Cameras that you don't use but can't bring yourself to sell

[Guth]

I have two.

Kodak X15 Instamatic — Just as with the very first photograph I ever took with it, I still have this camera — it was my very first, given to me as a gift when I was 10 years old. I hold on to it as a keepsake for sentimental reasons. It sits on a shelf, in the box that it was sold in.

Minolta XD11 — Purchased new back in the late 70's. I was very interested in technology when I was young and this camera represented the pinnacle of 35mm SLR cameras for me personally at that point in time. It did need to be sent back to Minolta for repair fairly early on in it's life. I had to sell my existing camera along with a few other things at the time to be able to afford the XD11. It would serve as my only camera (aside from the X15) for more than 20 years.

In the useless information category, it was used to capture a good percentage of photographs appearing in my high school yearbook and accompanied me on all of my travels during my younger years. The XD-11 fell by the wayside when I purchased my M6 back in 2000. I can't recall the last time that I used the it, but like the Kodak X15 I can't bring myself to sell the Minolta. It's tucked away in the old orange Tenba camera bag that I favored back then along with a couple of Minolta MD lenses and the period Minolta flash. I still have the original box for this camera, along with the users manual, some of the original brochures (for the camera itself and Minolta's lens catalog at the time) and a few magazine's I had purchased for the reviews/tests of the camera back then. (Yes, at times my habits represent a great source of frustration for my wife, lol.)

 

[ruby.monkey]

My token film camera ...

Snap.

cl by Jean-Yves, on Flickr

 

[Pál_K]

I use them all. Selling one is inconceivable.

 

[David Hughes]

Exactly, use them or sell them. Alas, lockdown and no post office anywhere nearby mean all my plans made over winter and the photos for eBay got me nowhere.

When things pick up I'll start again and add the back-ups I thought important once.

Regards, David

 

[twvancamp]

Can't bring myself to sell my K1000, a family heriloom and my first film camera. Despite the backlash against that model I think it's a lovely camera, but when I reach for an SLR it's typically Olympus.

Otherwise I'm quick to sell anything I'm not using. However, lately the problem is finding buyers. Liquidated all my Nikon gear and the lenses went fast but the bodies are sitting in a box. So many were made it's hard to get reasonable offers.

 

[mothertrucker]

I use them all. Selling one is inconceivable.

Haha! That's how I feel in my heart. but the truth lies somewhere else...

 

[Bolo Kukus]

My Contax G1s. i bought into the brand in the late 1990s when they were new and cost almost their weight in pure gold, also the superb Japan-made Zeiss lenses, which I have from 21 to 90 and use often. It's the only 35mm camera I use regularly - nowadays my stash of Nikkormats, Nikon F65s, an Exacta and a near-mint Pentax MX are shelf queens but are dusted off and are taken out at least one time every year, to keep them functioning and convinced they are still loved in their (and my) retirement.

Like my Rollei TLRs, the Gs produce negatives and color slides that look more like small engravings than images on film. Many bemoan the ageing electronics but mine just go on and show no signs of passing on to 'lektriks heaven. Given today's high prices for quality cameras (film or digital) I would have to pay much more for anything in the image quality stakes of those lovely cameras and Zeiss lenses, which I know can be converted to other digital cameras but the methods involve all seem too fiddly and iffy for my liking. So they'll stay on the G1s as they were originally intended to.

Last year in a fit of temporary madness, I sold a G1 on Ebay. It went to an Asian yuppy who had read all the great internet posts and was keen to be an amateur papparazi, but then got buyer's remorse and made up a case with Ebay to return it. After much hassle the G1 was returned to me. The git did me a favor - by then I had seller's remorse and after a clean-up and a check from my camera repair shop it's now my favorite shooter. I also turned my back on and walked away from both Ebay and its equally maddening partner in (never mind), Paypal, and now I no longer throw away my money on anything they offer.

The G1 results are superb, even with Ilford XP2 which is a fine film but not exactly renowned for top quality results or saleable images.

I've thought of selling the rest of my collection (keeping the G1s, I now have four bought from Japan a decade ago when digital was killing off everything to do with film and the Contaxes were being tossed out for peanuts) but as another poster has written, most film cameras are worth little or nothing now and the hassle of dealing with ignorant buyers or the Ebay-Paypal cartel are no longer worth it to me. I prefer to use my cameras occasionally for the film superb images they create, and keep these fine products of a now-dinosaur era as future family heirlooms.

Then I have the Rolleis, a Voigtlander Perkeo and a Zeiss Nettar... but that's enough for one post.

 

[Vince Lupo]

A friend of mine and fellow RFF'er recently sent this photo that he took of me. It's from about 15 years ago (pre-kitchen and office renovation and a lot less grey hair!), and in retrospect I'm looking at this photo and thinking that I had some pretty serious and odd cameras at the time (see how many you can identify in this photo!). It's amazing that I had them and let them all go (looking closely at the photo I don't think I have a single one of them now, and there were actually a lot more that aren't in this photo).

Guess it goes to show that - at least in this household - they're all fair game to go at some point.


Vinny and His Cameras1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

 

[Archlich]

An Olympus mju2 that I lost, and found after 1 hour of frenzied search, among a sloped tussock field in the middle of the Aleutians, 2 days from any civilization.

A Konica Hexar with which I fell into a glacier-fed stream in the Canadian Arctic. If I did die then the camera, along with the snapped trekking pole, may have crossed the Labrador Sea and ended up somewhere in Greenland already. But it's still with me.

I do use the Hexar occasionally but like the mju2, it's more of a token to me now.

 

[nikon_sam]

A friend of mine and fellow RFF'er recently sent this photo that he took of me. It's from about 15 years ago (pre-kitchen and office renovation and a lot less grey hair!), and in retrospect I'm looking at this photo and thinking that I had some pretty serious and odd cameras at the time (see how many you can identify in this photo!). It's amazing that I had them and let them all go (looking closely at the photo I don't think I have a single one of them now, and there were actually a lot more that aren't in this photo).

Guess it goes to show that - at least in this household - they're all fair game to go at some point.


Vinny and His Cameras1 by Vince Lupo, on Flickr

When I saw the photo I felt that I DIDN'T have a problem with all the cameras I currently own...THEN I read your post...I'm back to square one...
I think I've sold/given away the ones I can...the rest will be my children's decision...
I have a mint Nikon FM with MD-12 that I've never used therefore have zero connection with it...I could let that one go...
I still have my very first camera...my parents bought it for me back in 1975...

 

[Vince Lupo]

When I saw the photo I felt that I DIDN'T have a problem with all the cameras I currently own...THEN I read your post...I'm back to square one...
I think I've sold/given away the ones I can...the rest will be my children's decision...
I have a mint Nikon FM with MD-12 that I've never used therefore have zero connection with it...I could let that one go...
I still have my very first camera...my parents bought it for me back in 1975...

Yeah hold onto the camera your parents gave you - the camera I got from my Dad back in 1978 is long gone, unfortunately.

I guess the one nice thing about my having sold all those cameras is that, generally speaking, I made a pretty healthy profit off all of them. However, there is one camera in that photo I wish I held onto, only because the prices of them have since gone into the nutty zone -- the Fuji TX-1 / Hasselblad Xpan, with both the 45mm and 90mm lenses.

 

[Ccoppola82]

Xpro2. I thought I’d sell it when I got my leica digital but the thing is so damn nice and light..I use it as my beat around camera when I don’t feel like manually focusing

 

[John Bragg]

Nikon F90x was my first AF SLR and has been used very little. It came my way via ebay complete with sticky back, which I fixed, and a 50mm f1.8 Af Nikkor in good used condition. I should liquidate the value in it but it is worth more to me. Poor man's F4 and built like a tank.

 

[jpressman]

I basically have film cameras left - Nikon FE and FE2, Cannot QL17, Olympus XA. A few Nikon lenses, esp a 45 2.8P that I really liked. There have been plenty that I've bought, used, and sold but somehow these are still hanging around, I guess mainly because they're not worth very much and it's somewhat a pain to try to sell them.

 

[zuiko85]

I basically have film cameras left - Nikon FE and FE2, Cannot QL17, Olympus XA. A few Nikon lenses, esp a 45 2.8P that I really liked. There have been plenty that I've bought, used, and sold but somehow these are still hanging around, I guess mainly because they're not worth very much and it's somewhat a pain to try to sell them.

That is my situation also (and, I suspect many others here). Oh occasionally I shoot film and develop a roll or two, but most of what I have left is not worth much and selling is a hassle what with picky buyers (oh, there is a spec of dust on this camera! You didn’t tell me about that..... I want a discount!)

 

[JeffS7444]

For me, the keepers are mostly things which have more entertainment value than resale value: A FED-2 which I restored and custom-painted, for instance. Not going to worry about some $50 items, but if resale prices rise closer to $500, it'll be hard for me to resist selling!

 

[Godfrey]

I have a bunch of film cameras I don't use much, but I don't see much point to discarding them simply because I don't use them too much. I like them, they're not in the way, and on the rare occasions I take one out and shoot a roll of film, I enjoy what they produce for me. ...

On the other hand, my Olympus E-1 and E-M1 are excellent cameras that I don't find myself using much anymore. No real reason other than that I have other cameras I use in preference that do the same or maybe a slightly better job, but there's something about those two cameras (and the Olympus high grade SLR lenses) that I'm reluctant to let go of. Doesn't matter, really: again, they take up little space, aren't worth all that much money to sell, and on the rare occasions when I feel like it, I can take them out and make excellent photos with them.

The biggest motivation to sell any of this stuff, really, is to reduce the clutter in the closets. But that only provides a relatively small amount of motivation at present. 🙂

G

 

[farlymac]

I shudder to think of all the cameras I want to keep. Of course the ones I got from my Dad definitely top the list, and my first Yashica Electro 35 GTN (my second rangefinder). A couple old folders I bought just for their looks. And maybe three or four Compact/P&S models I really like.


After that only the current users are safe from the cull list. Everything else must go, even the Magic Lanterns!


PF

 

[DougK]

I used to have a fairly ridiculous collections of camera, but I'm down to two 35mm cameras (Vivitar SLR and 50/1.7 lens, Fuji Natura S Black), one medium format camera (Lubitel 166U TLR), and one large format (Ilford Harman titan 4x5 pinhole with the 72mm cone). The vast majority of the photos I take these days are on my iPhone (currently an 11).

I'd like to get a large format camera setup because it's so different from the photography I normally do, but I don't have any near-term plans to acquire one.

 

[dtcls100]

I have 4 new Mamiya 6 cameras with the 50, 75 and 150 lenses. Haven't used them much over the last several years. There was a time I used them a good deal but what keeps me from selling them is the impeccable image quality they can produce and knowing that I would be unlikely to readily replace them. What stops me from using them more often is simple impatience and laziness of a sort, as it is much quicker and easier to use digital or my numerous 35mm film cameras. One has to be alot more deliberate in using these MF rangefinders and I don't take as many landscapes, still lifes or posed portraits as I used to. Writing this, I am resolving to trot them out some more, as they are fantastic cameras and I still have a bunch of MF film in the freezer.