What's your latest new old camera? (Part 1)

[LarryP]

Spotmatic sp with 55mm 1.8 bundled with a bag generic 2xconverter flash and a minolta 16 ii with a film cassette and the tripod adapter all for the princely sum of $35. the seals and mirror bumper look good and the meter works taking it out for a test this weekend. will probably sell the minolta since 16mm doesn't appeal to me.

 

[Ian Grant]

Spotmatic sp with 55mm 1.8 bundled with a bag generic 2xconverter flash and a minolta 16 ii with a film cassette and the tripod adapter all for the princely sum of $35. the seals and mirror bumper look good and the meter works taking it out for a test this weekend. will probably sell the minolta since 16mm doesn't appeal to me.

The SP means Spotmatic but the abscence of anything after it shows it's an early model 1964-71. I have one which was thrown in with some other cameras, needs very minor repair, I bought a scrap S1a for the parts for £1 but fixed it

I bought a camera case full of a Pentax SP500 & other screw mount equipment last Monday at a Flea market cheap and for the first time in well over 30 years went out shooting with a Spotmatic F Tuesday & Wednesday, processing the negatives yesterday which are all excellent.

There's something about the elegance and simplicty of Spotmatics thatmake them a joy to use, I had my first - a Spotmatic F - as a 21st Birthday present from my parents and supplemented it with a pair of S1a's only to sell all my screw thread equipment about 1980 as I found chaning lenses quicky at concerts in low light levels frustrating, plus I often used a stringer (assistant) to shoot colour alongside my B&W (or vice versa) so bayonet lenses were so much better.

So 40 years after my 1st Spotmatic I'n shooting them again, it's also a return to 35mm a format I've hardly used or more accurayely printed much from since the late 1980's.

Ian

 

[Michael L.]

A mid 1960s 6x6 Flexaret Standard in mint condition and newly CLA'd, from an expert and helpful dealer in the Czech Republic. Belar f/3.5 lens, Metax shutter (B, 1-1/400).
The 'Standard' model is the no frills, no automatics version, so there is less risk of things breaking.
A lovely piece of equipment. The Flexarets were built to last.

 

[elcabezagrande]

Tiny little pretty thing.


Mamiya NC 1000 by Greyscale3, on Flickr

 

[thundertwin72]

A mid 1960s 6x6 Flexaret Standard in mint condition and newly CLA'd, from an expert and helpful dealer in the Czech Republic. Belar f/3.5 lens, Metax shutter (B, 1-1/400).
The 'Standard' model is the no frills, no automatics version, so there is less risk of things breaking.
A lovely piece of equipment. The Flexarets were built to last.

The Flexaret Standard was an economic version of the model VI which was stripped of automatic mechanisms and self-timer. As you rightly stated, lacking such mechanisms, make it a more reliable camera.

It also has a feature not have the most Flexaret models: with the appropriate mask can take exposures in 4,5x6 format. This is only possible in the Standard and VII models.

Any model Flexaret is a simple and economical way to enjoy a TLR camera. They are very nice.

 

[John_Nikon_F]

Latest is a black Nikomat FT2. Meter's erratic, so I'm sending it to Blue Moon Camera & Machine in Portland, OR. Going to see how they do at fixing it. Luckily, don't need it back until the middle of next month, so they can take their time with it...

-J

 

[Kyle M.]

Mamiya RZ67 Pro with 110mm 2.8 got it last Thursday, and a Hasselblad 500C with the Carl Zeiss Planar 80mm 2.8C I got the 'Blad yesterday.

 

[Jon Buffington]

Found an XA with A11 flash at the antique store. Wouldn't turn on but if worked, the price was cheap. Took a gamble the batteries were dead and popped in 2 fresh batteries a short while later. Presto! Looks in very nice condition with a bright rangefinder patch (brighter than on the XA I already have). Ended up getting a working XA for half the going rate.
Picked up a like new in box Kodak vr35 k12. Price tag from KMart was still on there, 149.99. Price I paid, 2.99 at Goodwill. Interesting looking camera with a 35/2.8 ektar lens. Running a roll through it. I am surprised Kodak took this model as it's re-entry into 35mm after a 17 year hiatus in 1986. Really a pretty craptastic camera. Bought because of GAS and I liked that it came in the box.

 

[EdColorado]

Alpa 4b. Neat quirky, Swiss made 35mm camera. I've owned it for a while but received it in non working condition. Now its back from the repair shop and seems to be fine. I'm running a roll through it and with all its weirdness its quite a bit of fun. It certainly wont be an everyday camera, to slow and strange to operate, but its going to be a fun one to play around with on occasion. Unfortunately mine did'nt come to me with the wonderful Kern Macro Switar lens but it did come with an Exakta lens mount adapter. This is good as I already have a few Exakta lenses.

 

[f/16]

Got my Kiev 4 in the mail today from Ukraine. It looks very nice. But nothing on this camera is smooth or precise. Sliding the back off and putting it on is kinda difficult. Changing shutter speeds and winding film is klunky. Changing the f stop can result in changing the focus. The viewfinder is tiny. The flash contacts short out when the shutter is not cocked. Flash sync is a dismal 1/25. Frame counter has to be set manually and it can easily be bumped and changed. The bottom of it is not flat so mounting an Arca type tripod plate is tricky. But from the research I did on this camera I expected all that Serial # starts with 82 so that's when it was made. Seems the Soviets were way behind in the camera times in '82. But I like it and will run a few rolls a year through it.

 

[ozphoto]

My sister found an Agfa Clack at a local thrift shop for $20.00; told her to buy it!!

In fairly good condition with a slight bit of wear and unfortunately the shutter in the M position, operated the same as B. Did some research on YouTube for an "Agfa Clack pinhole camera" modification and learned how to pull the lens apart.

Seems the spring was misaligned and with a bit of tweaking it's now working perfectly! Had to respool some 620 film back onto 120 spools, so I can use this weekend, so now all ready to shoot.

Looking forward to having some fun with a camera I've been dying to land in ages - can't wait!!

 

[k.hendrik]

F5 WHAAM! in every aspect; weight, speed, ergonomics, looks, tactile and ... use it mostly with nikkor 2.8 80-200 af ed. This thing is alive in my hands

 

[Marc Akemann]

I just received a beautiful looking Nikon F3HP w/ MD-4 motor drive that was used in the making of the book "The Nature of Kensington" by my late-friend, Ted Nelson, who abruptly stopped using the camera a few years ago due to an accidental drop of the camera into a lake. He dried it out but never had it checked out. I'm taking it to Dave's Camera Repair (MI) in a few minutes to see if it can live to click again. If it can't be revived, I'll have a nice memento of my friend.

 

[dynachrome]

Another Miranda Sensorex II. This one comes with a 50/1.4.

 

[Sirius Glass]

Just like the Free, Free, Free thread was, I cannot get to the last page. Please fix.

 

[Steve Roberts]

Pentax K1000 and f2 50mm SMC Pentax. It had that magical price tag 'free'!
Steve

 

[nathantw]

Just pulled my Konica Hexar off the shelf. It was one of my most used camera up until 2008 then I abandoned film, for the most part. I've been playing with it the past couple days, found it had some frustrating problems, such as it was focusing but wouldn't take the photo. It turned out others had had the problem and it was an easy fix. That done I also found that I could reprogram it to make 3 bracketed photos. Wow, I had never thought this camera could do that. I followed the steps and sure enough! Man, loving this camera even more than before.

 

[Richard S. (rich815)]

Just pulled my Konica Hexar off the shelf. It was one of my most used camera up until 2008 then I abandoned film, for the most part. I've been playing with it the past couple days, found it had some frustrating problems, such as it was focusing but wouldn't take the photo. It turned out others had had the problem and it was an easy fix. That done I also found that I could reprogram it to make 3 bracketed photos. Wow, I had never thought this camera could do that. I followed the steps and sure enough! Man, loving this camera even more than before.

Great lens. One of my favs too.

 

[nathantw]

Great lens. One of my favs too.

The Hexar is my backup camera when traveling. On one trip to Budapest my main camera became a brick one night. My point and shoot was out of space. So I pulled my Hexar out of the bag and got the photos I wanted to take.