I finally gave up on my 35mm camera systems for daily use.



First one is a Canon range finder that my father got in the early 60’s just after I was born.  He used this camera until 1977 when the shutter developed some problems.  In 1980 I took it to a camera repair shop in New York and they repaired, rebuilt and cleaned the camera and in addition to the original 50mm lens I purchased a used 28mm lens for it.  I used it since but only with B&W film (Kodak Tri-X) until few years ago when the shutter began giving me troubles again.  At this point I can’t find anyone locally who can repair this camera so I gave up on it.  In 25 years I have taken over 50,000 photos with this camera.  In the late 80’s I was shooting so much that I used to buy film in 150 feet rolls and load them into canisters.  The quality of this lens is amazing.  It may not be a Leica but the quality comes pretty close.

Second one is the “new” Canon F-1 SLR which I got in 1982 for taking pics for local paper and for AP as stringer.  I also had a pair of “old” Canon F-1 at that time and these were real work horses.  This camera has taken almost 70,000 pics in over 20 years.  I have 12 different Canon SLR lenses ranging from 24mm to 500mm plus auto winders and motor drives.  These were great equipments in their days.

Final camera is the Olympus Stylus that I got for my wife in 1993 just before we went to live in Europe.  My wife loved taking pictures but didn’t wan the hassle of using my camera so she just used this Olympus for everything.  I think she has taken over 8,000 pics with this camera and it still works great.

I used to have a complete dark room set up for B&W films and prints.  I had couple prints that were shown at local art shows and museums in past and numerous prints in the paper.  My most prized possession was a large file cabinet containing over 80,000 B&W negatives and their contact sheets which I had collected since 1980 when I got serious about taking pictures.  It was practically every roll of B&W film I ever shot.   Unfortunately they were all lost by the moving company when my parents move to their current home.  

Well, no more 35mm systems for me.  I’m just going to stick to my $200 digital camera from now on.  Maybe for some special occasions I'll take them out.

Send me the middle one then

I know how you feel.

My EOS-3 hasn't seen much use since I got the cheap ass Fuji digital.  So damn easy now to just load the pics up in the computer and play with them, as oppossed to having to get film (or do it your self) developed and what not.

Really should look at the canon digital SLRs but I'm so damn broke right now.

Im serious... Ill pay shipping.  

And all the accessories to.  

Quoted: Send me the middle one then

No, it's mine....backoff

I just bought a Rebel T2. I love it. Good timing too, cuz a week later my digital shit the bed.

I have that exact one in the middle.  Maybe not exact but its close.  It was my Dads that he bought in the early 70s, late 60s.

Do they have any value?

Sorry boys but both Canon's are going to be kept for my boy.
Who knows, he may be interested in the old 35mm camera technology.
I'm already setting aside some things for him like these camers, my Tag watch, etc.  I want him to appreciate some good things in life.

Speaking of BW darkroom gear, know of any place to unload a good Omega enlarger?  I have had it for years, it is probably 1970s or 1980s vintage, but all my attempts to sell it have been unsuccessful.

Quoted: I have that exact one in the middle.  Maybe not exact but its close.  It was my Dads that he bought in the early 70s, late 60s. Do they have any value?

If it was purchased in the 70's it was the "old" F-1.  The "new" F-1 above came out in 1981.
I purchased two used "old" F-1 bodies in 1983 for $300 each and last I heard (about 8 years ago) they were going for about $500 for the bodies alone so I would guess they may be worth even more now.  Those "old" ones were heavy has hell and you can use them to drive nails in to wood and they would still work like charm.  

BTW. I heard you can get some serious money for old camera equipment if they are in very good condition or better in Japan.  My friend sold his Leica M-3 to a camera shop in Osaka in 1991 at the end of his trip for $5,000.  
   

I retired my 35mm around christmas time.. It was a nice Cannon AE-1 i have a 400mm for it along with a midsize zoom lens.. I got a Kodak P850 for chrismas. I love the glass on that camera. Withe 12x optical zoom i can really reach out there and touch.  Here is a gallery with a few of my pics. not really safe for work with party pics...  http://community.webshots.com/user/wgates011
There are alot of nice shots of rochester at night.. along with some pics of the falls  

Quoted: Speaking of BW darkroom gear, know of any place to unload a good Omega enlarger?  I have had it for years, it is probably 1970s or 1980s vintage, but all my attempts to sell it have been unsuccessful.

Sorry but I don't know of anyone who keeps a B&W dark room anymore.  Everything is digital now.
I still have a pair of Besslar enlargers put away just in case.

Quoted: I retired my 35mm around christmas time.. It was a nice Cannon AE-1 i have a 400mm for it along with a midsize zoom lens.. I got a Kodak P850 for chrismas. I love the glass on that camera. Withe 12x optical zoom i can really reach out there and touch.  Here is a gallery with a few of my pics. not really safe for work with party pics...  http://community.webshots.com/user/wgates011 There are alot of nice shots of rochester at night.. along with some pics of the falls

Canon AE-1 along with their A-1 were good cameras in their days.
Only problem they had were those shutters would give out around 20,000 pics.
I used to have a A-1 with motor drive that I used to use for sporting events and would shoot it with the 5 frames per second settiing on the motor drive and after about 8,000 pics the shutter gave out.  For normal use they were all great.

Ok I lied.  It says FTb and QL on the main body.  Its in mint condition with a 50mm lens.

Quoted: Quoted: Send me the middle one then No, it's mine....backoff

Pick me.  Me me me me me !!!  


Seriously - I know you'd never part with an awesome camera like that.  Very nice!  


ETA:  12 lenses.  Holy smokes

Quoted: Ok I lied.  It says FTb and QL on the main body.  Its in mint condition with a 50mm lens.

Canon FTb were good camera too.  Maybe one step below F-1 but still very good professional quality.  If you have one with all black body it is worth more as there were fewer than black & chrome models.  If it has the original FD lens I bet they are worth alot back in Japan.  Can you see which  50mm lens you have?  See if its marked f/1.8 or f/1.4 or F/1.2.  As you go from larger number (1.8) to smaller number (1.4) the value goes up by 20-25%.  If it is 1.2 then it willbe worth about 50% more than with 1.8 lens.

 

Yobo, yup all black with a FD lens 1.4.

Now retired:

SWS,

Those cameras bring back a lot of memories... especially the rubber hood on the Minolta.
Anybody remember the Pentax K1000 camera?  They were like $199 with the standard 50mm f/1.8 lens yet those lens took amazing pictures.    

Quoted: SWS, Those cameras bring back a lot of memories... especially the rubber hood on the Minolta. Anybody remember the Pentax K1000 camera?  They were like $199 with the standard 50mm f/1.8 lens yet those lens took amazing pictures.

Yup, a friend gave me one back in 97, and I used it all through college. Great camera.

Quoted: SWS, Those cameras bring back a lot of memories... especially the rubber hood on the Minolta. Anybody remember the Pentax K1000 camera?  They were like $199 with the standard 50mm f/1.8 lens yet those lens took amazing pictures.

i learned how to take pics on a Minolta 101....that and the K1000.

Back then, cameras were true works of craftsmanship....now just molded plastic and the terms "titanium, aluminum and steel" refer to the color of the plastic, not the material used to make the camera.

My stuff comes out if the case once in a while but that's about it

left to right F-1n, T-90 and FTb

I'm taking one of these with me to New Mexico next week.



One of these days I'm going to buy a flatbed scanner and a nice 120 film adapter.

Did any of you guys study photography as fine art?

I originally went to University on photo jurnalism schlarship.

In the 80's I spent 3 summers studying photography with Eduardo Del Valle and Mirth Gomez and through them I got to meet and talk to Robert Franks and Lee Friedlander.  Later I got to spend one week with William Eggleston in 1985 when he came to Miami Beach to photograph the old Art Deco district.  I used to study photos in Frank's The Americans for hours at a time.  Eduardo and Mirta opened my eyes to B&W photography and Eggleston showed me to see in color.  

In 1986 Eduardo Del Valle talked me into doing a project that I had in mind... consisted of photographing from one spot for 1 hours at same time every day for 100 days which resulted in 11,000 images.  

I some wish I kept studying photography and gone into it professionally.  

 

Quoted: I'm taking one of these with me to New Mexico next week. www.tlr-cameras.com/Japanese/slides/Autocord%20CDS3%20350x600.JPG One of these days I'm going to buy a flatbed scanner and a nice 120 film adapter.

Wow, I had a pair of 120 system... Yashika Mats.
Unfortunately somebody took them thinking they were just old toy camera.  

Quoted: Speaking of BW darkroom gear, know of any place to unload a good Omega enlarger?  I have had it for years, it is probably 1970s or 1980s vintage, but all my attempts to sell it have been unsuccessful.

I gave mine to the boy scouts for their annual flea market and took a tax deduction.

Also gave them all the developing drums, paper holders, etc.

After seeing what can be done with Adobe Photoshop, I’ll never again develop my own prints.

Here’s my collection of paperweights:  

I gave up on 35mm cameras back in '87. I had my camera bag sitting next to me on top of the turret, ready to take snap shots of anything worth taking a picture of, as we were moving to a new firing point. The howitzer hit a large bump, and I just did miss the grab as it bounded up and off the rear of the turret. It landed right in the path of my 548. So ended the life of my Minolta X700, the motor drive, the bounce flash, and the 3 lenses.

Quoted: Did any of you guys study photography as fine art? I originally went to University on photo jurnalism schlarship. In the 80's I spent 3 summers studying photography with Eduardo Del Valle and Mirth Gomez and through them I got to meet and talk to Robert Franks and Lee Friedlander.  Later I got to spend one week with William Eggleston in 1985 when he came to Miami Beach to photograph the old Art Deco district.  I used to study photos in Frank's The Americans for hours at a time.  Eduardo and Mirta opened my eyes to B&W photography and Eggleston showed me to see in color.   In 1986 Eduardo Del Valle talked me into doing a project that I had in mind... consisted of photographing from one spot for 1 hours at same time every day for 100 days which resulted in 11,000 images.   I have a guy that works for me In a totaly different field, he hung onto the 35mm and 120 formats for commerical work when he graduated from, that damn big photo school in Santa Barbra Cali. He can take great Pics. but he has zero experiance with digital. He has to relearn digital for him to get work as a commerical photog. I some wish I kept studying photography and gone into it professionally.

Quoted: Back then, cameras were true works of craftsmanship....now just molded plastic and the terms "titanium, aluminum and steel" refer to the color of the plastic, not the material used to make the camera.

You're comparing apples to oranges.

Consumer cameras have been made of plastic since the earliest days of photography, and today's entry-level digital cameras are no different in that regard  - they are merely the modern incarnations of the Instamatic, the One Step, and the Brownie.

However, if you're willing to spend the same amount of inflation-adjusted dollars in 2006 as a high-end Nikon SLR would have cost 30 years ago, you'll get a magnesium, aluminum or titanium body wrapped around internals that wouldn't have been available at any price back in 1976.

In real-dollar terms, the good ol' days of photography are happening right now.

Quoted: My most prized possession was a large file cabinet containing over 80,000 B&W negatives and their contact sheets which I had collected since 1980 when I got serious about taking pictures.  It was practically every roll of B&W film I ever shot.   Unfortunately they were all lost by the moving company when my parents move to their current home.

Son of a bitch! I don't know how you handled it, but I would have deep fried the balls of those motherfuckers and rammed them down their throats!

Not only was your art 'lost', but it could one day be plagiarized since all your negatives are gone.

Un fucking believable!


I took photography in high school for three years and absolutely loved it. The tragedy is that once I graduated I no longer had a free fully equipped darkroom to develop my film and my prints. There really is a difference between film and digital photography. With film one actually needs skill and experience to develop a fine print. With digital someone else had to put the skill and effort into writing the program used to edit the photo. Obviously digital is so much easier and cheaper than film, and that's why I pretty much stopped B&W photography after high school.

I have a Canon AE-1 and an F-1.  I enjoyed them alot in highschool don't really use them much anymore.
Friend of mine picked up this.  It's alot of fun

Hasselblad 500c and a Nikon F3 HP here.

Its so easy to load up the digital shots onto the computer now.

Quoted: In the 80's I spent 3 summers studying photography with Eduardo Del Valle and Mirth Gomez and through them I got to meet and talk to Robert Franks and Lee Friedlander.  Later I got to spend one week with William Eggleston in 1985 when he came to Miami Beach to photograph the old Art Deco district.  I used to study photos in Frank's The Americans for hours at a time.  Eduardo and Mirta opened my eyes to B&W photography and Eggleston showed me to see in color.   In 1986 Eduardo Del Valle talked me into doing a project that I had in mind... consisted of photographing from one spot for 1 hours at same time every day for 100 days which resulted in 11,000 images.

It sounds like you had a lot of great experiences back then. My mom keeps bugging me to attend a photography school in California, but, aside from the horrifying prospect of living in California, I have no interest in paying money for it. It is a hobby for me. Turning it into work would ruin it. One of these days I'd like to take a community college-level course. Unfortunately I think film-based classes will be far and few between by the time I get around to it. My big weak point is darkroom experience- I have none whatsoever. I've never been in one at all.

Galland

I keep trying to convince myself to drop out of the 35mm world and go digital...I've got a Nikon FG (my first REAL 35mm) and an old FE (not FE2...the first model)...Have a few Nikor len's for them and a nice little Metz flash..I know these are old school but I can take pretty much exactly the photo I want almost instinctively...Unless I step up to a really high dollar digital I won't get the same feel...

I know that 35mm is going away and even now some of my favorite films are tough to get...anyone remember Kodachrome 25? ...damn i loved that film...

I also know that 35mm STILL takes a pretty decent image

All I have left for 35mm is my Canon Rebel EOS Ti for playing around. The only time I shoot 35mm film now is when I go to Europe in the summer. I always shoot a few rolls of some B&W Kodak Plus-Xpan 125 of the cool old buildings. I dont have my own dark room, but our local community center has a very nice and modern B&W dark room open to town residents. All I need to have is my roll of film and some photo paper. They provide all of the equipment, chemicals, and tools.

I love 35mm photography, I took photography in highschool for 3 years and then was the lab/teacher student assistant my senior year.

Quoted: I finally gave up on my 35mm camera systems for daily use. i6.photobucket.com/albums/y250/rug357/Pics/a1cfae67.jpg First one is a Canon range finder that my father got in the early 60’s just after I was born.  He used this camera until 1977 when the shutter developed some problems.  In 1980 I took it to a camera repair shop in New York and they repaired, rebuilt and cleaned the camera and in addition to the original 50mm lens I purchased a used 28mm lens for it.  I used it since but only with B&W film (Kodak Tri-X) until few years ago when the shutter began giving me troubles again.  At this point I can’t find anyone locally who can repair this camera so I gave up on it.  In 25 years I have taken over 50,000 photos with this camera.  In the late 80’s I was shooting so much that I used to buy film in 150 feet rolls and load them into canisters.  The quality of this lens is amazing.  It may not be a Leica but the quality comes pretty close. Second one is the “new” Canon F-1 SLR which I got in 1982 for taking pics for local paper and for AP as stringer.  I also had a pair of “old” Canon F-1 at that time and these were real work horses.  This camera has taken almost 70,000 pics in over 20 years.  I have 12 different Canon SLR lenses ranging from 24mm to 500mm plus auto winders and motor drives.  These were great equipments in their days. Final camera is the Olympus Stylus that I got for my wife in 1993 just before we went to live in Europe.  My wife loved taking pictures but didn’t wan the hassle of using my camera so she just used this Olympus for everything.  I think she has taken over 8,000 pics with this camera and it still works great. I used to have a complete dark room set up for B&W films and prints.  I had couple prints that were shown at local art shows and museums in past and numerous prints in the paper.  My most prized possession was a large file cabinet containing over 80,000 B&W negatives and their contact sheets which I had collected since 1980 when I got serious about taking pictures.  It was practically every roll of B&W film I ever shot.   Unfortunately they were all lost by the moving company when my parents move to their current home.   Well, no more 35mm systems for me.  I’m just going to stick to my $200 digital camera from now on.  Maybe for some special occasions I'll take them out.

I have a D1 body which was purchased in early 2005 that has more shutter actuations than those 3 combined.

Digital gives a whole new meaning to volume!

Quoted: Speaking of BW darkroom gear, know of any place to unload a good Omega enlarger?  I have had it for years, it is probably 1970s or 1980s vintage, but all my attempts to sell it have been unsuccessful.

How much? I like Black and white developing!

Quoted: I have a D1 body which was purchased in early 2005 that has more shutter actuations than those 3 combined. Digital gives a whole new meaning to volume!

I know what you mean.
I took over 4,000 pics with my digital camera since my son was born and that was just over 3 months ago.  I went to pharmacy few weeks ago to print some pics.  I put the CD into the machine that down load images in to the printer.  As I was getting ready to leave (it was 1 hour service) the technician asked if I made a mistake down loading pics because I had over 500 pics to be printed.  I told him that it was not a mistake and that there are 518 pics.    

Quoted: I dont have my own dark room, but our local community center has a very nice and modern B&W dark room open to town residents. All I need to have is my roll of film and some photo paper. They provide all of the equipment, chemicals, and tools.

I wish I had access to dark room like that
I thought about setting up a small room in my garage to make it into a dark room to do my B&W pics but I don't have enough space

Holy smokes there are a lot of you with gorgeous F-1s and other cool gear!!  


I saved and saved and saved as a kid, and bought a Canon A-1 in 1978 or 1979, when it was the coolest thing since sliced bread, and incredibly high tech for the time.  (I think it was the first microprocessor controlled camera with a fully automatic mode, unless I'm mistaken.)  Not "professional" like the F-1, but a hell of a camera - although I never really could afford the really good lenses.

I also managed to eventually save up for a BW darkroom setup - by cobbling toghether a cheap diffuser/stand - and an awesome Zeiss lens from an old east german camera my dad had.  That was a ton of fun.

My wife recently found two old dudes in St. Louis that specialize in refurbishing old Canon cameras, and paid to have it completely serviced for my birthday last year!

As long as we are doing gear porn
Here's a better pic of my 35mm stuff.
I just recently sold a 24mm/2.8 and a bellows to my brother. He's still a hardcore film guy.
The F-1n has a 85mm 1.2L lens. My personal favorite with mega sharp glass

Quoted: Holy smokes there are a lot of you with gorgeous F-1s and other cool gear!!   I saved and saved and saved as a kid, and bought a Canon A-1 in 1978 or 1979, when it was the coolest thing since sliced bread, and incredibly high tech for the time.  (I think it was the first microprocessor controlled camera with a fully automatic mode, unless I'm mistaken.)  Not "professional" like the F-1, but a hell of a camera - although I never really could afford the really good lenses. I also managed to eventually save up for a BW darkroom setup - by cobbling toghether a cheap diffuser/stand - and an awesome Zeiss lens from an old east german camera my dad had.  That was a ton of fun. My wife recently found two old dudes in St. Louis that specialize in refurbishing old Canon cameras, and paid to have it completely serviced for my birthday last year! photos.ar15.com/ImageGallery/Attachments/DownloadAttach.asp?iImageUnq=46083

A-1 was very advanced for their time... very hi-tech.
It was also the first non "professional" SLR with up to 5 frames per second motor drive.
Their weak point (also with AE-1 and AE-1 Program) was the shutter.  They would give out around 20,000 shots or even sooner if you the motor drive a lot at fast speed.  Canon had some decent lens that were moderately priced but their "good" lens were expensive.  I purchased an 300mm/f2.8 lens in 1985 or so and it was over $1k and event the 300mm/f4.0 was over $400.

Sounds like your wife is a real catch.