Ever happen to you?

S

Stu :)

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Just tidying up my bedroom after getting the hard word from the GF about my "standard of living", the rest of the house is tidy but the bedroom resembles, quote: "the aftermath of a twister hitting a book store, camera shop and a toy store".

So whilst moving a pile of proof sheets on the desk I un-covered a 35mm SLR, a Canon EOS 500 with two el'cheapo zooms to be exact. So after shouting "Spawn of Satan" and "I sold you", I checked the value of it (next to nothing) and decided to get a Lensbaby for it and have some fun.

Anyone else find long forgotten camera lying around?

Stu :)
 
what's a lensbaby?

and no, i have never 'found' a camera, long forgotten - i did however find 51 unprocessed rolls of film last nite while cleaning up my darkroom.

joe
 
I was rooting through a cupboard the other day where I store my Rollei TLR and bits and pieces, and came across a leather case at the back and wondered what was in it.

It was a 1929 Voigtlander folder (pre-rangefinder) that I picked up really cheap on eBay about two years ago. The bellows are light tight and the exposures were close on the test rolls I shot. I just forgot I had it ... :rolleyes:

Time to take it for a spin and get back into those lovely 6x9 negs ...

Gene
 
IIRC, Joe, a lens baby is a gizmo you attach to the front of the lens to get strange images. Imagine it like this: rigid bellows at the end of your lens. You can move the contraption as if it were some kind of alien eye, and you get shots of things without aiming the lens at them.

At least, that's what I remember it being. A toy, for sure; it helps making funky shots.

And... no, I have too few cameras. And at least once a month I get them out and play with them for their shutter's sake. :)
 
One of the guys in our tiny local photo club was using one on the last club "street walk" outing. Appeared to be frustrating to use, as simultaneously you need to push/pull for focus, and bend it this way and that for other effects. And I think it's a simple 1-element meniscus lens; unsophisticated optics and no diaphragm control. But the oddball results might be worth it!
 
It occurred to me I had a snap of him using the Lens Baby... this is cropped quite a bit
 
Last night I found some old M42 lenses, my grandad's Practika MTL 5B, and the m42-LTM adapter I bought about a year ago! Now I have a 30/3.5, another 50 (f1.8 this time), and a 135/3.5.

I'm wondering what to do with it all. I shot the Practika and it's clunky! I can use the 30/3.5 with some prefocusing but it's huge, much larger than the CV 25/4. The 50/1.8 is huge as well. I guess I now remember why I put the whole lot in a drawer last year. :)

Perhaps I would have been better off if I hadn't found this set. Now I wasted an entire evening tinkering and doing. :)
 
The Lens Baby is VERY popular with both students and teaching staff here at my university.
Doug is right, they are a b*tch to operate. However...

I've been tweaking the design, so you do get a diaphragm control for your f-stops and a way of fixing the lens in place. I guess that paper I did last year on industrial design theory might pay off.

Stu :)
 
I have a drawer in my workbench for lost cause cameras that I keep for parts, etc. Was going through it on Friday looking to scavenge a battery cap from an Olympus DC and I found a Olympus SP I had bought at a flea market near Yale for literally nothing few years ago.

It was one of those things that I would think of periodically, look for occasionally and then figure that I had either lost it or gotten rid of.

It's a very pleasant surprise. It's filthy inside and out, but it is in decent shape - to my ear, the shutter speeds are in the ball park and the meter is alive. With a little time and some donated bits and pieces, I might wind up with something.

In the same scavenger hunt, I also found an old QL17 (not GIII) that is absolutely good and dead and of no use to me. If anyone needs a parts camera of that sort, it's yours for the $3 it will take to mail it to you.
 
Hehe...

I found my first camera a few months ago, it still appears to be in complete working order (It is an oval Kodak Brownie 127 from the late 50s... I believe it's a European model.)

See here
Nothing really to go wrong!
F11 lens and 1 shutter speed, and er, that's about it feature wise. :)

So if anyone finds an old SLR they don't want I'll give it a good home...

-Nick
 
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I find all kinds of old goodies/doo dads/ lenses and adapters every time I start to root through my horde. Several times I've caught myself bidding on cameras on E**y only to realise I already had that model in a drawer or on a shelf right beside my computer. The peril of having too many cameras and not enough storage area. ( I have 85 SLR's, 223 lenses, 141 RF's etc. for a total of over 600 cameras. Too many to exercise properly so time to quit buying and catch up with using them) No more bidding, no more bidding,.....
 
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