Anything surprised you?

[seany65]

When I bought a MJU II for $20 at an estate sale and couldn't tell if my pictures where taken with the $20 MJU II or my $2,000 Summicron 😱

I'm willing to bet that I also, could make a $2,000 lens look like a $20.00 lens.😱 😀


When I wrote the Original post I had no idea that I was going to buy the Prinzflex 500 and Hanimex 135mm lens, but I have. 😱

I've got nowhere to put it, so for now it's sitting on top of my Laney GC30 guitar amp, next to my Praktica PLC3.

I'm really trying to stop myself buying a Helios 44-2 lens that's in a shop near me, as I was just going to shove 1 film through the Prinzflex and 135mm, just to see what results I could get.

I probably won't be able to stop myself though.😱

I could just use the Pentacon electric 50mm lens on the 'flex, but I want to keep that lens for my Prakticas, an FX2 and PLC3.


Edit: in sept. 2020 I cracked and bought the helios 44-2 from the shop near me for £10.😱 Nearly a "Steal" but it either has still got or has been etched by a small amount of fungus on the front lens (I've used 6% hydrogen peroxide on it 3 times) and the aperture ring is a bit stiff and can get stuck at f2, especially with the lenshood screwed on.😕

 

[Huss]

I was surprised at how badly Nikon missed with the DF. Meant to be a film camera with digital back, but instead it was a big fat thing with poor AF, plasticky hollow feeling dials and a terrible manual focus screen.

And yeah, the Helios 103 is a korker. Best thing about my black Kiev 4a.

 

[Jeremy Z]

I'm surprised again and again by what a great value early autofocus SLRs are these days.

Yesterday, I picked up a Nikon N80 for $10 because the rubber had gotten overly tacky.

Several weeks ago, I got an N90s for $21 because the rubber on the back had degraded and gotten tacky. I remember selling these for $1,000 in about 1995.

Nikon F4's are going for around $200, which is high by the above standards, but it was a $2,000 camera in 1988 and people snapped them up. It is still the standard for lens compatibility in the Nikon F mount.

I got a Canon Rebel G with 28-90 USM f/4-5.6 and a nice bag for $10. At that same thrift store, I picked up Sigma 28-80 aspherical f/4-5.6 and 100-300 f/4.5-6.3 (ultra slow) for $20.

Canon EOS 630 was $20 shipped from ebay.

I prefer the manual focus, manual advance and rewind cameras, but for one of those, I pay 10X what I would pay for a more capable camera. For example, my FE2 was $142. Nice FMs go for around $80. FM2Ns are a staggering $250 and FM3As are $600+.

By comparison, rangefinders are not good values and not rugged. I like the fixed lens rangefinders from the 70s, but they are hardly ever 100%, like the SLRs often are. Foam seals are often an issue on the metal cameras, but on the Fantastic-Plastic cameras, they don't even need foam seals on the film door. The mirror dampers seem to hold up better, too. (had they switched to a better foam?)

 

[seany65]

Huss, from what you say it seems that I'm lucky that I could never afford a Df, although I always tell myself the reason I don't want one is because of how overly-fussy they look because of all the dials and buttons and how difficult it seemed to be to get it set up as if it were a digital-back FM. Isn't there an after-market manual focusing screen that can be fitted?

Smaug, what do you do about the tacky rubber problem?

 

[tunalegs]

Didn't think I'd enjoy using the Pilot 6 so much when I got it. Thought it'd sit on the shelf with the box cameras after a couple rolls. But it's still one of my favorite cameras.


Pilot 6.3 by berangberang, on Flickr

 

[Huss]

Huss, from what you say it seems that I'm lucky that I could never afford a Df, although I always tell myself the reason I don't want one is because of how overly-fussy they look because of all the dials and buttons and how difficult it seemed to be to get it set up as if it were a digital-back FM. Isn't there an after-market manual focusing screen that can be fitted?

Smaug, what do you do about the tacky rubber problem?

There are after market screens I've heard, not sure how easy it is to fit one.
The DF is bascially a D600 with D4 sensor, no video, and fancy plasticketal shell.

Answering for Smaug, I removed the stickiness by wiping it with isopropyl alcohol.

 

[seany65]

Huss, would isopropyl alcohol work on sticky tripod quick release heads?

 

[Huss]

Huss, would isopropyl alcohol work on sticky tripod quick release heads?

It could do, I have never tried. Are they the same material/texture as on camera bodies? All sticky camera bodies I have tried have cleaned up by rubbing them w isopropyl alcohol. It replaces a sticky surface with a smooth one.

 

[seany65]

It could do, I have never tried. Are they the same material/texture as on camera bodies? All sticky camera bodies I have tried have cleaned up by rubbing them w isopropyl alcohol. It replaces a sticky surface with a smooth one.

Hmmm. I've no idea. I could try the isopropyl alcohol, I've not got that much to lose, I suppose.

 

[seany65]

Sorry to necropost in my own thread, but I was recently surprised when I was in a camera shop and had a look through a grey rolleicord vb. The screen seemed pretty bright but I found it a little difficult to see that I'd focused properly, even using the the split screen and whether or not I looked through my glasses and even using the magnifier. I could see that the vertical lines lined up in the split screen, but I still wasn't absolutely convinced. Yet when I looked through an old rolleicord which only had one speed (1/25) and even though it had a darker screen I could tell I'd got the focus almost exact and needed the magnifier to only make the final tiny adjustment.

 

[Coldkennels]

I was surprised how good the Helios 103 is.

I'll second this. I picked up a Helios 103 on a Kiev 4AM I bought on a whim the best part of a decade ago. The camera itself was a weird, idiosyncratic mess, and you could tell it was made on the cheap, but DAMN, that lens is good.

I'd used the various LTM Jupiters a lot over the years, and knew what they were capable of on the right bodies. The Helios knocks them all out of the park and easily holds its own against some of the best LTM lenses from Leitz and Canon. If I had a Contax to LTM adapter, I'd use it a lot more.

 

[Pál_K]

+2 for the diopter. Sometimes it's hard to notice as your eyes age, but I was just struggling more and more with nailing focus on my M6 TTL that I've had for twenty years. Was in Tamarkan Camera here in Chicago one day and Dan recommended trying a diopter. WOW!!! Suddenly I could see as clearly and as sharply as ever. What a relief. Now have diopters for all my old film cameras.

Best,
-Tim

So, to people with diopters on your camera eyepiece (or an adjustable eyepiece), do you normally wear glasses and then take them off when using the camera?

 

[Retro-Grouch]

So, to people with diopters on your camera eyepiece (or an adjustable eyepiece), do you normally wear glasses and then take them off when using the camera?

Yes, otherwise you'd be doing double the correction. One of my favorite accessories is a neck strap that holds my glasses by the temples; they hang on my neck while shooting, and they're on and off in a jiff. I resorted to that when I gave up on contacts. At this point, every camera I have either has built-in adjustable correction, or can be fitted with a correction diopter. I just won't work any other way.

 

[raydm6]

Has any bit of kit surprised you in any way, good or bad?
...

Yes, when I first handled a Leica IIIf. I was quite surprised how small, solid, and jewel-like the camera felt. Coupled with the diminutive collapsible Summitar, it made for a wonderfully compact tidy package. Stephen captured some of the superlatives here: https://cameraquest.com/3frdst.htm

 

[Range-rover]

I picked up an Yashica YF, it's like a late 50's Leica M copy I put a Leica 35mm F3.5 Summaron on it and when I
got the picture back I was really surprised of the picture quality. It goes to show you what those older Leica lenses
can still do.

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

My biggest surprise has been the quality of Pentax M42 Takumar lenses. I had always been a Nikon fan/snob, but a few years ago, I picked up a Spotmatic with a 50mm f/1.4 Super Takumar lens for $20. That lens, as well as other Takumars I've bought since, are easily as good if not better than my Nikkors. Just last week I got back a couple of rolls of film, one shot on my FE with my Nikkor lenses and one shot on my SL with Takumar lenses. I find the images shot with my Pentax lenses distinctly more appealing, although I can't quite put my finger on why.

 

[jsrockit]

I was surprised that I actually like the clunkiness of my Bessa R2.

 

[Pál_K]

One camera did surprise me. With the help of a good career and people moving from film to digital (thereby lowering prices), I was able to get pretty much everything I ever wanted: Nikon F through F4, Canon F-1N, Leica M’s and R’s, Pentax, Minolta, Olympus, Rolleiflex, Hasselblad, Mamiya, etc.

What was consistent is I avoided all autofocus cameras and especially those which were low-end consumer cameras.

I have a camera-repair friend - he’s had maybe 30 years servicing Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Olympus - pretty much everything. He also sold cameras on eBay. One thing I’d be seeing - this was around 2011 - were his listings of Canon Rebel G’s at $20 or less (these were cameras he’d tested). Perhaps, after seeing page after page of these matte-black bodies with their generously wide EF mount, I got curious. What if I were to spend 20 bucks on one of these carefree non-serious cameras?

So, over a nice Italian lunch I searched the internet about these Rebel G’s. I found one nicely designed web page that covered the main features and capabilities of this camera - it was better than a sales brochure. After studying all this, I bought one.

First surprise: it is amazingly light. Even with the 50/1.8 lens it is amazingly light. Second: the features are well thought out. From a basic fully automatic point-and-shoot to adjustable program, to the usual aperture or shutter priority modes, to fully manual - anyone can use this. It’s 3-focus point layout is more than adequate and it’s configurable. They even added an interesting “depth mode” to play with (a variation of what the original EOS 650 offered). Although the 50/1.8 is a bit noisy and seems cheap, it hits proper focus every time and is very sharp. The camera is so much fun to use, I bought two more (each of them have their own dedicated lens). Even today I think these cameras are a bargain.

After the Rebel G, my dislike of autofocus disappeared and I went for the Nikon F4, Minolta 7, and Canon 7NE, among others.

 

[Ko.Fe.]

Zenit VF might be bright, but I was never impressed with its macro prisms for focusing, if any. Including personal Zenit made for the KMZ Zenit's assembly line manager.

I was given once Kiev-19m export version. Camera comparing to Zenits was working camera and its Helios something 50/2 was incredible on bw film. Lens dropped Crons in the dust. Sharp and with micro contrast.

 

[ptpdprinter]

The thing that surprised me, and this was about 40 years ago, is that no matter what kind of film or developer or processing or incantations you use, 35mm is never going to look like 4x5. It seems obvious, but if you read all those articles back in the 1970s and 1980s to the contrary you would have thought otherwise.

My cameras have all worked as expected. Same with darkroom equipment. Everything has worked as it should. No surprises.