Cameras or Lenses owned by famous Photographers

As a camera collector I have a fondness for cameras or lenses owned by famous photographers.

If you own such a photograhic collectible, do you care to share its story?

Said collectibles fall into two categories,

those with documented signed provenance :) and those without :bang:

Best to All,
Stephen
 
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Polaroid SLR680, owned by Dave Heath and given to me from him in the 1990’s:


SLR10 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

Gossen Ultra Spot and Hasselblad chimney finder owned by Arnold Crane (I blacked-out his address in the label on the light meter). I purchased both from a well-known camera dealer who was friends with him:


Gossen2 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr


Arnold Crane Hasselblad by Vince Lupo, on Flickr
 
My father, Ian Adams, late as of this past November, award-winning photo-journo, war photographer, writer, novelist, screenwriter, gave me his two Pentax Spotmatic bodies with a fast 55, a Sun 135mm and a 28, after he came back from Vietnam. I was his lab rat for a stretch and it informed me in terrible and beautiful ways. I made some small and insignificant work with that set up; it was marvelous for years. I switched to Leica in the 90s but...

My father had returned to painting and I felt neither the need or the requirement to "upgrade". What would that have meant, back in those days? The Takumars were brilliant lenses and the viewfinders large and bright. Both those bodies, despite being filed with Vietnamese sand, worked without respite or complaint for years... I wish I... never mind. Later, in the early years of the millennium, I gave him a Nikon DSLR, and he just took off. There is no other word for it. At the age of 69 he entered a renaissance. His studio, previously filled with paintings, became occupied with photographs...
 
A camera shop in Copenhagen have had Keld Helmer Petersen's Hasselblad up for sale for quite a while.
Being one of the most Influential Danish photographers and with his groundbreaking book 122 Colour Photographs from 1948 included in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger's The Photobook: A History, I'd say he is not just a small town local hero - and one would expect that his camera with clear provenance could spark a wider interest, yet it has been up for sale for a long time.
It is a plain 500c with A12 back and a chrome 150mm Sonnar with a hood offered for the equivalent of US$ 2,200. There is barely a "famous photographer" premium on this kit and it makes me wonder how famous a photographer has to be for their cameras to be attractive - at least from a monetary perspective.

A Leica owned by Cartier-Bresson would obviously spark some serious interest - but what about Martin Parr's old Canon 5D Mk II? or the Nikon F3 and 28mm lens that Robert Adams used for the photographs in Listening to the River?
 
Don’t know about famous but well known in some circles. I purchased a Olympus Pen FV from the estate of Peter Dechert. That gentleman also generously made available a download for personal use of his Pen F book, just crammed with good information.
 
The Werra 3 in the pic below came from our very own, and much-missed, Roger Hicks - Werra family by gray1720, on Flickr

It's the one he reviewed for Shutterbug (I can take photos of that dent if you'd like) - I offered him a lens cap, and he offered me the rest of the camera as he was unlikely to use it, in exchange for a donation to a charity of mutual agreement.

https://www.shutterbug.com/content/werra-east-german-wonder - I notice our own Jason Schneider turns up in the plugs at the end as well.
 
I have a 1933 Leica III Black/Nickel 116XXX that works perfect. When Don did CLA 4 or 5 years ago he said it had been “heavily used”. It is an export model- “open” and “close”. I would love to see the photos it's taken and by whom.
 
Perhaps not owned by a famous person, but certainly a famous institution: My Hasselblad 50mm f/4 CF is very prominently and crudely engraved on the barrel with "San Jose Mercury News", along with their phone number. I purchased it about a decade ago from KEH, at the time that most papers were abandoning film equipment. At first, I was horrified that anyone would so deface such a fine piece of equipment, but now I rather enjoy the history of a past era that it invokes. I'll never know what that lens witnessed, though, in reality, it was probably just the usual grip-and-grin shots of a daily newspaper.
The lens was dirt cheap, as Hassie stuff was at the time, and cheaper still as it was rated "BGN" because of the engraving, but it works great!
 
Monte Zucker was one of the Canon Explorers of Light. He is the gent who helped me with photographing people to make them look beautiful and also getting my business up and running. When I first met Monte, he was using a Canon 10D and as new digital Canon SLR’s came out Monte used the latest camera.

Here is some information on him:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monte_Zucker
 
Every once in a while I come across gear from some of the local photographers, so not very famous but known around these parts. Problem is it all seems to be in very bad shape, like the box of Minolta gear I purchased from the nephew of a man who worked for the newspaper, and one of the TV stations during his career. It all had been in some basement for many years, totally forgotten until the house had to be cleaned out for sale. Very little of it was usable, and no one seemed really interested in it, especially his family. Some stories behind that busted up SR I would imagine.

PF
 
For 20 years or more portrait photographer John Brook had a studio/apartment on fancy-schmancy Newbury Street in Boston, MA.
Huge northern exposure windows in the living room lit a west facing grey wall displaying an Indian blanket which came down for portrait sessions.
I was there during a piece WGBH, the local PBS station was doing on him.
"Oh no...we didn't bring the lights!"
"No worries...we're in a photography studio...hey John, can we use your lights?
"Sorry, I don't have any," John replied.

His only camera was a Hasselblad 1600.
His only lens, a 180mm f2.8 Zeiss Olympic Sonnar.

In the 1970s when I knew him he shot only B&W which he printed himself on a simple 5x7 diffusion enlarger.

https://www.johnbrookarchive.com/photographs.html
 
Canyongazer said:
For 20 years or more portrait photographer John Brook had a studio/apartment on fancy-schmancy Newbury Street in Boston, MA.
Huge northern exposure windows in the living room lit a west facing grey wall displaying an Indian blanket which came down for portrait sessions.
I was there during a piece WGBH, the local PBS station was doing on him.
"Oh no...we didn't bring the lights!"
"No worries...we're in a photography studio...hey John, can we use your lights?
"Sorry, I don't have any," John replied.

His only camera was a Hasselblad 1600.
His only lens, a 180mm f2.8 Zeiss Olympic Sonnar.

In the 1970s when I knew him he shot only B&W which he printed himself on a simple 5x7 diffusion enlarger.

https://www.johnbrookarchive.com/photographs.html
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Some interesting work! I'm afraid some of it would currently get him hauled into court for child abuse/pornography by the self-proclaimed "Guardians of Morality and the American Way of Life", the same sorts who went after Sally Mann.
 
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