Friends

[BillBingham2]

While I've loved all my digital, none have the same feel to me as my film stuff. I still have my two first serious cameras (at least they were to me) my Konica III and Nikkormat FTn. I still have my fathers Retina IIc (it took the first pictures of me) and a Leica IIIc with a 35mm (the lens was liberated during WWII from a post office in Germany). Not sure I'll ever have the time I want to use them.

My Nikkormat is still part of my right hand, I need to find someone to fix her before they all disappear. Too many great times to ever let her go, same with the Konica. I sold a lot of my other stuff several years back when finances were really hard. While I miss my Nikon S2, it felt wonderful, not enough history to avoid the need for cash. I loved my 200/3 Vivitar Series 1, she moved on to someone else, my 85/1.8 and 24/2.8 nikkors stayed.

B2

 

[JeffS7444]

I do very much like the idea that time and the effects of wear and tear can add richness to ordinary objects. Here are a few examples of my efforts at kintsugi-style repairs. Previously, they were simply broken items to be used as parts donors or discarded. These are the sort of items which I'm more inclined to hang onto.

 

[PaulDalex]

I feel exactly in the same way as Bill and many others in this post has expressed so well.
I have had too many film cameras to bother to count.
Some of them I have sold by necessity.
Others I bought new and are still with me, but very sadly are not perfectly operative, especially for fading LCD displays in the viewfinder. This is the case of my Maxxum 9 and my RTSIII
So what I am doing, since the advent of digital has slashed the price, is to buy almost all cameras I have had. Not all of them, for various reasons: for example some of them are impossible to find in good conditions. An example is the Minolta 9000.
My initial goal is to buy all cameras I have had, from 1953, the year of my first camera a Bencini Comet II, to 1968, the year in which I finally got my black plain prim Nikon F.
This I ironically call my main sequence.
I am at minus 1
I will come back to this when I finish the main sequence.
I guess many of the fellow RFFer, like me, started with a cheap camera and over the year conquered their first professional camera.

 

[Archiver]

The only cameras I really can't sell or give away are those which come to me from relatives.
They are mostly film, with only one digital, which I choose wisely, at least for me. No interest to sell my working M-E 220.

A few years ago, I was going through some old paperwork and came across a warranty card for a Minolta Hi-Matic 7s. As I had never seen this camera at home, I asked my mother where this came from, and she said that Dad's father had given it to him, but at some stage he gave it to someone else! She wasn't too happy about it then, as it was a nice camera. And his father gave it to him! When she told me, I wasn't too happy either, as I would love to play with a Hi-Matic, haha. I do, however, have his Pentax ME, Minolta SR-T Super and Nikon L35AF D, so I'm certainly pleased with that.

 

[Archiver]

So what I am doing, since the advent of digital has slashed the price, is to buy almost all cameras I have had. Not all of them, for various reasons: for example some of them are impossible to find in good conditions. An example is the Minolta 9000.
My initial goal is to buy all cameras I have had, from 1953, the year of my first camera a Bencini Comet II, to 1968, the year in which I finally got my black plain prim Nikon F.
This I ironically call my main sequence.
I am at minus 1
I will come back to this when I finish the main sequence.
I guess many of the fellow RFFer, like me, started with a cheap camera and over the year conquered their first professional camera.

This is pretty darn cool. Recreating your history in cameras in a full collection. Will you display them in a bookshelf or similar, in chronological order?

 

[Bill Blackwell]

I like cameras. ... They are my coworkers, my friends. We've had adventures together. ... But still I want more technically proficient friends, coworkers with more megapixels and improved auto focus - but not at the price of selling out friends who shared adventures and explored new worlds. ...

Do you think old friends would be happy sitting on the shelves of a camera store even if it was the same shelves they spent time on before we met? ... What would you do? Your thoughts?

I've been avoiding responding to this post, but I have to say - with all due respect - this sounds like the classic definition of idolatry. If I felt that strongly about an inanimate object, I don't think I could get rid of it fast enough.

 

[CMur12]

I've been avoiding responding to this post, but I have to say - with all due respect - this sounds like the classic definition of idolatry. If I felt that strongly about an inanimate object, I don't think I could get rid of it fast enough.

Bill, idolatry requires worship.

Having a simple affection for an object - which one could argue is misplaced - does not constitute worship.

- Murray

 

[ptpdprinter]

I've been avoiding responding to this post, but I have to say - with all due respect - this sounds like the classic definition of idolatry. If I felt that strongly about an inanimate object, I don't think I could get rid of it fast enough.

I am willing to give Bill the benefit of the doubt that he is describing a sentimental attachment to his cameras rather than engaging in idolatry. If we hear that he is sacrificing virgins on their altar we can arrange an intervention.

 

[Timmyjoe]

There are certain cameras that I am very attached to for sentimental reasons, as you mention Bill, the adventures we've been on together. I have thinned the herd a few times in the last five years, and am always on the lookout for a camera that will fit my current shooting situation, but trying not to do that at the expense of my current "friends".

Best,
-Tim

 

[Bill Blackwell]

I am willing to give Bill the benefit of the doubt that he is describing a sentimental attachment to his cameras. ...

... idolatry requires worship. ...

Right. The word worship is to ascribe "worth" - or an immoderate attachment or devotion to something. This is precisely what the OP is describing.

 

[rhl-oregon]

Two years ago I traded a lot of gear to a West Coast dealer--some sentimental, much film-based, all of it good--for an M10 Monochrom, which operated and created images exactly as I wanted it to. There was enough let-over credit to add a little black X100F for a lighter carry.

A good deal of gear remained--sentimental, some film-based, some redundant (like the overlap between X100, RX1, GRIII). During these late stages of the pandemic I've been reducing excess stuff and, as with the M10M, narrowing my habitual reliance to those relatively few tools that work the best for me.

So earlier today--two years almost to the day--I sent another list of gear to the same dealer. I'm hoping again to convert a number of things with stellar service in the past, and/or sentimental shelf lives, into one or two pieces of gear to serve me weekly and daily for the years that remain.

The important remainders, in any case, of the gear that is gone are the best images I made with them. I know which ones they are, and that matters more than the little machines themselves.

 

[jsrockit]

If I felt that strongly about an inanimate object, I don't think I could get rid of it fast enough.

Haha...

https://www.buzzfeed.com/natgeo/10-people-in-love-with-inanimate-objects-5n1c

 

[farlymac]

I can understand having an emotional attachment to something, there are plenty of items around here that qualify under that circumstance. Yet, when I've crossed the bar, no one is going to give a big whooie about it all. It will just be something that they will have to sell off to 1) clear out the place so it can be reoccupied by another renter, and 2) pay off my remaining expenses. They won't understand why I bought old advertisements of cameras I own, or why there is only one of any item, instead of say a whole bunch of non-AI 50mm f2 Nikkors. I've got exactly five Nikkormats only because they came in six versions (one has eluded me so far, a decent EL2). And I've given up on getting that EL2, because in the long run, it doesn't matter to anyone but me, and I'm not really keen on adding to the menagerie with another shelf queen.

Some time back I had to sell off all but three cameras: my favorite rangefinder at the time; my father's Argus CC; and a Nikon N90 outfit that was my newest camera at the time, and I didn't want to give up what I had spent so much time and resources on to put together. Also I would need it to rekindle any wisp of an urge to dive back into photography seriously.

So I started out again by buying cameras that were of different formats so I'd have examples of each one to use whenever the need arose. Then I decided to recreate my very first SLR kit, which was the Sears and Roebuck version of the Ricoh Singlex. It's what I taught myself on of some of the finer points of photography. I took a bunch of photos with it during a trip back home for my 40th high school reunion (my last year of HS happened to be the period when I had the original kit), and realized that all the faults I had blamed on the gear during those early days was really my lack of experience and knowledge. I still have that reconstructed kit, not so much for sentimental reasons, but to remind myself of how far I've come along the way. As for all the other items I've collected over the years, well it's time for me to sell them off before they just get chucked into a dumpster, or hauled down to Goodwill.

They may mean something to me, but as things go, one persons treasure is another persons pile of crap. I don't want folks going through my stuff going "Why in the world did he have all this?".

PF

As an example: My Leidolf kit that started with the gift of the C-35 from Kuuvy, and which now resides in the Camera Heritage Museum in Staunton, VA.

Lordomat Grouping by P F McFarland, on Flickr

Better for others to get some enjoyment looking at it than gathering cobwebs around here.

 

[willie_901]

Bill,

If you have the physical space to display the cameras and don't mind dusting them off every so often, then I don't see the problem with keeping them.

However another option is to donate them to schools and, or photography organizations with vibrant, effective educational programs. Here in Charlotte, NC the THE LIGHT FACTORY PHOTO ARTS CENTER offers film and digital programs in a summer camps and engages with local schools to encourage youth interested in photography. In some cases you could even gift a camera to an older student who could not afford to purchase a proper Digital or film camera. In any case donation would require some one and effort to maximize the odds your cameras end up making a difference in someone's life. I bet you have collegues and other contacts who can help out.

Putting your friends back in a position to make new friends could be the best solution.

 

[PaulDalex]

Hi Archiver,
thank you so much!
Incredibly you read into my thoughts. So I will share my little dream and plan.
I would like to stage a sort of photographic stairway to heaven where at the top level the Nikon F will reign. Each camera will have his date and model posted to its side.
I hope I will realize this dream. For technical reason it will take some time.
If I succeed, you bet I will post the photos of my "stairway to heaven" here at the rangefinder forum right away!

 

[Bill Pierce]

willie 901, donate them to schools and, or photography organizations,,,
Putting your friends back in a position to make new friends could be the best solution.

In fact, that's exactly what I have done with a modest amount of camera and darkroom gear. The Bronx Documentary Center under Mike Kamber, an exceptional news photographer (14 wars under his belt) works with young folks (several of which have now had work published in the New York Times), has a 100% record of getting a student group into college, has speakers and panel presentations from rather well known photographers, excellent gallery exhibitions and is expanding its programs for older folks - all in a neighborhood where there is not a lot of money and at times can be a little rough. Here is its website https://www.bronxdoc.org.

 

[Exploring RF]

[QUOTE willie 901, donate them to schools and, or photography organizations,,,
Putting your friends back in a position to make new friends could be the best solution.

In fact, that's exactly what I have done with a modest amount of camera and darkroom gear. The Bronx Documentary Center under Mike Kamber, an exceptional news photographer (14 wars under his belt) works with young folks (several of which have now had work published in the New York Times), has a 100% record of getting a student group into college, has speakers and panel presentations from rather well known photographers, excellent gallery exhibitions and is expanding its programs for older folks - all in a neighborhood where there is not a lot of money and at times can be a little rough. Here is its website https://www.bronxdoc.org.

Just visited the Bronx Documentary Center while visiting NYC last weekend. Awesome place, very friendly and welcoming. Excellent January 6th Exhibit there now. If family doesn't want my gear in the final days, BDC will be on my list of beneficiaries.

 

[jsrockit]

Way more important than any cameras I might have to donate, I will concentrate on my photobook library and where I can donate that. Well, after I sell some of the valuable ones to partially fund my retirement. Unless they become something nobody cares about anymore.

 

[Bill Pierce]

Way more important than any cameras I might have to donate, I will concentrate on my photobook library and where I can donate that. Well, after I sell some of the valuable ones to partially fund my retirement. Unless they become something nobody cares about anymore.

You may well know this already, but the Bronx Documentary Center also has a library. (During the pandemic it has only been open by appointment.) After Tim Hetherington was killed in Libya, his parents donated his library to the center and other photographers have added to it. Books can find many worthwhile homes. Mine will certainly head for the BDC.

 

[Pál_K]

I feel sympathies to the animists who believe that every object has a kind of soul or spirit. […] So my cameras are friends and family, especially if they have been with me through significant events or travels. And no, they wouldn't be happy on the shelf of a shop because I treat them better than anyone except for a collector. …

For over 40 years I’ve had the belief that either everything is alive or nothing is. Just various levels of life. Best for me to leave it at that.

I agree completely with you on the significance and value you place on cameras that have been a part of your life experiences and very few people would care for them as well as you.