Dream Camera?

[Biber]

A black M7 with AF and a few different metering modes, and none of the new features should interfere with the basic control of the camera. Digital would be convenient but it would have to perform well at 3200 ASA and have a full size sensor. I'd also like it to be unstealable. 😀

 

[ch1]

Bobbo, I freely confess...I have a titanium fetish. That doesn't necessarily make me a bad person, though. I was a bad person before that. But if I had to, yeah, I could deal with brass.

Fred

ps--please keep this stuff coming; I didn't start this thread but it sure is fun...

Fred,

As to earlier post request - sorry already completed the"survey" a few days ago. It seemed slanted to telling them what they are doing "right" rather than asking for critiques. Of the 50 or so questions - only one dealt with film - and that was to ask if I read the Film column....

Now, as to titanium, metal is just so de'classe! I'd go with carbon fibre for the ultimate in strength and lightness.

Actually, you know that camera makers don't give a rat's behind about product durablility anymore because they haven't shifted to carbon.

My other passion is bicycling - and the high-end (and even mid-range) bikes are all carbon fiber now - manufacturers are fleeing aluminum and titanium in droves!

Guess the fact that DSLR bodies are mainly "plastic" tells you something.... 🙁

 

[yossarian]

George, I learned a lot about metals from my father, a retired "materials engineer"
(NASA's term), but I don't know nearly enough about carbon fiber. Is it feasible
for use on the size devices we're discussing here?

Fred

 

[ch1]

Fred,

I'm not an engineer etc. But I do ride bikes and know that carbon fiber can be fashioned in to all kinds of shapes and sizes. It is not just the bicycle tubes that are made of it. Now there are high-end cranksets, seatposts etc. Even saddles are fashioned from it. [besides, if it can be "spun" into tubes - doesn't this seem to be the best product to make lenses with?]

Actually the stuff comes from the military/space industry - but ease of manufacture is such that it is now produced globally.

If camera makers still cared about durability of their product - they would be switching to carbon fiber. The fact that they don't - well it "tells" you something.

My first camera was a Nikkormat FT-2. Nearly thirty years on it still works like a champ. But wearing it is like wearing a millstone around your neck.

If someone remade that very basic camera with carbon it would weigh a small fraction and be a joy to use.

 

[yossarian]

I suspect it wouldn't take much coaxing for me to change my alliances. One of the
reasons I like titanium is what it does when anodized or subjected to high (>1500
degrees F) heat--lots of lovely rainbow colors. I know it's a biatch to work with, but
it is kinda cool.

Thanks,

Fred

 

[celluloidprop]

I'm more than happy with the existing cameras on the market, so I'd just buy a Mamiya 6, the latest Rolleiflex and a digital M whenever they hit the market.

But since I'd have about $150mln after taxes, I think I'd have to pick up an Aaton A-Minima Super 16 camera. The ultimate in cinema verite machinery.

 

[smiling gecko]

... while were traipsing around in camera fantasy land why not go for our dream camera(s)?....like a pair of mamiya 6's, a pair of contax g2's , a leica r8, a pentax 67II and a few select lenses all in a hybrid black + grey hammertone finnish...oops and maybe a hammertone canon elph or contax t or olympus stylus...

hasta la vista, adieu, dazvidanya, fino al prossimo tempo, auf wiedersehen, and later y’all
kenneth
_______________________________________
"...patience and shuffle the cards" miguel cervantes
"nothing can be learned" herman hesse
"everybody knows everything" jack kerouac
"some memories are realities and better than anything" willa cather
" doo-wacka doo, wacka doo" roger miller
"we have met the enemy and they is us !" walt kelly (pogo)
“a mans cartilage is his fate” phillip roth

 

[rbiemer]

OK, mine is a bit simpler: Black finished Zorki 3m design but made to modern quality control and tolerances. With a few tweaks-- M mount, lever advance, and zoom viewfinder for 21, 35, 50 90, and 135 lenses. TTL selenium or cds type(battery free) meter [you said "dream camera" right?].
I'd probably have a few bucks left over so that would pay for a large run of ISO 25 chromogenic BW film.
Rob

 

[JohnR]

I want a 6x17 TLR with front movements and the lenses to go with it.

 

[mitspooner]

Accessories also need

Accessories also need

I would also need a self leveling tripod. It will need casters/heavy duty wheels that will go up or down with a touch of a button. One touch height control but I may need a porter to lug my winnings around.

 

[JohnR]

Now we're getting somewhere. We've been talking CAMERA, we need to be thinking SYSTEM 😉

 

[sychan]

I'd like digital RF with the features of my Epson R-D1, the sensor from my D200 on a body the size of my Vivitar 35ES, with an M-mount and an EBL appropriate to focus the Nokton 40/1.4
The flip out LCD is unnecessary, but I really, really want someone pocketable with a modern, fast lens and the image size and quality I see in my D200. Preferably without the twangy shutter release of the R-D1 🙂
I want one that does film as well, and just as small!

And while we're at it, I want the tri-summicron, an F2 lens that is 28mm, 35mm and 50mm. Though I'd be happy with a bi-summicron that is F2 with a 28mm and 50mm focal length.

 

[darkkavenger]

ah I didn't get it first.. well, the perfect body would be a prewar contax-II with kevlar ribbons and a full frame large RF window with framelines. I'm not sure about having a winder instead of a knob, i'd add a TTL system and a faster rewind system. 🙂

 

[Stephanie Brim]

I want an M3. Funny how my dream camera has already been made.

 

[umana]

A crazy idea from Luigi, Roma...

A crazy idea from Luigi, Roma...

My ideal camera, and this is a serious suggestion to any camera makers, is to create a RF camera, better if a Leica (but a new R-D2 would be OK too), able to take (capture) a picture on the film, and also, in the meantime, throught a digital sensor, on a memory card. Why we photographers must to renonce to one of the two existing systems, both terrific ? I am already doing that... with TWO cameras !
I am almost sure that the actual know-how would allow this technical solution, and if size, weight and price would be reasonable, it could be a succes !
Ciao to all, Luigi

 

[aizan]

something like this.

 

[ClaremontPhoto]

I'll vote for the carbon fiber, unpainted but treated against the UV light that destroys carbon fiber.

I want to see the weave.

McLaren F1 has figured how to do this with their racing cars now, and then promptly bright chome-plated this years carbon fiber cars.

And I want a transparent bit where I can see something, like the film transport, moving inside.

 

[yossarian]

My ideal camera, and this is a serious suggestion to any camera makers, is to create a RF camera, better if a Leica (but a new R-D2 would be OK too), able to take (capture) a picture on the film, and also, in the meantime, throught a digital sensor, on a memory card. Why we photographers must to renonce to one of the two existing systems, both terrific ? I am already doing that... with TWO cameras !
I am almost sure that the actual know-how would allow this technical solution, and if size, weight and price would be reasonable, it could be a succes !
Ciao to all, Luigi

LUIGI!! The man has checked in. Everybody here LOVES yours cases, straps--it's
all good. And now you've designed a camera for all of us...

Fred Morrison

 

[amateriat]

Here's the body I would "design": 🙂

- Hexar RF titanium body and shutter (to 1/4000), preferably self-adjusting like the Nikon F5/F6. Hexar RF's rubberized body covering.
- Leica M3's smooth gearing, film advance (no autowinder), and shutter lag.
- Interchangeable VF (ala Canon VI-L): M2's 0.72x 35mm framelines, M3's 50mm framelines (but 1x), 1.5x for 90mm.
- manual and AE mode like M7 or Hexar, but also with smart P mode of the Hexar AF.
- meter: spot, matrix (for P and AE modes)
- Hexar AF flashmatic system
- Manual focus, M mount, in black paint.
- No CLA or RF adjustment needed, ever.

Actually, the Hexar RF with all the goodies Konica originally had on the drawing board would just about do it for me.

The features that didn't make the cut (courtesy of Dante Stella):

— Integral date projector (a la Canodate E) for imprinting the date on the film;

— Error controller to make some type of correction when no x-synch signal is sent by the shutter. It may well be the case, reading on, that this is the failed shutter error code on the top LCD

— Variable metering pattern (spot to full-frame) with in-viewfinder indication

Add to this TTL flash (not that I've had much trouble without it, but it would be nice), and a Hexar RF-style "silencer", and, for me, it's the Ferdinand Porsche definition of "perfection" in a camera ("There is no such thing as the perfect car. There is only the perfect car for now").


- Barrett

 

[yossarian]

HAMMERTONE.....oooh yeah--I'm in. Wish I could afford to send my CL to Japan to have that done.