[0:13] Welcome to episode 115 of the Camerosity Podcast, the world's first and only open source film and digital photography podcast. My name is Mike Ekman, and we're back again with another exciting episode. On our last show, we caught up with you all, hearing what kinds of trouble you've all gotten yourselves into. From strange SLR-shaped stereo cameras to 360-degree rotating panoramic cameras to a hybrid 35 millimeter rangefinder TLR, we really got under the weeds with that one.

[0:43] For tonight's episode, we asked you all to think about four cameras that meant something to you: either your four favorite cameras, four cameras that you think are historically significant or interesting to you, or even just four cameras you wished you had. The GAS list is sure to be long on this one. Before we get started, let's welcome back the hosts.

[1:01] From Gainesville, Florida is our resident deep sea diving, rocket shooting barista, Anthony Rue. Hey, Anthony! Got any cool concerts coming up for you?

[1:10] Oh, I am going to Minneapolis to see I'm in de Poitin (?), and then also going down to Orlando to see the Afghan Whigs. And then I'm going to New York City to see a contemporary composer named Caroline Shaw at Carnegie Hall.

[1:24] Next, from Sydney, Australia is our own personal photo thinker, Theo Panagopolous. Hey, Theo! Got any Tim Tams you can send to me?

[1:33] There's always Tim Tams to send to you. I don't know how many flavors you get in the U.S., but they've gone wild here with all these different flavors, but I reckon the classic is the best.

[1:43] That's all we ever get, so that's all I know, but they're quite good.

[1:46] I might have to send you a few different ones to try out then.

[1:49] Finally, from Dayton, Ohio, which is located in a state that's round on the edges and high in the middle, is Paul Reibel. Hey, Paul, does it ever get difficult remembering the lock combinations for all the storage units you have?

[1:58] No, because I use the same combination for all of them.

[2:03] Is it one, two, three, four, five?

[2:03] My password is "password" also.

[2:10] We're going to be missing Stephen tonight, but I can see the waiting room is filling up fast. So let's hit that admit all button and get started.

[2:13] Holy moly, yeah, we got loaded with people here. I reckon there's people lined up around the block to get into this.

[2:25] Yeah, it's like Taylor Swift is here. All right, so I'll just quickly go through this. As usual, Zoom's stupid participant list constantly moves, so it's hard to go in order, but we have Ira Cohen. We have Leo Lucans. Pat Casey's here. I see Vlad Kern. Hey, Vlad. Greg Harp is back. Jeremy. You, Scott. Joao Gomes is here. Miles Leiback, haven't seen you in a really long time. Roland Bandarob, and some names I don't recognize: Travis Garsky, Brian, just Brian. Maybe we know you, maybe we don't.

[2:57] Just from Impulse.

[2:57] Okay, from Impulse. All right, there we go. Sippu Rout. Tom Eggnatz. And again, this moves around, so I've been... Jess Keller from Light and Lens Studios. So welcome, everybody.

[3:13] This is a loaded episode. For those of you who are new or have never participated in a live recording, we do our best to give everybody some time to speak and share what they want to discuss. Any questions you have, certainly ask. We will edit this to cut out background noise, people talking over one another, any long pauses, or things that just kind of don't go anywhere.

[3:35] But as we alluded to, we had asked some people to think of four cameras that mean something to them: either their favorite cameras, cameras that are historically significant or interesting to them, or even just something that you wish you had. So hopefully you guys have had some time to think of what you want. But I also know that Vlad and I had been talking recently and he introduced me to a couple of... Vlad, rather than me just butcher it, why don't you do a quick introduction to who you invited?

[4:07] Sure, yeah. We got Travis and Shane here from Impulse. I got to say hi, guys. How are we going?

[4:14] What's up? That's Travis, I'm Shane.

[4:17] Okay, and you guys are Impulse Camera in Milwaukee, right?

[4:22] Correct, yep.

[4:23] Congratulations on your World Series appearance.

[4:29] Yeah, it's going crazy here.

[4:31] And we got Jess from New York, Jess Keller. Yes, tell us what you run.

[4:40] Oh, yeah, I run Light and Lens Studios, which is a community space for photographers in upstate New York. So I have a store, I have darkroom rentals, studio rentals, classes, photo club, anything having to do with photography, basically.

[4:58] We wanted to get a take on the new generation of camera stores that are opening in the United States, and to get a little bit of background on how you guys got started and so on, because it's not very common for new stores to pop up. So I wanted to hear the story behind it. And Mike, if you want to take over here.

[5:17] Yeah, sure. And I'm always interested to hear people's journeys, how you got to where you're at now, because as a collector, a Gen X collector, I'm kind of in the middle, in that I started on digital too, and I had film cameras growing up when I was a kid. My dad had a Canon SLR, and my first cameras were a couple point-and-shoots. I had a Canon PowerShot S2. I eventually moved up to a Nikon D60, and it wasn't until later in my life that I went back to film. And I started the website, started reviewing things, developing connections, meeting all these people. Then eventually the podcast came through. So that's my origin story. But maybe with Jess, just go over how you got to where you're at now. What got you started and wanting to do this in the first place?

[6:05] Gosh, that's a loaded question.

[6:05] Let me make it more streamlined for you. What specifically made you decide to open a physical camera store in this world today?

[6:17] Gotcha. By trade, I'm actually a mental health therapist, so this is not my school-based job, if you will. But I did learn about photography when I was in college. We had a darkroom and we learned all the film stuff. Even though I worked in the mental health world, I was selling my own photography at local festivals and things like that, and got to talk to other photographers in the area. And it was kind of this united consensus that none of us knew each other, to start off. And everybody wanted to have a space to be able to meet other photographers and to be able to buy gear and talk about our photos and get critiques and all that kind of stuff.

[7:03] So I had wanted to start a business for a long time, and then I was just like, you know what? I'm going to do it. So I went to doing therapy part-time and just did it. The camera store aspect wasn't actually originally in the cards. It was supposed to be just a rental studio, rental darkroom, and gallery space for the community. But it was actually requested that I start selling gear and consigning gear and many other services that I now offer that I didn't previously. So a lot of it was the community around me basically asking for that.

[7:46] So when you say upstate New York, are we talking Albany? Are we talking Buffalo? Where are you at?

[7:51] An hour north of Albany.

[7:52] Okay. And what's the market like there? What is the scene? Is it pretty much all Gen Z, or do you have a wide range of age groups that come in?

[8:02] There's very few Gen Z people. A lot of it is the older generation. They've since retired, they want to get back into film, or people that learned film 20 years ago and now they're just wanting to get back to it. It definitely has always been more of a digital photography scene, but with Light and Lens opening, a lot more people have come back to film, which has been pretty cool.

[8:05] Unintentionally, whether you realize this or not... For one, Camerosity, although we are sort of photographers in the sense that we have an insane amount of cameras and we do use them, a lot of us are collectors. And there might be, I am not sure if this has been proven, but a link between mental illness and the decision to have hundreds of thousands of cameras like we tend to do. So you might be on to something. Maybe you could do some kind of overwhelming way of curing us of this need to collect and add-door collection (?).

[9:07] Oh, I'm just as bad as you guys are. I have a front case that I keep having to upgrade in the store because I keep adding my own camera collection to it. And I get a bigger one and I'm like, oh, I'm not going to be able to fill this.

[9:21] All right, well, thank you. Same question for the Impulse guys. What got you guys started? What's the scene like there in Milwaukee? I know Retrospect's out there. We've had Eric on from there a couple times. I'll admit, even though I'm only about three hours from Milwaukee, I don't get up there too often. So tell us a little bit about what the scene is there and how you guys got started.

[9:44] Way back we started, but for the longest time we've just had cameras in our hands, recording stupid stuff in high school.

[9:50] Oh yeah, with friends, just with the eye flip (?), that little USB Flip camera. We had one of them, started storing memories on there, and then he got really big into the video side of things, and I got into the photography stuff.

[10:07] Yeah, and I started getting serious on the videography side when I picked up an A6100. So that was my first little camera. And yeah, we started doing wedding shoots and started shooting weddings. That's how we started doing stuff. And then we started doing websites and marketing for people right around 2020, 2021. The marketing stuff is so up and down. You just never know when you're going to be let go, basically.

[10:37] Yeah, let go.

[10:37] Because they can't afford you anymore. But we've scaled a couple companies to large amounts. And I remember coming back from a trip in December. This is two years before we even talked about a camera store. But I took a photo of this spot when it was open. I was like, screw it, let's see if that space has opened up again. Let's try this camera store.

[11:00] That was December. Yep, it was December of '23, and we got keys in February.

[11:02] So, impulse decision. You had mentioned a lot of video and some still photography. Would you say that the majority of your customer base is interested in video, or what's the split there?

[11:15] It's a hybrid. A lot of photos, a lot of video. It's just across the board. Milwaukee is very rampant in terms of content creation and just photography as a hobby, as a gig. We've got gig workers, we have rentals as well. Film cameras, yeah, it's all over the place. I mean, there's a lot of people that are developing film now, so it's been a big thing. But a little bit of everything. We're very community-driven. That's our motto. When I started, when I was 16, 17, I could never rent that crazy huge amount of gear, or the gear that's really good. And we really back that here with rentals, and we try to cater to the younger audience.

[12:01] I've been to your store a couple of times, and you guys have a pretty nice film selection in the film camera section. Can you tell us a little bit about the film scene in Milwaukee? What kind of demographic do you usually get that buys film, develops film, and shoots film?

[12:17] It's mostly people under 40. It's actually coming back quite a bit. It's cool to see. I have younger kids coming in asking if we have any one-touch film cameras or something easy to start with. And then we actually have people my age and Shane's age that are already looking for medium format cameras, or 120 film cameras, and ameos (?), and they're starting to build their collection of these hundreds-of-dollars bodies. It's crazy.

[12:44] Yeah, and our part-timer, Patin, just started getting into film because of a class that he has to do it for. So actual schools are trying to get them into film, which is pretty cool. And we just like to offer it to the younger generation to start learning about manual mode and all that stuff.

[13:06] So for Jess, for both of you guys, traditional camera stores have been disappearing for decades, right?

[13:11] Central Camera in downtown Chicago is the anomaly of the old-school camera store that's still around. But there are so many others that are gone. What's different about today that's allowing new stores to open and actually be successful? What do you think you have that those old stores missed out on? Is it just simply timing, or is there something different about today?

[13:30] I mean, I think timing definitely plays a part in it. I think since the pandemic, people have been trying to slow down a lot, especially when it comes to getting back to film. Of course, with AI and all those other things, I think people are just in general wanting to lean more into that physical art form again. There's a lot of older camera stores that turned into other things. Our main camera store, I guess for 50, 60-plus years now, just does audio/video, and so everybody goes in there expecting to be able to buy cameras, get help, all that kind of stuff, and they actually send them to me. So it's kind of the older stores, even if they're not doing that anymore, still connecting new people with new stores.

[14:23] And you develop on site, right? You guys do. I saw you have a little lab.

[14:30] Yep, I have a darkroom. I develop all the film by hand, no machine.

[14:33] How much of that traffic do you get for film development?

[14:36] That's actually what I get the most of.

[14:40] Really?

[14:40] People wanted to get back into film, but they didn't want to go to big names like CVS or Walmart or Walgreens, a lot of times because they don't get your negatives back, and they wanted to know that their film was being taken care of. So that, again, was a service that I didn't originally plan on offering, and it has been probably the most popular service that I have at this point.

[15:05] And in comparison to impulse stats (?), I would call it a semi-urban area where you guys are in, a nice mall, where you guys get a lot of people with film. I think you already answered it, but you said that you have mostly an older crowd that does film in your area?

[15:25] It is a lot of the older crowd. There are a lot of younger people that are starting to come in, but they're usually interested more in digital, but they're kind of curious about film. There's definitely some that I've kind of sucked in.

[15:45] What do you do to foster that? If someone's into digital but they say that they're curious about film, what do you do to push them, or not push, but guide them along?

[15:52] Just give them a hard shove towards film. No, the biggest thing, if they're in person, is showing them the darkroom. I have one of the doors that you stand in and it spins around you, that we call the portal. People just find that to be fantastic. And once you kind of explain to them the process of, "Oh yeah, you shoot your film and then you develop it and you can print it and you can scan it and you could do all these things," they're like, "Oh, it's not just taking a picture and never looking at it again." So I think just talking to people about it, especially younger people, and educating them on it more is kind of driving its own interest in that way. It's just kind of connecting them and having the accessibility that maybe they didn't think they could have before.

[16:42] Anthony used to run a coffee shop down in Gainesville called Volta. And while it wasn't a camera store, you did sell some film, right? You tried to have a photography-adjacent wall or whatever. Is that right?

[16:55] That is correct. Gainesville's a college town. It's the University of Florida. And so there was a constant stream of people coming through the art department and through the university in general who were interested in film. And the last place in town that sold film was a camera store called Harman's that went out of business. I couldn't get film myself. The closest place to buy film from Gainesville was Orlando, which is two hours away. And so I contacted Stephen over at CosmoFoto and became a CosmoFoto vendor. And so we carried CosmoFoto 100, and we carried Agent Shadow 400. And we sold 120 and 35 millimeter. We sold a lot of film. We would have photography meetups at the cafe, and it sort of became a hub for analog film in Gainesville. As a matter of fact, that's where I met Carl from the Classic Lens podcast. He helped run a camera meetup, and they started meeting at Volta partially because we were the only place you could get film. And we also always had art displays, and we had photography shows fairly often. And so it just sort of complemented what we were already doing.

[18:12] So Shane, Travis, and Jess all mentioned the word community when we talked about what got them started. And Jess actually said she started the store for the community. Would you say, Anthony, that that's kind of the secret sauce to camera stores surviving today, to build around a community first?

[18:29] Absolutely. Absolutely.

[18:31] Paul, we talked about community driving a lot of these stores and allowing physical stores to reopen and be successful. You left Fairborn Camera in 2013, right?

[18:42] 2010.

[18:43] Okay, 2010. So digital already existed, but film was on the decline. You saw a lot of the old traditional camera stores go out of business and disappear. Do you think that people weren't aware of the community back then, or would that have helped? What could have saved Fairborn to keep it still around today if they had still tried to keep going?

[19:04] We could still be there if we wanted to be. It's just that we all got old.

[19:10] Okay.

[19:10] And we had other things we wanted to do. We were different from a lot of the mom-and-pop and other types of stores because we were not driven by photofinishing. Photofinishing is what kept camera stores in business for many, many years, many labs and all that. I didn't do that. We did professional, industrial, commercial, law enforcement, military, all that kind of stuff that was not driven by photofinishing.

[19:38] And to answer your question, you're right. The mom-and-pop stores and the chains like Harman's, which was a great store: when digital came out, people stopped processing pictures. It just didn't happen anymore. They shared them on the internet, or they put them on CDs, or did things like that. So photofinishing was a very profitable part of any camera store, and when that went away, they couldn't sell enough equipment at very low margins to make it worthwhile. But what did happen was that there were a lot of used camera stores, or stores that specialized in used equipment, that were able to maintain enough business that they stayed with it. Czech Rubin in Louisville had a very good career in selling used equipment, and he's retired now, but two other guys have taken over his business, and they're doing quite well in the Louisville area. And I think that's probably sort of what Travis and Shane are doing. Are you selling primarily used?

[20:48] No, it's all over.

[20:49] Yeah, a lot of both. We have a huge used selection right now, but one side of our store is now all used and the other side's all brand new.

[20:59] What do you stock in new?

[21:00] Sony, Nikon, Canon, Lumix, Viltrox, Tilta, SmallRig, Peak Design.

[21:06] Okay. So are you buying direct from the manufacturer? So did you open franchises?

[21:13] Those are our distributors, and we don't have any franchise. This is the only store.

[21:18] Okay, interesting.

[21:20] I'm just going to jump in here for a moment. Jess, Travis, and Shane, this might be your long-term future type of question here, but I'm actually going to ask it to Paul. So Paul, in 2010, you retired from selling cameras to go into retirement and then sell cameras. Is that how it sort of happens?

[21:40] No, it's an accident. It's fate.

[21:44] It's fate. Okay. All right.

[21:48] And Mike is to blame for a good bit of it. These guys have been listening to me whine for the last three days. On Saturday, I picked up a collection of between 300 and 400 lenses and cameras, and they have taken over my life.

[22:07] And the cool thing about it was that the topic for tonight was to be four cameras that were either your favorites, that you hated, or that were interesting to you. And I found three cameras that came in on Saturday that checked all those boxes. So I'm going to show you really quickly, because there are so many here and I want to see what everybody else has, but I'll show you really quickly what I came up with.

[22:34] First, and Miles will like this: this is the camera that put Zeiss Ikon out of business. It's the Contarex Super, which is about nine pounds of steel with a really, really good lens on the front of it.

[22:49] Is that the 1.4 Planar?

[22:51] That's a 1.4 Planar.

[22:52] Okay.

[22:52] Yeah. But the bodies are just absolutely horrible. There are no f-stops on the lenses. The f-stop control was on the body itself. I mean, it's just totally ass-backwards. It's second only to the alpha (?) as being a camera that you can hurt yourself using.

[23:10] The other camera that I really like, this I think is just interesting. This is a Kodak 35 Rangefinder. Now, Argus gets all the press because it's the American-made camera and blah, blah, blah. Kodak also made 35 millimeter cameras. And I happen to think this one has a lot more character than any of the Arguses do, except for, what's that little one that's streamlined, Mike? Is it the M? The Argus M that's so cool looking.

[23:37] Yeah, there was an Argus M camera. They had a whole bunch of them, and they sold them under different names. It was very bullet, art deco kind of looking.

[23:43] Yeah, this is just industrial from the ground up. It's almost like a robot-looking camera.

[23:52] What's interesting about that is the non-rangefinder Kodak 35. If you remove all that extra crap that they added to it, it's still the same camera. The shutter's the same. The lenses are usually the same. The basic part of the body and the film compartment are the same. They just literally grafted on everything else, both under the top and the front of it, making for a very strange-looking... I hate the term steampunk, but I'm going to say it, where stuff's just kind of tacked onto the sides. But it all works well. And does yours have the Anastar lens, Paul?

[24:25] This one I put in the permanent collection. This is the Anastigmat Special.

[24:30] Okay, so yours was just earlier then.

[24:32] Yeah.

[24:32] I think it was called the Anastar in the later versions. But that's a great Tessar-style, four-element, very, very sharp. You've got to squint to use the rangefinder on it.

[24:41] Yeah, it's a pain. But the reason I picked this one: I keep one camera out of every collection and put it in my private collection. This one I kept because it has black advance and rewind knobs, and it has the black rangefinder cover.

[24:56] Right.

[24:57] And the theory is that those came from the government. They had them left over from making cameras for the government, so they used them. But I just thought it looked cool, so I put it in the showcase.

[25:07] The other camera, and this was just interesting, is just a plain old Retina II. They made a jillion of these cameras. However, they didn't make a jillion of them with a 47mm f/2 Ektar lens on them. This camera with a regular lens will sell for $30, if they even work at all. With the 47mm f/2 Ektar, they sell for $600 if they're in good condition. So it's one of those things where, if you're a collector or you go to a garage sale and you look at a camera, you pick it up and you think you know what it is, look closely, because maybe you don't exactly know what it is. I had no idea that I had three of these. I always look, and I thought maybe there'll be one.

[25:59] How did it happen?

[26:00] They started putting an American lens on a German

[26:02] camera. They did not sell them in the U.S., they were sold only in Germany with the Ektar. So is that actually a German lens that's branded Ektar, or it's an American lens? No, no, it's an American lens. Okay. It's "Made in USA." Yeah, because you could get them with Schneider lenses too. Right, they're primarily Xenons. Yeah, and he'd share with you that the production numbers of the Schneider and Ektar versions are pretty close to the same. It's just what Paul said: nobody cares for the Schneider ones, but the ones with the Ektar, because that's the same lens on the Kodak Bantam Special.

[26:32] Yes. And I believe it's either exactly the same or it's very, very, very similar to the kit lens on the Kardon. The Kardon rangefinder has that same... Yeah, it's the same optics. It is exact, okay, yeah. Was that three or was that four?

[26:47] That's the third that I had. I'm not going to take up everyone's time, because I want to hear what everybody else has got.

[26:55] Yeah, yeah, let's get some other people here. Rollin Banderah. I met Rollin at the Cincinnati show a year and a half ago, but he has since moved.

[27:06] Is it a year ago October? Yeah. And I've moved down to Tampa. Go Rays.

[27:10] All right. Yeah, that's true. We got Milwaukee and Tampa on the same show. Okay, that's interesting. Good series showdown. What do you got for us, Rollin? The T90, the Canon T90.

[27:19] Yeah, this is my T90 that I bought back in '86. So I had a pair of Pentax K1000s when I was in high school, didn't like them. And coming out of high school, I was going to go into photojournalism. Everybody was using Nikons in photojournalism, but I as a teenager liked the look of this that came out, and I like the underdog. So I grabbed the T90, and I had an F-1. How do you designate the second F-1? The New? The New. They didn't bother. They should have just called it the F-2 and kept naming their cameras after Nikon, but they just call it the F-1 New.

[27:57] I had the F-1 and this at the same time, but I grabbed the T90 almost every time unless it was sports. I just loved it. And then when EOS came out, I had an EOS-1 and an EOS A2E, and I did not like the A2E; that eye thing did not work very well. And the A2 just wasn't built the same as a T90. You just could feel the T90 was solid. The A2 was okay.

[28:23] Yeah.

[28:24] Still grabbed the A2 more often than the EOS-1 because it was lighter in weight. But the EOS-1 was really nice. But that's my contribution as far as the camera stuff goes.

[28:32] Okay. Jeremy Scott. Jeremy is in chat right now. Jeremy, we've talked about you in the last two episodes, but you weren't able to join us. So...

[28:39] Yeah, I just listened earlier. So yeah, good stuff. I was glad to help everybody with the Houston thing and get everybody stuff. And since getting back from that, I've actually got covered up with two massive loads of cameras, and I have barely gone through a small part of what I got out of that lot.

[29:01] So, I'm still working through mine, and it's been, what, a couple months now?

[29:06] Yeah, almost. So yeah, it's been a while.

[29:10] Well, give us a taste. Give us a couple. It doesn't act before.

[29:14] Oh, okay. So I pulled together my four that are my favorites. One is for a historical reason that goes back to my roots of shooting film, where I started with this Yashica-D and spent a lot of time wandering around the streets of Seoul, Korea, shooting a lot of Tri-X and T-Max 100, 400, and running around there, which was great. And I learned to see light with it, to be honest, because this thing doesn't have a light meter and I never carried one with me. I just learned.

[29:47] Well, and fans of the show will know that on more than one occasion I have recommended the Yashica-D as my favorite. It's not an entry-level camera, but it's not a high-level camera. It's in that perfect middle of what you need to get a great picture, but it's not so complicated that it's more likely to fail. So I'm there with you.

[30:05] Fully mechanical, and the lens is beautiful too, because you actually get that beautiful swirl that everyone wants in the background if you've got it wide open. So I've had some good experience with that. Another one of my favorites, going a little bit different, is just the Olympus Pen F. I love these cameras. Small, simple, also fully mechanical, and a beautiful line of lenses that goes with them.

[30:31] The Pen F was also on my short list. I was going to bring that up, because it's funny: as I travel, I'm always like, what am I going to grab next? What camera do I take next? And I always come back to the Pen F. Somehow it always makes the cut. It's so small, portable. I mean, it's great. And this last weekend there was a big punk rock festival in Gainesville called Fest. It's like 350 bands. And I wanted a camera that I could sort of walk the streets with, do Candids of the punk festival. And I took my Pen F with the 150 millimeter, which is quite interesting, shooting a 150 on a Pen F. It also looks kind of absurd. But yeah, that's absolutely one of my favorite cameras.

[31:10] I was shooting the exact same camera all day yesterday at the Forest Preserve. I've got to tell you, 36 frames in a half frame is an eternity. It just never ends, being 72. I'm sorry, yeah, it becomes 72, and I think I used it in three different outings and I just barely finished it. I would just start shooting random stuff. I'm like, I need this film out of my camera.

[31:39] You need some of those 12-exposure test rolls.

[31:44] Probably.

[31:45] Yeah, I actually one time loaded a 36-exposure into a Pen D3. And what I told myself I was going to do was learn how to bracket on film, which isn't something I typically like to do, because I feel like I'm wasting film. But with the 72 exposures, actually it's like 74, to be honest with you, when you can shoot down the leader a little bit. So I started pushing myself to shoot in lower-light situations that I would normally avoid, because I don't use a meter either. I just go off Sunny 16 most of the time. So I started bracketing and getting some shots that I might not have otherwise tried. And that worked out well and allowed me to get through that 72, 74, whatever exposures a lot faster than if I tried shooting it like I typically do a normal camera.

[32:30] You just stop caring at some point.

[32:31] Yeah, right. You're just like, I'm just going to take six shots of the same thing. Whereas with film, I think that's why people like shooting film: it forces you to think. Is this going to be a good shot? You try to visualize the composition ahead of time and set it up. Whereas with digital, you don't have to. You can just spray and pray and pick the nicest shot. With film, you program your brain to think more, but then you go back to half frame with a huge roll of film and you're kind of going back and forth, shooting it almost like a digital camera. And I'm not talented enough to do the diptychs, where people can visually see multiple exposures in a sequence. I can't do that. I'm not talented enough.

[33:09] You got a rare meter on that Pen F as well.

[33:11] Yeah. Yep. And it is working too.

[33:13] I see. I picked one up from Norris maybe last month, had it CLA'd. Beautiful, beautiful setup. Same meter. It took me a while to figure out, because the meter, you have to have it off the camera to set the ISO, and I'm like, why is this showing me weird stuff? It's one of those RTFM moments, where you have to go back and dig up the manual and actually read it, because it's extremely complicated to operate if it's your first time seeing that meter.

[33:43] Did you have another one, Jeremy?

[33:44] Yes, I do. Got to always go with the tank: the Canon FTb.

[33:50] With the QL.

[33:51] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the line, it's a beast; it just works. That's the Canon Nikkormat, in my opinion. It scratches the same itch: full size, all-metal, mechanical, reliable, built like a tank, a ton of great lenses for it. Yeah, great option there. And I mean, my experience as a photographer, of course, is I'm fully ingrained in understanding fully manual aperture and shutter speed, and that's all I need. I don't need all the bells and whistles. Give me something fully mechanical, something that just gives me the basics, and that's all I want.

[34:32] Yeah. I was going to say, those FTbs, that battery door is so easy to lose. I think I have three of them and not one has battery doors, because they just fall off randomly.

[34:42] Yeah, if you catch it on something, if it's loose at all, since it's on the corner, it's real easy to catch on a piece of clothing or something like that that can eventually unscrew it. And then it's gone. They didn't have many threads. So I mean, just the action of carrying it over your shoulder could unscrew it. What I taught people to do was put a drop of clear nail polish on it after you change the battery. It was easy enough to get it off, and clear nail polish will keep it from unscrewing on its own.

[35:15] Well, I'm glad I've got one of the ones that has the coin slot on it, so you can tighten it up a little bit tighter.

[35:19] Yeah, you tighten it down. I was just playing around earlier with the FX, and there's some other models, the earlier ones, where there is no coin slot, and it's just so hard to get the thing on and off. Mirandas had that same kind of round one, where there's almost only one full thread holding it on, and if you don't line that up and you cross-thread it, it's either never going to go back on or it's never going to come off. It's one or the other.

[35:48] I've got one last camera. This is actually my favorite camera, and a little bit different: my Nikon Zf. I know it was talked about last time, but the main reason I love this thing is I've got adapters for everything. So now I can shoot everything, all of my lenses, everything I've got, and test things out and shoot all digital without having to go the film route for everything, which is nice when you want to shoot that. But sometimes it's great to just hop back and forth, throw whatever I want on the body. And then you can have some crazy stuff with this.

[36:27] Yep. What lens is that, tell us?

[36:29] It's a television lens. It's the Missletronics (?) 48mm f/1.9. And it has the wildest, swirly, crazy bokeh you've ever seen. It was actually initially designed in C-mount for the television setup. But the C-mount adapter on it actually unscrews, and it's an L39 screw mount on the back. So you can do that to an L39 adapter to the Zf and rock and roll, and it actually covers full frame.

[37:02] That's really impressive for a C-mount lens to cover that much. We talked briefly about this in the last episode, lenses that are intentionally stopped down because they didn't want people to see the edges. And I imagine that the designers of the Missiltronic (?) didn't want you to see the swirly, but you've reopened it back up and given us some beautiful out-of-whatever detail.

[37:24] So Shane and Travis, do you guys have any Zfs in stock right now?

[37:27] We actually sell a lot of those, but we just had a guy come in yesterday with a Zf, and he had a Viltrox lens on it, a pancake 28mm, and that's such a cool lens. I actually posted about it, but it makes that camera look so tiny with that small lens. But yeah, we have those, so...

[37:50] That Viltrox lens, it has the USB-C port on it.

[37:55] Yep.

[37:56] I'm trying to figure out what that's for. It's not for charging it, right?

[38:02] Firmware updates. So you don't have to get one of those little docking stations that Sigma and Tamron and all them used to sell.

[38:11] He had a vignette mode enabled on the Zf, and whatever profile this guy, our customer, had on yesterday looked so awesome. I really wanted to print out one of the photos he took of the square, Drexlaton Square.

[38:26] But yeah, it's a great, great camera. I think, Mike, you guys did an episode on Chinese lenses. They've got some real nice glass lately. For $99 for that Viltrox, it's worth every penny.

[38:37] Yeah. I have a Viltrox 85mm f/1.8 for Nikon Z mount, and I think I paid $130 for it. And it's so light, but it focuses so lightning quick, and I was super impressed wide open. My son is in Taekwondo, and the place where he practices has the worst lighting. It's like 1980s fluorescent tubes in the ceiling, and the lighting is god awful. But I took that thing there wide open and just shot it, and the images came out so great. So I'm so impressed with what Viltrox and a lot of these other Chinese companies are doing right now.

[39:15] Yeah, I've got the 20mm f/2.8 that I've had for a while, and it does a great job.

[39:20] Yeah. I just sold today a 75mm APS-C f/1.2 to somebody because they wanted something cinematic looking, for $580. I couldn't even believe the price. They're so affordable but awesome.

[39:35] Brian Smith, you were active in chat. First time caller?

[39:40] Yes. Long-time listener.

[39:42] You want to say where you're from and give us some cameras that have in some way touched you?

[39:48] Yeah, so I'm in central Pennsylvania, and so there's actually quite a few camera stores around me. Lucky to have that. But with the cameras, you said we could rank them however we wanted.

[40:02] However you want.

[40:03] I went with cameras that generate the most amount of conversation when people see me shooting them, because I get a lot of joy talking to people about stuff like this. So the first one I have is the Zeiss Super Ikonta 531/2. It's a 6x9 folder, rangefinder. So I mostly shoot medium format and large format. I do have plenty of 35mm cameras, but I figure if I'm going to shoot film, I'm going to shoot big. It is the way that I want to go. I think mostly because it's a folder, and it's a pretty good size one as well, I get a lot of people stopping me like, "Wait, is that a camera? Are you actually shooting? Is it digital? What is that?" and wanting to know more information about it.

[40:58] I love that camera. That was also on my short list of what I wanted to talk about tonight. It's kind of cool, I just get to sit back and watch everybody else talk about the cameras that I had on my list. But yeah, for me, it was down to either that or the 1937 Voigtländer Bessa Rangefinder, which is a pre-war rangefinder, so it's actually more advanced than the post-war Bessa I, and it has the Heliar lens on it. And man, that camera has just never let me down. I get delightful images off of it. It's not as steampunky as the Super Ikonta, a little bit lighter to carry, but those two cameras, to me, are two of the epitome of 6x9 classic cameras to carry.

[41:48] Well, and to me, the Super Ikonta is comparatively a fairly inexpensive way to shoot 6x9 in a way that you're going to get really good results. You can get some Bakelite 6x9 cameras that are way cheaper, but you probably aren't going to get as good of results, at least as frequently, whereas somebody might spend a lot more on the more well-known or non-folding 6x9s or something.

[42:23] Brian, did you have to do any work on that camera when you got it? Or did it work when you first bought it?

[42:27] No, it worked right away. I will say that it does have one problem on the back. It's missing the little nub that lets you open the door to see through the red window. But I just use a little toothpick to move it, and it works fine. So yeah.

[42:47] Awesome.

[42:47] So these are only going to get bigger. My next one is the Mamiya C33. And I know a lot of people only consider this a studio camera. I will tell you I only shoot it for street photography. So I do carry this around. The last time I shot it, I was taking photos in downtown Philadelphia for eight hours straight. Yes, my neck did hurt at the end of that eight hours, but it's totally worth it. And again, when you're carrying around something this size, you get a lot of people stopping you. And I also find, at least for me, obviously street photography is something that people feel differently about, and I never want to intrude on people's lives or anything like that. But when I'm taking street photos with something like this, or one of the things I'm going to show you next, I find that people are more interested and less offended, or it's less likely to cause problems, if they look at you and they go, "Wow, what is that?" rather than "He's pointing a camera at me," sort of a thing.

[43:57] Yeah, I've had that experience as well. I mean, TLRs are really great for that, being able to take a picture, and people don't somehow feel like you're invading their privacy, even though you're doing the exact same thing.

[44:08] Yeah, they're not looking at you when they take the picture.

[44:11] Yeah. Right.

[44:13] Yeah, with that C, I've got a C3 with the same grip that you have. You've got to make sure you get to the gym and start working out your right arm, though, because you're going to have one jacked arm and one that's weak, because those things are freaking heavy.

[44:27] Yes. I find that it gives me the control that I want, but it does add a lot of weight. You've got to be willing to... And I think I'll just go ahead and share my next one, because I think it will explain why I'm willing to carry around the Mamiya C33, because I also shoot this one handheld. That is the RB Series B.

[44:51] Oh, my God.

[44:52] If you notice, it actually has lugs on the side of it, because I had them installed on the side of it. So I actually put this on a strap, and I shoot this handheld.

[45:03] Say the name again? Explain what it is.

[45:05] This is the Graflex RB Series B. It is a 4x5 SLR camera. For anybody who can't see it, it basically looks like a giant box. It's like a box camera with an SLR bellows popping out the front. So yeah, and then it's got the view hood, if I can open it while on camera.

[45:33] Yeah, that's getting bigger.

[45:34] That's the view hood. It's like a chimney. Yep. Then the film back goes here. This has just got a more normal 4x5 film back on it, but I actually have the bag mags. I have three bag mags for this, so I can carry around... they're 12 each, so 36 shots with me. I've never actually carried that many shots with me. Twelve is usually enough, but I have the mags for it if I need to.

[46:07] What lens is on there?

[46:08] It's the Kodak Anastigmat 4.5, so...

[46:12] Okay.

[46:12] Yeah, so I think it's the original lens. This one is a fairly early one. It's 1924. They made these for a long time, but this is fairly... I say fairly early in the run, not really early in the run.

[46:27] Well, and I mean, from what I can see, yours is in excellent shape.

[46:30] Yes. It was in okay shape when I got it, and I sent it off to, if anybody's familiar with Graflex Garage, Jerry Gordon at Graflex Garage. He's one of the few people that I know that does full service on those things. He replaced the hood; the entire viewing hood has been replaced. The leather on the outside has been fully reconditioned. He added a Fresnel on the inside of it, so it's much brighter than it originally was.

[47:03] Okay.

[47:04] Excellent, excellent work. I cannot speak more highly of his work.

[47:10] And then I have a fourth, which is a bit of a cheat, and this one is not one that I've taken around a lot. But this is a working 4x5 film camera made almost entirely out of Lego. It has bellows. It has a focus knob on the back that extends the bellows, both in and out. This is actually version two. I did a version one that had incredible light leaks that resulted in very interesting photos but was not necessarily what I was looking for. It has a Graflex Speed Graphic lens and lens board mounted to the front, so that I didn't have to worry about trying to mount the lens directly to the Lego. Then I built my own custom thing in the back that has the ground glass. And then you take that out when you're done focusing, and you just slot in a standard 4x5 film holder. And it works great.

[48:22] Now, are those Lego pieces glued together so they don't pop off?

[48:26] They are not. Nope. There is no glue in the entire thing.

[48:30] Not even hairspray?

[48:31] Don't drop it. It'll explode.

[48:33] Yeah. It's actually fairly robust. I do set it on a table. I have not yet made a tripod mount for it. I'd love to at some point. And the one place that is not Lego is that I did tape the ground glass, but that had less to do with holding it securely and more to do with I haven't found the perfect combination of pieces yet that will perfectly match the film plane to the holders. So that was really tough. So rather than completely hold up the project on that, I decided to just use tape.

[49:05] Okay, I got to 3D print those pieces.

[49:08] Isn't Lego more expensive than cameras these days?

[49:11] Might be.

[49:12] As you say for the younger crowd, this is how we 3D printed things before there were 3D printers.

[49:19] And I will say it looks partially the way that it does, with all the...

[49:23] I love it, with all the crazy colors.

[49:26] Oh yeah. But it was using only Legos that I still had from when I was a kid. In my basement, I just have this enormous bin of Legos. And so I didn't buy any pieces for this. I used camera pieces. Actually, that's not true. I bought the ground glass off of somebody on eBay, because I didn't feel like making it myself. And the rest of it was already pieces that I had in my home. So it didn't cost me any extra to do.

[49:55] You're making me so nervous. You're holding it with one hand. I'm like, please don't drop this.

[50:01] Believe it or not, I have dropped it before, about a foot down to a table. And I think it probably did more damage to the table than it actually came apart. So it's pretty solid.

[50:14] How long did it take you to assemble it?

[50:17] I didn't do it all at once, because it took a lot of experimentation. Again, this is version two. So version one took me longer, probably over the course of a few weeks. I'd spend an hour and a half or two hours here and there. I didn't try to total up the time, but over the course of a few weeks in my spare time, mostly while watching TV or something like that, I would just be trying to piece it together. And then the second one, I learned from the first one a lot about what I needed to do to make this work better. And so the second one I did much more quickly, over just a couple of sessions. I tore it down, and then I used the same pieces. I didn't have enough pieces to have two. So I just tore it apart and built it up again.

[51:02] Well, Brian, I was going to ask you to send me pictures of your Graflex, maybe for the show notes, but I think I definitely need some images of that Lego camera. If you could either email them to me directly or post them... Are you on Discord or Facebook?

[51:17] I'm on Discord.

[51:18] Yeah. Okay, yeah, just post them there, and then when we get around to editing this, I'd love to include one of those in the show notes

[51:23] Because that's an "oh wow" moment for me. Yeah, that's really cool.

[51:28] Thanks.

[51:29] All right, who wants to follow that up? Anybody? Miles, what do you got? I haven't seen Miles in a while.

[51:34] Yeah, I approached the list a little differently. This year marks 10 years that I've been collecting cameras. And for most of those 10 years, I have prioritized buying and having repaired very difficult to repair cameras, and I mostly dismissed electronic cameras. And now I am realizing I dismissed a lot of cameras, and I'm worried that the days are soon approaching for many of these cameras where you can't find working examples. And so now I'm kind of speed running battery-dependent cameras. So my list is the next four battery-dependent cameras that I want to buy.

[52:17] Okay.

[52:18] And so working in reverse order, priority number four is the Bronica RF645, which is an interchangeable 6x4.5 rangefinder. Third is the Leica R8, which is kind of the last of the SLR series for Leica. Second is the Fujica AX-5, which is the end of the line for the Fujica X mount lenses. And then my number one camera that I want to find a working example of is the Olympus Pen EM, which is an electronic motor drive Olympus Pen made at the end of the Olympus Pen fixed lens, half frame line. I have probably bought 10 of those and have not found a working one.

[53:08] Yeah, I think Stephen mentioned having one of those. He's not here today, but we did briefly touch upon that model before.

[53:16] Okay.

[53:16] Of those four, the only one I have is the Fujica, the AX-5. And it's a nice little camera. It's very compact, early '80s. It's lighter weight. The Fujica lenses, as they always were, are still very, very good. So image quality-wise, it's going to rival the best of the Japanese SLRs of the era. But it's a cool camera.

[53:36] Yeah. Well, that's a good way. So you didn't try to top Brian. You pivoted to a different list, though. I didn't know you were going to go in that direction, but I think it was really, really cool. You have your wish list. I'm just really happy you didn't say an Olympus Mju or something like that.

[53:51] Yeah. All right. Let's go next.

[53:53] I can go, I guess.

[53:55] All right, Greg.

[53:55] I'll try to go quickly, because I've only got one for show and tell. These are cameras, I guess, that mean something to me. Well, I'll go with this one first. The one I have to show off is a Canon A-1. This is my brother's camera; he bought it in 1979 with summer job money. It was a $500 camera at the time, which was a lot for a high school kid. It was the second SLR I ever used. It is the one I used in photojournalism in high school. It's the one I took to Europe on my first trip to Europe, and it's the one that I put countless rolls through before starting to buy my own cameras in the '90s. And it just means a lot to me.

[54:40] And then my brother, sadly, passed away a few days short of 62 last year. He kind of kick-started my "if not now, then when am I really going to start collecting the cameras I've always wanted to have?" So it's very meaningful to me. I've had this camera ever since I stole it from him when he went off to college, and it's just an important camera to me.

[55:04] Awesome, yeah.

[55:06] Next camera on my list would be the Miranda Sensorex, and the one that's important is the Sensorex II, and that is because that's actually the first SLR I used, because that was my father's SLR. Now, I don't have his, unfortunately, but as Mike knows, I've got quite a few Mirandas at this point. Kind of kick-started by that.

[55:23] My next one is the Kodak Retina No. 119, which I guess is the third Retina to have come out. And the reason that's important to me is I took it on a trip just on a lark. I had three or four cameras with me. I had a digital mirrorless from Canon, I had a couple of rangefinders, and this folding bellows camera, a little 35 millimeter scale focus viewfinder camera with no parallax correction. The most fun. It just took you down to the basics. And I really was not a fan of scale focus. I was not a fan of viewfinder-only cameras before I used that camera and put a couple rolls through it on that trip. And so it kind of started a different experience for me.

[56:12] I guess number four, the Leica M3. No. I was just waiting to see Joao's reaction on that. Anthony already talked about it: the Voigtländer Bessa RF with the Heliar. I've only recently acquired one of those. It's been one of my bucket list early grail type cameras for a while, and I really do enjoy it. It's just so neat to have that split image rangefinder in a pre-war camera, and that amazing lens just has a character to it that I like. I'm a big fan of Heliar formulas. So that's my four.

[56:54] Awesome. Yeah, it was a great selection. And I like how you had a personal attachment to a couple of those too. So that's interesting.

[57:00] Jess Keller from Lighten Lent Studios (?). You spoke earlier, but now it's your turn to be in the spotlight and share with us four cameras from any category, however you want to rank them. Go ahead.

[57:12] My camera that I call my baby, so this is probably my all-time favorite camera, which I feel like is a little bit mainstream, is the Yashica Mat 124G. That was my first medium format camera in college, and I still have that camera and shoot on it all the time. I even have it tattooed on my leg.

[57:32] Oh, cool.

[57:33] Yeah. So I know it's not necessarily anything that's too rare or anything like that, but it's something that...

[57:40] We've already seen a Canon A-1 and a Yashica D, so there's nothing wrong with that one. You don't have to apologize for it. It's a fantastic camera. I think they're overpriced right now in the market, but they're very, very good. And they're later in Yashica's lineup, so they have the very, very bright screen right out of the box. I mean, you can technically get a little extra brightness out of them with a Rick Oleson screen, but it's not as necessary as with a pre-war Rolleicord or anything like that.

[58:06] Yeah, and I was really lucky, since I got it in college. We had a professor there that knew how to CLA and repair and fix them, so I was able to get one off of eBay. I don't remember what the original issue was, but I just kind of sent it to him and he fixed it, and he's like, "Okay, here you go!"

[58:28] Oh, okay, awesome. So Jess, if it makes any difference, I traded away my really nice Rolleiflex and kept my Yashica Mat G. Of the two, that's what I'd rather shoot.

[58:42] Very nice. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot lighter, and I feel like it's just easy. Not that I've ever shot on a Rolleiflex, but when I've held one, I feel like the Yashica just makes more sense to me.

[58:55] And my other kind of go-to camera, which I only got within the last six months, is an Olympus Pen FT. I had no idea at the time that the lens on it was interesting. It has the 42 millimeter f/1.2 lens on it, so you were talking about the swirl and all that kind of stuff, and that lens is beautiful. Anthony, do you have that one? You have most of the lenses. Do you have that one too?

[59:24] I do. That was Carl's favorite lens. And when he passed, his family passed it on to me.

[59:31] Okay.

[59:32] I always think about that when I shoot that camera with that lens, because I've got the FT and the F. Actually, I like the F, because the viewfinder is just a little bit brighter, because it doesn't have the light meter dimming things up a little bit. But that 1.2 lens is just really sweet. It's one of the great lenses. It's very pretty. And it adapts really, really well to digital too. Actually, all the Pen lenses do, especially on APS-C crop sensor cameras. There's not a lot of crop factor on those. So I don't know if you like to adapt lenses to digital, but that's a really good candidate to do.

[1:00:09] I actually haven't really gotten into adapting, but it's something that I could do, because I have so many lenses and adapters around me.

[1:00:19] They work really well. I've utilized several of those lenses of mine as well. Just be aware that not all of the Pen F lenses will cover full frame. So APS-C definitely; I think they cover all of those.

[1:00:33] We're glad to inspire you to spend even more money, Jess. I hope Ladd gave you sufficient warning that we're a pretty bad influence on most everybody who listens to the show. What's number three?

[1:00:45] So some more basic ones. I guess these are my everyday shooters. That's what we'll say. It's my four everyday shooting cameras.

[1:00:52] Okay.

[1:00:54] Next is a Canon A-1 Program (?) with a 50 millimeter 1.4 lens, which I just love for the wide open shooting. I find that I've been able to shoot that in really low light and get good pictures, because it can be so open with the 1.4, and I just feel like it's really versatile.

[1:01:15] And then my actual, so to speak, go-to for more professional things is my Canon R6. So not film, but I do a lot of digital stuff, as I said. I sell my photography at art fairs and festivals and stuff like that. And with my store, I do headshots, pet portraits, so many other things. And so that has been another very important camera in my arsenal. I feel like the other three are more for me to play with, but the R6 gets the job done to be able to...

[1:01:51] That's cool. Yeah. I don't think anybody's come on this show yet and talked about the Canon R mirrorless. I'm a huge fan of the Nikon Zed, Z, whatever. I've been around too many Canadians. But yeah, the Canon Rs are probably just as good. I just personally don't have any experience with them.

[1:02:09] Well, I'll give you props for it. I love mine.

[1:02:12] Do you? Okay, I wasn't sure if we'd ever heard anyone talk about them before.

[1:02:15] You know, Mike, I'm sure I mentioned this before, but talk about blind spots: I've never owned a Canon SLR in my life.

[1:02:23] You've loaned me one or two. Remember, you tried to? You bought the EF and it didn't work, and you sent it to me and I couldn't get it working.

[1:02:30] Yeah. And that was it. That was my one chance to get a Canon SLR, either digital or film. It's just a complete blind spot for me. Early on, when I was in college, I bought an FM2, and I was just Nikon, and I just never picked up a Canon. Never. It's just one of those odd things where I can't even count how many cameras I have, and I've never owned a Canon SLR.

[1:03:00] Joao, we haven't heard from you yet. What kind of Nikon F lenses do you have lying around?

[1:03:06] How is everyone doing? Well, so the theme tonight for me was the four rarest cameras I own. Now, just to manage expectations, we're talking normal human being level.

[1:03:17] Before you continue, Ira is here, so just remember that.

[1:03:21] That's what I was going to say. This is normal human being, not Ira Cohen–level collection.

[1:03:26] You don't want to be disappointed and maybe go for a walk or something.

[1:03:30] Give me five meters here.

[1:03:31] All right. What do you got?

[1:03:32] And then, yeah, I promised Greg I wouldn't talk like a, right? So the first one is Paul's favorite brand. It's an Alpa Reflex 9f, made in '65. I like it quite a bit, actually. The viewfinder is very bright. It's basically like a 9d without a light meter. About 140 were made in chrome and 17 in black. I'm sure Ira is reaching for his black ones right about now.

[1:03:57] It would be cool to see one here.

[1:03:59] I think he's got a blue one. I think Ira's got a blue one, if I remember correctly.

[1:04:04] Red is a red one.

[1:04:05] There you go.

[1:04:06] So I pair it with my current Macro-Switar f/1.8. I really like this lens. You can get almost macro, 1:3 macro, if I'm not mistaken, down to 11 inches focusing, so it's very versatile. So that's my first one.

[1:04:24] My second one, and more than the camera, the system, is the most distinguished camera in the world, as it was known back in the '40s: the Ektra. So the Ektra was about, what, 2,500 or so? So uncommon, I wouldn't say super rare. But finally, as of last week, I was able to complete the collection of all the lenses and accessories that were available for it. So I found this catalog from 1941 that lists prices of every possible accessory. So I have the ground glass focusing bag. I have all six lenses that were available for it, including this one, the 153. That was really tough to find. All the different viewfinders, flash sync, et cetera, et cetera. And for Jeremy, I also found these nice adapters so you can use all of the Ektar lenses on your Zf or any Z camera. So I think that's pretty cool, because those are really, really good.

[1:05:23] Does the shutter work on your body?

[1:05:26] Yes, I sent it to Japan, to Hayara Camera, and they fixed it, so it's serviced. It works great. I've shot six or seven rolls of film. It's one of my favorite cameras. I really love it. I'm careful, obviously, because I know it has a reputation, but it works well. One of the other features I really love is this little dial on top where you can select the focal length that you're shooting. So this varifocal viewfinder, really advanced.

[1:05:49] Yeah. It's really neat. So you don't need an external viewfinder when you switch lenses. Did you know that Nikon was building a rangefinder with that same feature? It was going to be called the SPX. And they made it as far as prototype stage, where it was going to have a varifocal viewfinder too, so that you could basically zoom the viewfinder. You want to switch from a 50 millimeter to a telephoto, you just zoom the viewfinder like a zoom lens and then you're at 100mm. You mount the lens and you're good to go. But that camera never made it past the prototype stage.

[1:06:26] Yeah, I mean, the Ektra, right when it was launched, was probably the most advanced camera in the world at the time. Ironically, it was a flop. It was not a commercial success at all. It was expensive as hell. I mean, the inflation-adjusted price today is like $7,000, I think, is what it would have cost, something like that.

[1:06:48] And plus, didn't it have a reputation as delicate even when it was brand new? Right?

[1:06:52] Yes and no, yes and no. It's a very well-built camera. It's very sturdy, so it's not delicate in the sense that you breathe on it and it's going to break. It's just Kodak designed everything from scratch on that camera. There's almost nothing that's off the shelf. The way that they set shutter speeds on those is different from other focal plane shutter cameras. They were difficult to repair when they did break. It was hard to find people who would touch them. So I think more than being delicate, that's where their negative reputation came from: it was so far ahead of its time, they put so much technology into it that they maybe overextended their reach a little bit. And then when things do have a problem, that's why they are hard to get repaired.

[1:07:33] So the last piece that I learned recently that I was impressed by is that the flash synchronizer is actually synced to all speeds from 1/50th to 1/1000th of a second, which not a lot of cameras, especially focal plane shutter cameras, can do. Somehow they pulled it off.

[1:07:50] Hmm. Interesting.

[1:07:52] Third one, another Kodak. I guess I'm a little bit of a Kodak junkie, and Mike...

[1:07:56] Oh, I know about this one?

[1:07:57] I got it recently, yeah, my Regent II.

[1:08:00] This is where GAS is affecting me, because Joao showed this one on the Discord, and I want one of those badly, but they're hard to find.

[1:08:08] Yeah, it took me over a year, almost a year and a half, to find one in France, and then I had it sent to Slovakia so that Oleg could service it, so it works really well. It was Kodak AG, made in Stuttgart from the end of '38 to mid '39, and then of course World War II started and they had to stop production. Davy Jens and Klaus from the Retina Society have been very helpful doing research on the camera for me. They estimate that about 1,000 were made, but the survival rate was really low, about 10% or less. So they have a database of all the ones they have seen and keep track of them. So it's about 50 that they have in their database, but they estimate there's another 50 out there waiting to be found. So Mike, there is hope.

[1:08:52] So that's the Kodak Regent II. It's a Nagel, Stuttgart, basically a 6x9 folding Retina, I guess, would be the best way to describe it.

[1:09:03] Yes, very much like a Retina. It has a combined viewfinder, rangefinder.

[1:09:07] Yeah.

[1:09:08] The one thing that is very unusual that I like is the shutter release button also doubles as a focusing knob. So you basically focus by turning it, and once you have focused, you just press it and snap your picture.

[1:09:21] That's so cool.

[1:09:22] Yeah, it's very, very cool. And very good build quality. I mean, it feels heavy in the hand.

[1:09:26] Is there one more, or was that it?

[1:09:27] The last one, and I don't know how to pronounce this, I don't speak German, is the Austrian Leica, Waika or Vica, I'm not sure.

[1:09:35] Vika, I guess. You reviewed it in the past, Mike.

[1:09:38] Yeah, yeah, I have... Mine doesn't look exactly like yours, but it does look very similar. So it looks like a thread mount Leica, but it doesn't use the same lenses. Go ahead, describe it.

[1:09:49] Yeah, so it's like a clone, or a copy, if you will. This is the first type, known as the short top, because the rewind knob is not covered. So as you mentioned, it has interchangeable lenses. It has a separate window for the viewfinder and the rangefinder. Handmade in Austria, sort of a boutique operation there. Anywhere from 150 to 200 is what's commonly described as the production.

[1:10:17] A couple of things are unusual about this particular copy. The serial number, even though it's a short top Waika, or Wica, belongs to the second series, the long top. So it's a little unusual. There is only one other that has been described that has that anomaly. And then I reached out to Ira over Facebook when I first got the camera, and he has a long top camera that has exactly the same number as mine, and these sort of duplicate serial numbers are another anomaly that has been well described for this operation. So I guess record keeping was not the forte back in the day.

[1:10:55] And then, yeah, it comes with a Steinheil Cassar 50mm 2.8. Again, this was a lens that was usually available with the second version, not the first one. So I think it was probably towards the end of the run of the first version, into the second one. I'm pretty certain I'm only the second owner of this camera. I got it from the estate of somebody who served in the U.S. Army back in World War II. He actually was an observer at the Nuremberg trials, and he was a photography aficionado. He bought a number of cameras there, I want to say three, and I got this one from his estate. So he bought it while he was stationed in Europe and then brought it here to the US. It has that connection and that provenance, which is pretty cool.

[1:11:37] Well, I don't think we can not pivot to Ira. For anybody here who maybe doesn't know Ira, he has, from what I've personally seen, the wildest collection of cameras. And I've said this before on the show: the thing to me that's the most impressive about Ira's collection isn't simply how many he has or how many rare cameras he has. It's that there's whole segments of cameras that he doesn't collect at all. There's almost no electronic cameras in his collection. He doesn't do, to use your words, Ira, 6x6 TLRs. You have exactly two Retinas, right? You have the first one and the last one. So considering how large your collection is, that there's whole sections that you've just intentionally skipped just blows me away. So did you have a couple you wanted to share with us that maybe could invoke some...

[1:12:34] But compared to the ones that I've already seen, this is going to seem downright mundane.

[1:12:39] Okay, no, they're all cool.

[1:12:41] The first one is the Honeywell Pentax Spotmatic.

[1:12:45] Okay.

[1:12:46] And the reason I want to hold this one up is, back when I was a professional photographer, I actually made more money with this camera than any other camera that I've had before or since. My father got one in 1964. This is not his. I was a school photographer, and I figured out to show up at the dress rehearsal for plays. Then I would run home, develop the film, print all the pictures of the kids who were in the shows, set up a kiosk next to the auditorium, and then sell the pictures of the children to the parents of the students who were in the cast.

[1:13:25] Nice.

[1:13:26] And I did that for three years in high school. And you mentioned that there's no 6x6 TLRs. There's a very good reason. My dad also had a Rolleiflex 3.5E, I think it was. And like I said, I was a school photographer, and I made the stupid mistake of actually trying to follow the action at a Saturday afternoon football game while looking in the reflex finder instead of the sports finder, so that whenever a player zigged, I zagged, and I missed every single important shot, and I never got over it. So that was the end of that.

[1:14:07] But besides that, I've got a little history of the Asahi camera company. This was one of the first ones, usually called the Asahiflex, but this was sold by Sears under the Tower brand. This was the first model they sold. Now, somewhere along the way, Pentax decided they were going to go against the big boys, Canon and Nikon. So they came up with this one, which is the LX. This was a total system camera. Everything was removable, everything was interchangeable, and it just was too little, too late. They really couldn't compete with Canon and Nikon.

[1:14:52] So eventually what they did was just go back to their mass market marketing, and they came up with something called the MZ-S, which is your typical... you said no electronics; this is an all-electronic SLR. But it's very interesting. They have a feature on this camera that I've never seen on another camera, and that's that the top plate is canted towards the photographer. Instead of having to look straight down on it, you look at it from a normal angle when you take the camera away from your face. And I just thought it was a very cool thing. Yeah, it's plastic, but it has the metallic paint on it. It's very nice.

[1:15:34] You have the LX, and a neat feature of that that I don't know that too many cameras had is that the exposure counter goes both up and down. So you have the ability, not that I think anybody did this very often, but let's say you wanted to double expose a shot, you could actually rewind the film and go back to a previous shot, and as you rewind the film, the exposure counter goes backwards with you. So for whatever reason, let's say you're on exposure 17 and you wanted to double expose number 14, you could actually rewind the camera with film in it. It'll tell you exactly when you've reached the 14th exposure. You could double expose it and then go forward again, basically rewinding and fast-forwarding the film while it's still in the camera, and you'll always know exactly which exposure you're on. A pretty obscure feature that I don't know that many people actually use, but that they had enough foresight to design the exposure counter to be coupled that way to the rewind mechanism, I think was pretty neat.

[1:16:26] I did not know that.

[1:16:27] Watch it next time you load up your LX. When you're rewinding film, you'll notice the exposure counter goes backwards with it, and it'll take you back to number one, and that's how you know you're at the end of the roll. It's pretty cool.

[1:16:37] Well, I'm impressed, Ira. That's really good. You had a nice little collection there, and the MZ-S is actually a model I've tried to get, and they go for a pretty penny

[1:16:47] And unfortunately the failure rate on them is quite high. So to spend what people ask for those cameras only to get one that's not working is a pretty tough proposition, so that's why one has never made it here on my shelf yet, but I'm glad to see you have one.

[1:17:01] The funny thing about it is that when I got it, I got the 85-millimeter 1.4 lens and I could not get it to autofocus, so I actually returned two of them, and the third person said, "Did you pull the focusing ring out?" Which nobody bothered to tell me before. In its retracted position it's manual focus. Do you want autofocus? You have to pull it out.

[1:17:27] Ira's grabbing the grip of the lens and it goes forward and backward to pull it in and out of manual and autofocus mode. And there's no indication at all on the lens that it does that. Okay, I don't think most people would know that. Good to know. You may have just saved somebody who has one of those a lot of postage.

[1:17:44] Yes.

[1:17:45] All right, cool. Theo, you're still here, right?

[1:17:47] Look, I'm planning a trip to Laos early next year. So my cameras are related to mainly where I'll take the M1 (?) camera that I'm using around Sydney at the moment. The trip itself, I'm literally planning on booking into accommodation the first three or four days. I've got a tini (?) of areas I want to go to, but I'm not booking anything else from there because I'm actually literally going to go light and see where it takes me. So it's a trip for myself, photography.

[1:18:17] So my main camera that I'll be using there is the Nikon F3, so nothing overly exciting, but it is a workhorse. I've got the high-eyepoint finder on it because I do like to wear sunglasses when in places like that, but also my close vision isn't the best. So while I can use a camera without my glasses on, when I bring it down to have a look at any settings or anything like that, I can't see anything for shit. So basically, the F3, it's one of my favourite cameras. It's been throughout Southeast Asia with me. I've got the Nikkor 1.4 lens on that, so 50mm. It's just something that just keeps working.

[1:19:05] As a backup camera to a trip like that, because you always don't want to get caught out, I will be taking the FM2. Again, another workhorse, something I've used extensively. You can see the brassing that's coming up on this one. It is a camera that I really hold quite close to me. It just works. It's literally just been all over the place with me. I know, Anthony, you're actually quite close to that camera as well. So it is something I love to use.

[1:19:36] The third camera, and this is probably something that people won't expect, is for digital, I'll actually be taking a Lumix GX7. I know people can the micro four thirds, but this I've had since new and it has never let me down. I've got the 14mm pancake lens on it at the moment. I've got the 20mm as well, and that's the only two lenses I'll take. I may possibly take the 45 millimeter portrait-type lens or macro as well, the one that fits onto it. But this thing just works. It's got a tilty screen. It's got a tilty viewfinder as well, which is quite unique. And the results I've been able to get out of this are really impressive. I've got a photo in my lounge room which is blown up to, I reckon it's probably about six foot wide, and it's really held up off this sensor. So people can the micro four thirds and prefer full frame, but this is nice, light, small, inexpensive in an environment like that, and I'm quite happy with it.

[1:20:49] Now what I've been shooting around with in Sydney recently, and I'm really, really enjoying it a lot, is my new Leicaflex SL2.

[1:21:00] Oh, pretty.

[1:21:02] This is a beautiful camera to use. I didn't realize I would actually enjoy it as much as I have. And I've got the Summicron 50 on there at the moment, the f/2. This is actually a two-cam that's been converted to three-cam, so I get all the three-cam features with it. The results are just superb. I also got the 28-millimeter Elmarit, bought off Paul, and between the two of those lenses I am super happy with this. It's a tank, it's heavy, but it's just so satisfying to use.

[1:21:37] The film advance on the SL2, I don't know what kind of ball bearings or lubricant or whatever they used on that, but it is so smooth. The only other camera I've ever shot that equals it, I wouldn't say is better, is the Topcon RE Super. For whatever reason, those Topcon RE series cameras have incredibly smooth film transport, but so does that Leica.

[1:22:00] Yeah.

[1:22:00] And you've seen this too, the cameras are beautiful. The bodies are great. The finish looks like you have the black chrome finish on yours. Is that right?

[1:22:11] Yes. That is correct, yeah.

[1:22:13] So pretty. Just lovely, those cameras look, and you have the right lens for it. Good luck affording other Leica R-mount lenses, but hey, you got the best one.

[1:22:22] But obviously, I can't leave without the Mamiya (?). Now I've done my four, but the Mamiya 7 special.

[1:22:27] Yeah, we know.

[1:22:28] So that has to come up. It's been a while. It's been a while.

[1:22:32] Well, you probably know this, but just in case you don't, or anybody who doesn't: the F3, the Nikon F3, it's an electronic shutter camera, but nearly all of Nikon's SLRs of that era, even the EM, if the battery dies, you could still fire the shutter at a single speed. It's approximately 1/90th of a second. On the F3, do you know how to do it? Do you know how to fire the shutter manually?

[1:22:52] Yeah, it's one of the settings, I think there is a 60th or 90th or something.

[1:22:59] It looks like a tiny self-timer lever where you would expect to find one on a regular camera, but that's actually the thing that will trigger the shutter manually, so you could even do it with batteries in it. You just wind it. I don't know if you have film in yours, but if you don't, you can just wind it.

[1:23:12] Yeah, okay, I won't do it now.

[1:23:14] But you wind it and then you just pull that tiny little lever and ka-chink, it'll fire.

[1:23:17] Oh yeah, I see, I see. I've never been without batteries for it, so I obviously haven't experienced that. That's good to know.

[1:23:24] Paul, or maybe Miles, isn't there some kind of thing you could do wrong with that camera where you do something out of sequence and you have to manually cycle it to get it back on track? Am I remembering that correctly? Does anybody know?

[1:23:37] No, unless you're thinking about the fact that until you get to the first frame...

[1:23:42] Yeah, the meter doesn't work until you get to one.

[1:23:44] Yeah, and you think the camera's not working.

[1:23:47] Okay. I might be thinking of something else then, because I feel like there was a camera where every once in a while you have to do something to reset it or something.

[1:23:53] The biggest problem with that camera is the same. And the little lever, there's also a memory lock for exposure.

[1:24:00] Yeah.

[1:24:01] The little button, those buttons pop off. So they're really, really hard to source.

[1:24:09] Yeah. Over there, is it?

[1:24:11] Yeah.

[1:24:12] Mine's gone. It's long gone.

[1:24:13] Is it gone, really? Oh man. Well, I'd probably put something in there, because there is a soft pad under that and you don't want any moisture or anything to get in it.

[1:24:24] Oh, okay. Good, good. Because my spare F3 has also got that as well.

[1:24:29] Yeah, just get some Sugru or something like that that you can just mold a little bit and stick in there.

[1:24:36] Yeah, Sugru would be a great option. It's a moldable clay that when you leave it out to air, it hardens almost to a plastic.

[1:24:41] Okay.

[1:24:42] Just don't push it in too hard, because it is the memory lock for exposure.

[1:24:46] Right. If you trip the shutter with that little lever, will it stop the lens down?

[1:24:50] Yes. Yeah. It's just like taking a picture. It's a full mechanical shutter release. Everything else works fine, just not the meter.

[1:24:58] All right, look at the list. Vlad, maybe you're a good jump from Nikon. Everybody knows you as the Soviet camera guy, which you are, but you do have a fondness for Nikon SLRs, and I believe you have some recent pickups. I don't know if they qualify as your four.

[1:25:15] Oh yeah, I've become quite a Nikon fanboy lately. Actually, out of my four cameras here, one is a Nikon, but I picked these, I think... If I would have picked rare stuff or anything from my collection, it would have been here for weeks. So I picked something that I thought I would pick up if I want to actually enjoy shooting, or the first thing I think of, like, I want to shoot medium format, what do I pick up?

[1:25:43] So one of my favorite ones is actually a 35 millimeter. Yes, it is a Soviet one. I don't show it very often, but it's one of my favorite cameras. It's a Drug. Basically it means "a friend." I might have talked about it on the show before. It's very square, and it's actually a Zorki 7, but for some reason they named it the Drug. The cool part about this is it has a very large and bright viewfinder on it, and it has this cool winder on the bottom of the camera, so you just wind it up, and the shutter button is on the front, so you can shoot really, really fast with it.

[1:26:22] You could actually hold down the shutter release and not release it, and then keep winding it.

[1:26:27] Oh really? I haven't actually tried that. I'm afraid to break it, but...

[1:26:30] It'll fire. If you keep the shutter release down, each time you wind it, it automatically fires as soon as you get to the end. Now, that could be unintentional. I don't know if they did that on purpose or they screwed up, but it does work.

[1:26:42] If I break it, Mike, are you buying it?

[1:26:44] No, no, never mind. Forget about it.

[1:26:46] No, you're right. You're right. You're right. Actually, it does work. A lot of the time with these cameras, like 80% of them which you find are broken. But this one, I have a few examples that actually work perfectly, and I love shooting with them. It has a Jupiter-8 lens on it. It's a 50 f/2 lens. It's an absolutely phenomenal Soviet lens. But this camera really makes you bleed, literally, because if you wind this thing many times, this thing is fairly sharp. I think after a roll, my fingers were cut. So it's also dangerous to your health. That's one of these. It's one of my favorite shooters. This is kind of a fun little thing. Great viewfinder.

[1:27:31] Another one is the Lomo LC-A, and I've had this since before it became the phenomenon in the West. I got this camera on my 10th birthday from my parents, so I actually brought it with me from Georgia, from the Republic of Georgia, not the state, when I moved to the U.S. And I've had it for, oh, jeez, I don't know, almost 40 years now. Beautiful camera, it's nice and automatic for the 1980s. In the Soviet Union it was very advanced technology. It shoots basically auto exposure. You just have to set a little lever on it for the distance, because it was scale focus.

[1:28:10] But actually, Lomography, and I just picked this up from somebody in Discord, released just the lens, the Minitar 1 lens. It gives a very crazy color and a cool vignette. They remade this lens, and the cool part about this camera is there's a little lever on the side where you set the distance. It's a little lever and it kind of clicks as you go, and it has a very cool tactile feel. And what they did, when they made the lens, which is an M mount that you can put on any of the mirrorless cameras, I actually got it on my Fuji with an M to Fuji adapter, they put the same little lever as a focusing lever on the lens itself. So it's so much fun to use just because of that, with the same tactile feel. So just a little click, click, click to change the distance. So that was a very nice touch from Lomography, in my opinion.

[1:29:03] And when I think of medium format, I think of the Iskra series. And this camera is a little folder. It's a six by six, but this has the Industar-58 lens, which I think is the sharpest Soviet lens ever made on any of the cameras that are available. So absolutely phenomenal little six by six, and it's a very compact, very light shooter.

[1:29:28] Does the exposure counter on that one work, or does it have the red window mod?

[1:29:32] So this is actually double modded. This is a 6x4.5 mod with the red window.

[1:29:39] Okay. For anybody who's not familiar, that camera originally came with an automatic exposure counter, and that's the weakest part of the camera. And if it fails, people just... What do they do? Just drill a hole in the back of it?

[1:29:49] Yeah, well, it's not if it fails. It's when it fails.

[1:29:52] When it fails, yeah.

[1:29:52] It always fails. Well, it's not really drilling a hole. You take out the entire counter mechanism and you drill a hole or put a little piece of red clear plastic on it, just so you can look at the backing paper. But the lens itself on this camera is absolutely phenomenal. I think it was modeled after... Zeiss Super Ikonta, if I'm not mistaken. Whatever the Zeiss one is that folds out horizontally, not vertically. So that one, Brian, that you have is actually a Moskva-5. They made a copy of that one, which is 6 by 9. Or is it an Agfa Isolette? I'm trying to...

[1:30:35] I was going to say, isn't it a Super Isolette?

[1:30:38] It might have been an Isolette, yeah, you're right. It was. Okay, so yeah, but obviously the lens is miles ahead of the Isolette on that one.

[1:30:47] And my trusty shooter, it's completely banged up. This is a Nikon FM that I always go back to if I need something very reliable to walk around with. I've dropped this thing so many times. I think you can see that the pentaprism is completely dab on that, but it works. It's a beautiful camera. I switch between the 50 1.4 and 50 1.2 lens on this one. I've re-skinned it in a little blue ostrich leather, just because I like to personalize the stuff I use a lot. So great camera. I like the clunk of it. The shutter is very loud on it. That's probably one of my selling points of this camera. I also had an FM2 that I ended up selling, just because it was way too quiet for me. I needed the shutter to collapse so bad that you can see all the birds taking off from the wires. So it's just... I don't know. If you've shot a Kiev 6C, that thing is very, very loud. It scares people. So that's right up my alley.

[1:31:59] Anthony, unfortunately, half of your cameras, the thunder got stolen out for Monday, but I think you still have two more. What are your other two?

[1:32:07] My other two, I guess this is somewhat predictable. It would be the Nikonos III, 1977. Not the V, which I actually do enjoy shooting, but the III is like a little Sherman tank. It's indestructible. It's all-weather. You can shoot that 35 millimeter on land or underwater. It's got the improved viewfinder. I've had incredible luck shooting it underwater. And it's fail-safe. You want something that is simple to use. You want something that's reliable underwater.

[1:32:41] Which is your favorite lens to use on it?

[1:32:43] Oh, I've got the Sea & Sea 15 millimeter. It's the one that I use most often with manatees. But also the underwater Nikkor, I think the 24 (?). That's also really sweet.

[1:32:56] It's really sweet. Have you tried the water injection mod?

[1:32:59] No.

[1:33:00] Somebody did, just to shoot them above water. So they put a little container, a clear container or something, in front of the lenses, and they inject water into it, so it actually...

[1:33:11] Oh, that's cool.

[1:33:12] So yeah, there was a guy on YouTube who did this, which was very cool. He was able to actually use these on land.

[1:33:18] For anybody who doesn't know, some of the lenses on the Nikonos system can be used above and below water, but some are only below water. They have one that's only above water. It's stupidly expensive. And then there's the UW ones, which are only underwater, and then a couple of them can be used both ways. So you have to pay attention.

[1:33:38] There are two that are amphibious. They can be shot above and below, and there's one that's only above, and then the rest are underwater only, because optically they're designed to handle the magnification of the water.

[1:33:50] Yeah. Where light bends differently?

[1:33:53] What's the point of a Nikonos lens that would only be designed for above water? Is that for a wet environment sort of situation?

[1:34:01] Right. It was for jungle photographers. The guy going out to shoot the hurricane, standing out there in the lashing rain and wind.

[1:34:08] And I'll just tell you one thing, shooting a Nikonos is just a fun experience.

[1:34:13] Oh, it is. It's got the weird backwards trigger.

[1:34:16] Yeah, the shutter release is also the film advance. It's super cool. Plus, the kit lens you often find with it is the 35 millimeter f/2.5 from the rangefinder. And it's optically perfect. It's an amazing lens. So if you get a Nikonos I, II, III, or V...

[1:34:36] Or IV.

[1:34:37] Well, you said the IVs, those are the ones with the bad O-rings, right? So I guess above water it wouldn't matter then. Yeah, any of them. They're fun to shoot and they're cheap. You could get a Nikonos II with that lens for a quarter of what you would pay for the rangefinder equivalent of the same lens.

[1:34:52] You can practically get it for a quarter. The last time I bought a II, it was $15 with the 35 millimeter.

[1:35:00] Wow. Yeah, that's great. I mean, I'm sure you can't depend on it being that cheap, but if you keep looking, you can get them.

[1:35:05] Oh no, these are indestructible, especially if you're not taking them underwater.

[1:35:08] So my other camera, actually I've scribbled down two more cameras to round out my list. One is a camera that I absolutely fell in love with. It's something I picked up from Paul in one of my convoluted trades, and it's a camera that Jeff from that other podcast never figured out how to use or could never gel with, and that's the Robot Royal 36. It takes some messing about with the Robot canisters, the cartridges. The Royal 36, at least the iteration that I have, is great because you only have to have the take-up cartridge. You can use just a regular film cartridge for your supply, and you can even rewind it back into the original supply cartridge, so that you don't have to worry about having multiple cartridges in the field. You just have the one, and you can reuse it over and over again. And I mean, I'm a person that doesn't mind shooting 620 because I don't mind re-spooling. It might take me two minutes to load up a cartridge for the Robot Royal to shoot it.

[1:36:26] And that camera is a tank. It was built, as I understand it, to be on par with the M-series Leicas. It's way over-engineered. It's heavy. It's like a clock. It's like a crazy German pocket watch that is all clockwork, and it's got the Schneider lenses. Mine's got a Xenon. It's a fun camera to shoot. It's one that never fails to spark conversation among other photographers, first because it's got the sort of weird Balda design, kind of like the Baldas had in their fixed rangefinders. Cool camera.

[1:37:04] And then the last one is another Paul trade, and that was the Rolleiflex SL66, which I recently finagled with Paul. And for somebody who has gone on record time and again that I'm not a fan of the Hasselblad systems, I don't like the 500 C/M, never just dealt with it. And yet for some reason, the SL66, maybe it's because I shot Rolleiflex TLRs, the way that it works feels natural in my hands, and I can shoot quickly with it. Its ability to focus down to a half an inch with the bellows, it has tilt on it so you can do perspective work with it. You can turn those lenses backwards to make any lens into a macro lens. It's such a cool system that's really clever and well thought out. Perhaps not the easiest camera to get serviced, but if you have one that works, by God, it's a really fun camera to shoot.

[1:38:05] All right, let's move on. Leo Lukens, you've waited almost two hours to talk. You still there, buddy?

[1:38:17] Yeah, I am. So I couldn't quite decide what to do tonight. So I decided to just think of a couple different random categories, if you will, based on some cameras that I love. So the first one is my wabi-sabi camera. So just the idea that the imperfections of something are why you love it. So this is a black paint Nikon F. It's super beat up. It's got a pretty substantial ding on the prism. It's really brassed. It's got a pretty substantial dent by the lever to get the film back off as well. I actually struggle to get the back off sometimes. You have to kind of shake it. But it's light tight. The shutter speeds all work perfectly. And it's just one of those cameras that I always have fun shooting, and I never worry about what's going to happen if I have it around my neck. So if I've got to take something to the lake and I'm in a rush, this gets thrown in the shotgun seat of my car. I am rocking the pre-AI 55 millimeter f/3.5 Micro-Nikkor. This was one that I think Paul had recommended on a previous episode. And I think it's still a really good value in the world of Nikon glass, because you can get these for pretty cheap compared to a lot of the other Nikon glass. And it's just crazy sharp. So that's my first one.

[1:39:36] It looks like your focus moves pretty smoothly on that. I know on a lot of those, they get really stiff for some reason.

[1:39:41] Yeah, I got lucky. I think you guys had talked about it previously. Some of the different iterations, maybe they tried different focusing grease and stuff, and some of them got pretty sticky.

[1:39:52] And I promise I only brought two Nikons this time. The second category is the camera that you'll never sell. This was my first Nikon SLR. It's big-boned, it's a Nikon F2. To make it even heavier, I have the AI series 50 1.2. For anybody who isn't familiar with the 50 millimeter 1.2 lenses, my understanding is that the optics of the 1.2 AI and the 1.2 AI-S are comparable, but the helicoid on the 1.2 creates a longer focus throw. So this is kind of fun for portraiture especially, really dialing in focus, but it does take a little bit longer. But this lens and camera went with me to Italy on a really important vacation with my girlfriend, and then I brought this with me to New Orleans with my brothers for a really fun vacation as well. It didn't start with this prism. It actually originally had a DP-2, so the Nikon F2S, but those are notoriously unreliable, and it failed on me. So I was patient, and I found the eye-level prism, which just always stays on at this point.

[1:41:00] An F2 with the standard prism is one of the most pure, basic, amazing cameras. They're so solid, so perfect. I'm jealous. I mean, I have an F2 with a standard prism, but I'm looking at yours and I want another one.

[1:41:15] This is just a really fun camera to shoot. The shutter slap is just aggressive too. It's pretty loud.

[1:41:21] Leo, if you like 1.2 SLR lenses, Paul has a nice selection that he could sell you in pretty much every other mount except Nikon F.

[1:41:31] Yeah, I saw a couple may have popped up on his eBay store in the last couple days.

[1:41:35] Oh yeah, he's got Minolta, he's got Konica. What else do you have, Paul? There were four of them, weren't there?

[1:41:43] I sold the Konica to Ron G.

[1:41:47] Okay.

[1:41:48] So that's gone. But I have a Canon 55 1.2 and the Minolta Rokkor-X 58 1.2. And the weird one was, this came in this mess of stuff I got on Saturday. I found a Digital Rebel body that was broken.

[1:42:03] And it's plastic, so you don't pay any attention to it, just get ready to throw it away. It had a 55 1.2 Tomioka lens on it, which is the Yashinon lens. It's probably the most valuable 1.2 lens on the market.

[1:42:19] Wow.

[1:42:20] It was just hanging out there. So I wound up with four 1.2 lenses all at one time.

[1:42:25] An EF mount?

[1:42:26] No, it was adapted. It's M42, but he had an EF adapter on it.

[1:42:32] Yeah. You can put that on a Pentax.

[1:42:35] Yeah. Or is in it (?).

[1:42:36] Yeah, there you go.

[1:42:37] All right, Leo, did you have two more?

[1:42:39] Yeah, so moving away from Nikon, this is the Horizon 202. Got to make things panoramic every once in a while. This was a pretty recent pickup. I've only had this for maybe two months, but it's a swing lens. So poor man's Widelux, if you will. I love just throwing this thing in my camera bag all loaded up with, say, Kentmere 100, push it to 400 if I need to. But the thing I love about this camera is it's surprisingly sharp even at f/2.8, so wide open, and it can be handheld at one eighth of a second just because of how smooth and just the way that that swing lens mechanism works. Totally dark outside at the county fair about a month ago, I was shooting at one eighth with this and the results just came out phenomenally. So love this camera.

[1:43:31] It does suffer from the vertical banding that I know Anthony has brought up before. Not entirely sure if it's because of light leaks around the turret or because of some kind of a lens flare, or flare from the sun that's coming in. It doesn't really bother me that much. I just shoot black and white and kind of manage around it. It does seem to perform better in indirect light, which leads me to think that it's a flare issue.

[1:43:55] So fun fact about this camera: the lens on it is from the KGB F-21 camera that was designed for KGB use. It was a little spring-wound camera, so they actually just transplanted it into the Horizont, and then they later put it in a little modernized version into the 202. Great camera.

[1:44:13] That's awesome.

[1:44:14] It's definitely been fun to shoot so far. And the last camera I don't have with me, another camera I know that has been talked about on the show. It's a Minox 35 GT. That is a camera that's so small that you can't justify not bringing it with you. It just fits in any pocket, any spare space in a camera bag. The reason I don't have mine with me today is it's also my girlfriend's favorite camera to borrow when we're on vacation, and it got left in a hotel in Montreal. So it's currently in lost and found in Montreal. I'll probably be taking a road trip somewhat soon to go retrieve it.

[1:44:49] Well, at least they found it, though.

[1:44:51] All over. Yeah. But those are my four.

[1:44:53] Awesome. Thank you. All right. We're getting low on time here. There's still a couple people we haven't spoken to. I'm really sorry to kind of rush this. Ben Ryerson, do you want to quickly go through anything you brought?

[1:45:07] Yeah, sure. So I'm Ben. I'm from Atlanta. I worked in a camera store for 10 years, Showcase Photo and Video. It's long gone now. But while I was there, I got to buy and use a lot of gear. So what I picked for tonight are just cameras that surprised me, cameras that I didn't think I would care for.

[1:45:28] First one was a Nikon D50. The first digital SLR I ever bought. I still have it, the same one that I've had for 20 years. I've taken that camera everywhere with me. It has never failed me. I still have the same battery I had when I bought the thing. It still holds a charge for six plus hours, no problem. I have blown up photos from it to 30 by 40, 40 by 60. I couldn't tell you why those things are magical. You can pick them up for 20 bucks off the used market. There's nothing like it, man. It's the easiest thing I've ever bought that I've ever shot with. I mean, you could use all that gear. You think, well, why wouldn't I spend $1,700, and this thing just floored me? Anyway, that's that one.

[1:46:15] The other one is the Konica Autoreflex T3. I love that camera. I didn't think I would. I'd heard stories about how heavy it was, how difficult it was to shoot, and that thing is fantastic. I got it with the 40 1.8 on it. That lens is amazing. It's an absolutely amazing lens, man. That thing works great on digital. It's awesome. The contrast rendering, it's just gorgeous. But anyway, the Autoreflex T3, the meter works, the multiple exposure, it all works. It's just so much fun to use, and it blew me away. I don't keep anything that I won't shoot. I buy stuff, try it; if I don't like it, I don't shoot it, but...

[1:47:01] I've given this tip before, but I'll share it again. The best way to get that Konica 40 1.8 lens is not to search for the lens but search for cameras that it came on. You will find it on the later T3, you'll find it on the TCs, all over the TCs.

[1:47:19] Yeah, the FS-1.

[1:47:22] You'll find it on the FS-1. You're going to have better luck finding the lens on the camera for 40 bucks, whereas if you try to buy the lens by itself, you'll pay 100 or more.

[1:47:32] Mike, Mike, I have four of them in stock right now.

[1:47:36] Okay, fire sale. Talk to Paul.

[1:47:38] Go get him, man. Those things are fantastic. Paul, I don't understand how you can hang on to them.

[1:47:43] No, I can't. They came in the mess of stuff I got over the weekend.

[1:47:47] Oh man.

[1:47:48] I couldn't believe it. There were four of them in this box.

[1:47:51] It might be my favorite lens I've ever used. But anyway, that's probably part of the reason I like the Autoreflex so much.

[1:47:57] So Paul, are you willing to... Now, it takes us a week or two to get these episodes out, so you'll have to hold on to one of them. Are you willing to sell to the first person after this episode airs to contact you? What would be a fire sale price for you on that lens?

[1:48:14] 30 bucks.

[1:48:15] $30, all right. Hard to beat. This doesn't count for any of you people, because the show hasn't aired yet. But the day we announce this show, the first person with $30 to contact Paul, he will sell you one of his 40-millimeter Konica AR 1.8 lenses. One of my favorite lenses, my favorite focal length. Even if you don't have a Konica, just get an adapter; it's great on digital too. All right. Is that good with you then, Paul?

[1:48:40] Yeah, yeah, that works for me. 30 bucks shipped.

[1:48:42] $30, oh man. Continental United States.

[1:48:46] Amazing.

[1:48:46] We got to limit it. How many do you have?

[1:48:49] I think there are four.

[1:48:51] Oh, geez, all right, I might be contacting you.

[1:48:53] I'm not expecting him to fire sale them all. I just thought he could deal with one of them. That's fantastic.

[1:48:59] All right, Sippu route. I don't want to butcher your name, but...

[1:49:03] That's right, Sippu.

[1:49:05] Sorry to make you wait so long, but you should suffer a way.

[1:49:09] Just glad to be a big fan of this show, so I thought I was going to listen to it anyway. Might as well just watch it. So I'm new to collecting cameras. Love them for today's show. I wanted to talk about two that are my regular use, and then in terms of collection, I'm actually very attracted to the German SLRs. So I wanted to talk about the two that I used to start to build my collection.

[1:49:31] Regular use, my workhorse camera is the Nikon FE2. I like the all-black bodies. So it's a Nikon FE2. I love it. I use it all the time. I shoot a roll with it every week. Very reliable. I think everyone knows about it. My backup...

[1:49:48] Real quick, where are you from? Where are you calling from?

[1:49:50] Oh, sorry about that. I live in New York, but I'm from India. I've been living in the U.S. for about 12 years now.

[1:49:57] My backup camera for regular use is actually the Fujica ST801. I love it. I love shooting with it. It is very smooth to use. I know you talked about the Fujica on your site. The ST in particular, it's extremely smooth to use, the lens gives great pictures, and the viewfinder is fantastic. It's so bright and so clear. It's really just a pleasure to use. I love it.

[1:50:20] I love that camera too. I had gotten a 901. I thought I would really like that because it has that cool LED viewfinder, but for whatever reason it didn't adhere to me, and I got the ST801. You're right, I do have a review of it. I agree with you 100%. Amazing, amazing camera.

[1:50:35] And then in terms of collection, actually, this is a Contaflex S in all black. I just got this in the mail. Really neat. I'm going to shoot it this weekend. I've been one place. I like camera bodies in all black. That's my thing. So I'm super excited to have this Contaflex S as Sycone (?). And then I bought another Contaflex, which is in chrome, just because I wanted all the lenses, and that one had the 85 and 150 and all of the lenses. So now I have a full set of lenses for this camera.

[1:51:09] Do you have the macro lens for that?

[1:51:12] No, I don't have the macro lens, and I don't have the zoom lens, the 40 to 80. I don't have those two.

[1:51:19] They made a really crazy macro lens. It's 50 millimeter for the Contaflexes, but the catch is there's three different variations of that lens, and you have to match it up with whatever body you're trying to put it on. So finding the right one for whatever body, like the Contaflex S... I don't have one, so I can't give you any advice, but I would caution, if you're searching for one, make sure you get the right one.

[1:51:45] Okay. And then my last camera, again trying to collect German SLRs, is the Icarex 35S. There I go. All black. I just love the way the camera feels in the hand, very heavy and a very industrial kind of feel. And I love the way it looks. I love the way it shoots. I think my collection is more leaning towards German SLRs. I know the good ones, the good condition ones, come expensive, but I just love them so much, so that's where my heart is.

[1:52:18] I don't think they made any in black, but if you like German SLRs, I definitely recommend you look for a KW Praktina. Very, very cool cameras. They're only in chrome, but they're fantastic shooters too. They have dim viewfinders because of their era, but it would be a good addition to your collection.

[1:52:33] That is on my list. If I can ask a question, I actually had a question for Blad or anyone who can answer. The Zenit C, you know, it's a Russian camera. Did it come in black ever?

[1:52:45] No. There's some aftermarket painted versions, but it never came in black.

[1:52:49] Yeah, because I saw one with an all-black body. I was like, this is probably repainted or something.

[1:52:55] Yeah, there was actually, I think Yuri from Fedka had a whole bunch of black Soviet cameras custom ordered from Ukraine maybe about 20 years ago, and he was selling them here. So if you see any in the United States that are Soviet cameras that are black, they're probably from Fedka, and those actually would probably also have been CLA'd, and they're pretty good users to this day.

[1:53:21] He'll find those.

[1:53:23] Yeah, that's my thing. If I see a camera body that looks really beautiful and it's in black, I stop caring about the brand or the lens or whatever.

[1:53:30] It's good. I think we all do that.

[1:53:32] I bought a Miranda Sensorex, the one with the cross on the body, all black, just because it looked good. I don't know anything about this camera, but I like how it looks.

[1:53:42] There's a really easy way to check if it's an aftermarket or not, especially in Soviet-painted ones. Because some of them did come in black.

[1:53:49] You just take something a little bit sharp and on the bottom just scratch it. If you see brass under it, it's basically its factory paint. If you see chrome, it's not. The good news is that repainted cameras never held up as well as the original ones. So you don't even have to scratch it; there's probably already a scratch somewhere on there. And if not, then that's probably a telltale sign too that it was repainted, because any original black paint 50-, 60-, 70-year-old camera should show some visible brassing somewhere. And if you don't see that, it's probably a repaint.

[1:54:24] Well, unless it's been sitting on a shelf, right?

[1:54:28] Maybe, maybe, maybe.

[1:54:30] Yeah, I believe in the photos you can see where there is the name of the camera or a serial number, and people try to paint it very carefully. But they do mess up a little bit, smudge, and that's why usually if there's white paint on black and it's bright, vivid, pearly white teeth, that's a telltale sign too, because it should be slightly yellowed if it's original.

[1:54:50] All right, last person. We've lost a lot of people. We started off with 22 people on this show. It's running really long, but I want to get to everybody. Pat Casey, longtime listener, I know you've been sitting here patiently. Do you have four for us you can go through real quickly?

[1:55:04] Yes. I've long found Eastman Kodak and all of its works fascinating. And this one got mentioned earlier, the Bantam Special. I find it fascinating because before the Ektra, before the Medalist, this was the Eastman Kodak Great Leap Forward. 1936, it's got an f/2 uncoated. And this is actually a 45, not a 47 millimeter Ektar. And this has the Compur shutter. Later, they went with the American shutters. But yeah, I think Walter Dorwin Teague sat down and looked at the Retina and said, "I want to make an American Retina," and I think that's what this is. I've long been fascinated by 828. It seemed like a brilliant idea. There was a big thing in the '30s for miniature cameras, expensive miniature cameras, but people didn't like the 36 exposures. So Eastman says, "Great! We'll make an eight-exposure roll film camera in miniature." And it never really took off. Too bad.

[1:56:02] Yeah, the Compur shutters are the early ones, and the Supermatic ones are the post-war ones.

[1:56:07] Exactly. And I presume they started coating the lens. So this is an uncoated f/2. So if you want flare, here it is.

[1:56:13] My very first camera: like Ansel Adams, I started with a Brownie, although I think Ansel went a little further in photography than I did. But this was reviewed on Camerosity. I think this is the last Brownie, because this overlapped with the Instamatics. I got this for my birthday when I was nine years old. It shoots 127 film, and it's got adjustable focus, adjustable f-stops and shutter speeds. So I'm proud that my very first camera, even as a tiny little guy, was adjustable. So I'm proud of that.

[1:56:43] That's called the Brownie Super 27.

[1:56:48] Exactly. And it's sort of weird. It has a built-in flash bulb. This is pre-flash cubes. But an interesting idea. I mean, real interesting, and it works just fine. I still use it when I can find 127 film.

[1:57:01] The camera that got me into the collecting business: way back when I was in grade school, I went into a camera store, and for 25 cents I bought this. This is another Brownie. This is a Brownie Special 127. It shoots horizontal, eight exposures. I used this a lot back in the day. Fine arts people still use them. They love the sort of

[1:57:23] Paul sent me one of those in my care package. It has Camerosity stickers on it.

[1:57:27] Well, and it's a fun little user. I actually have a thing for it for mounting on a tripod. There was a famous Life magazine photographer in the '30s that shot a baseball game with one of them, demonstrating that it was the skill of the photographer, not the machine, that did the trick.

[1:57:42] And then one last thing: another vote for the iconic Nikon F2. I used this in my newspaper days. The pinnacle of '70s development. This one obviously has the Photomic, but if you go with the idea of the camera as an extension of your eye, this does it for me. This just absolutely matches my vision. And I had an F3. They always said the F3 is better with a motor; this is better without. But I have just loved this camera ever since I bought it new in 1979.

[1:58:14] The Brownie Special, wasn't there a European version of that that had a time switch so that you could switch it to a time mode? Or am I thinking of a different Brownie?

[1:58:24] There was an English version called the Holiday, which had similarities. But this is a '30s, and my understanding is the Holiday was a '50s. Whether there was a European one other than English, I don't know.

[1:58:36] Okay.

[1:58:36] What you're saying though, Brian, that did happen. There were a lot of very similar models between Kodak in London and Kodak in New York, where crossover models would be very similar. Sometimes they'd be very, very different. There was a series of cheap cameras called the Cresta, which were only made in the UK and weren't made here. So you're probably remembering correctly; I just couldn't confirm which model.

[1:59:00] So we finally got some Brownies in here. We've touched practically every subset of camera, every size, a Lego camera. By far the brand that was represented the most was overwhelmingly Nikon, which probably doesn't surprise anybody. But we had a nice selection of Pentaxes from Iris, some really rare cameras. Joao showed us some. He had the Regent. Vlad, of course, shared with us some Soviet cameras, but then we also got a couple other ones, like the Horizon. I'm not going to try and remember them all. This was a marathon episode. We had 22 people join.

[1:59:32] For Travis and Sean, for Jess, thank you for sticking with us. I'm glad we were able to talk a little about your stores and what you guys do. I will definitely include a link to your store in the show notes when we get this posted. Maybe we could send some business your way. Feel free to come back again.

[1:59:53] And this is basically how this show works: we get a whole bunch of people on, maybe we lob out a topic, and this is what happens. So, a bunch of geeks, a bunch of people who are passionate about film and collecting and photography. Film or digital really doesn't matter, as long as you're willing to hold the camera and shoot it. We want to talk to you.

[2:00:10] So I'm going to wind this down quickly here. We are finally back to a regular cadence, so we're going to go back to our every three weeks. Today is October 26th, so that means our next show will be three weeks from today. That is going to start with daylight savings time, for those of us who observe it. I know Canada is starting to not do it or something, so pay attention to the time zones. But it'll be three weeks from today. I can't seem to get my calendar to pop up, so that would be November 16th at 7 p.m. Central Standard Time. You can do the time zone calculations to figure that out on your own.

[2:00:48] But as always, the topics and discussions on the Camerosity podcast are heavily influenced by all you guys. We really love having as many people as possible with all ranges of photography interest. We don't really care what you shoot, as long as you shoot. So this has been a fun episode. I'm going to dread typing up the notes from all the different models that we had listed, but I will do my best. Thank you, everyone who stuck around to the very end, for coming, and I hope you guys have a good night.

[2:01:12] Good night, everyone.

[2:01:12] Good night, everyone.

[2:01:13] Thank you.

[2:01:14] Thank you.

[2:01:15] All right, bye-bye.

[2:01:35] Hey, wait a minute. Before we go, I haven't had a chance to go over my four cameras that I wanted to talk about. I set aside some really cool models that I can't wait to share with you, what I know about them. You guys still here? Hello? Oh, come on. Everybody left. I didn't get a chance to go!