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What's your oddest camera?

Flooded woodland

Flooded woodland

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Babylon

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Babylon

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How can you top the PhotoBlaster?

photoblaster.jpg
 
I’m a sucker for odd cameras, I have a few of the ones mentioned above like the KMZ FT-2, Kodak 35 RF and a Mercury II.

Ensignette No.2 C De Luxe made by Houghtons Ltd, England in 1913. This camera takes 129 roll film which was discontinued in 1951. Someone started modifying it to take 127 film, I hope to complete that modification. I have taken a few shots with it as a one shot by placing a short piece of 127 film in it.

Ensignette No.2 C De Luxe by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr

Siluro Nemrod made by Nemrod Metzeler in Barcelona, Spain between 1960 and 1966. It uses 120 film, you need to use a bicycle pump to pressurize it before going under water. I recently sold it after receiving an unsolicited offer. I have successfully used it under water, it worked well.

Siluro Nemrod by Bryan Chernick, on Flickr
 
I don’t have a lot of odd cameras. Mostly the usual stuff.
I do have a Savoy like this. It was my grandmother’s.
5CE2FD21-352D-4BB0-868B-E510FDBDA184.jpeg
 
I think my oddest one is a Rollei SL2000
for those unfamiliar, it's a 35mm motor driven SLR with removable back, and a built-in waist level finder along with an eye level finder, and a spectacular 50mm Planar lens.
Unfortunately, it's not working, but the lens is awesome on my digi.

internet pic
2000F-4.jpg
 
Oh no, I feel a spell of GAS coming on. I’ve never been that big on panoramic images, but this is so cool!

To help you with your recovery:
  1. Close your eyes
  2. Take a big deep breathe
  3. Repeat #2 several times
  4. Open your eyes
  5. Sit before your computer
  6. Take a deep breath
  7. Open the web server
  8. In the URL slowly type either KEH.com or eBay.com or Photrio.com
  9. Search for your hearts desire
  10. Open the listed candidates
  11. Select one or more choices
  12. Pull out your credit card
  13. Take a deep breath
  14. Select "Buy"
  15. Fill our your name, address, credit card number, credit card expiration date, secret code
  16. Select "Send"
  17. Take a deep breath
  18. Enjoy the joy of success
  19. Start tracking the shipping
  20. Look out the window watch for Amazon, DHL, FedEX, UPS, [insert national postal system here]
  21. When Amazon, DHL, FedEX, UPS, [insert national postal system here] vehicles appear on your street, chase after it
  22. When the package arrives, unpack your hearts desire and start testing
  23. Enjoy the Glow
This is a good way to end GAS for the short term. If the GAS comes back, go back to number 1.
 
To help you with your recovery:
  1. Close your eyes
  2. Take a big deep breathe
  3. Repeat #2 several times
  4. Open your eyes
  5. Sit before your computer
  6. Take a deep breath
  7. Open the web server
  8. In the URL slowly type either KEH.com or eBay.com or Photrio.com
  9. Search for your hearts desire
  10. Open the listed candidates
  11. Select one or more choices
  12. Pull out your credit card
  13. Take a deep breath
  14. Select "Buy"
  15. Fill our your name, address, credit card number, credit card expiration date, secret code
  16. Select "Send"
  17. Take a deep breath
  18. Enjoy the joy of success
  19. Start tracking the shipping
  20. Look out the window watch for Amazon, DHL, FedEX, UPS, [insert national postal system here]
  21. When Amazon, DHL, FedEX, UPS, [insert national postal system here] vehicles appear on your street, chase after it
  22. When the package arrives, unpack your hearts desire and start testing
  23. Enjoy the Glow
This is a good way to end GAS for the short term. If the GAS comes back, go back to number 1.

Had my GAS for the month already. On to the next step, finding what I really need this time.
 
Woaaah. Trippy.

It's one of the (very) few valid options to shoot stereo on medium format film. Made in the USSR between 1955 and sometimes in the 1970s. It's an incredibly cheapo build--think two Lubitels glued together.

But heh, it works! (After extensive work to limit light leaks.)
 
I'd assume the Signet 35 series was developed off of this?

I've never been sure if "the ugliest 35 mm rangefinder ever made" evolved into the pretty little Signet or the Motormatic 35. I've got one of each, but not a Kodak 35. My oddest, however might be my Bantam RF -- 828 film, bakelite body, coupled RF, no frame counter but friction wheel advance stop (doesn't depend on 828 one perf per frame like almost all other 828 cameras), looks more or less like a cross between a Signet and a Pony 828. I need to get the shutter cleaned again; it makes 18 *excellent* images on recut 120.

Then there are my Minolta 16 format cameras, but those aren't really "odd", just very small and ahead of their time a little (110 pushed them out of the market except in the Soviet Union).
 
I have been using these Rollei cameras since they came out in the 1980s, so I guess I did not think they were too oddball. But, I agree with bdial, they certainly don't match the common 35mm design!
Group Small Rollei edited.jpeg
 
IIRC, I still have an Estes Camrock(?) in a box in the basement. If not, it's a holographic camera which I never got around to using.
 
Tessina
View attachment 305963

WideLux F7
View attachment 305964Sirius, is your Tessina in working order? Almost all that I have seen for sale are either incomplete or shutters are not completely functional. I’ve always been intrigued but somehow able to overcome GAS for Tessina. I don’t consider any of my cameras particularly odd, though through the years have accumulated a bunch of cameras from subminiature to 4x5.
I do remember when camera stores referred to 35mm cameras as minicam. My first camera was a 127 film Donald Duck camera, about 1946. Have never seen another one.

 
My oddest may be the Graflex Graphic 0. The trapdoor lens, deceptive angle viewfinder mirror, top controls and dumpy shape should place it in the top ten of antiques.
graflex 0.jpg

 
I have been using these Rollei cameras since they came out in the 1980s, so I guess I did not think they were too oddball. But, I agree with bdial, they certainly don't match the common 35mm design!

Of course they do not look like 35mm cameras, they look like real cameras. Just like the Hasselblad that they copied.
 
Argus A, late 30s, not sure when mine was made, image is not mine, I need to dig it out, have not shot with it in a very long time. I do shoot with my C3 a couple of time a year.

1653089394911.png
 
My Rolleicord or one of my two Rolleiflex Ts. Most unusual looking, at least in this day and age.

The problem when I do take them out is, for me, they get too much attention. Usually from other old duffers (like me) who want to talk "photography" with me, which I dislike doing as mostly I have to field inane comments like "my dad had one of those once" or "what is that little yellow lens you have on it, for??"

But then it serves me right for wanting to relive my past...

Rollei TLRs were THE camera of their time and not at all unusual, but most have vanished from the photo scene in the last decade. Nobody aged less than 50 would even know how to load one, less alone use it in this digicrap-everything day and age.
 
Rollei TLRs were THE camera of their time and not at all unusual, but most have vanished from the photo scene in the last decade. Nobody aged less than 50 would even know how to load one, less alone use it in this digicrap-everything day and age.

I think a lot of them are still used. "Rolleiflex" has 545000 posts associated with it on Instagram - and at least 7 out of 10 of those are not cell phone photos of the camera....
 
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