidecke factory in Brunswick Lower Saxony in 1945, he told me that there were thousands of completed Rollei cameras there that could have been had for the taking but none of them had backs because the Nazis had diversified the component manufacturing and must be making them in various places somewhere else in case they were bombed, and will have sent the finished cameras elsewhere to have the backs fitted .

What is the rarest camera/lens you own?

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