Low End/Bottom dwelling models: your favorites?

shadowfox said:
8240644566_9d3576b791_z.jpg


That's a bottom-feeder used in a bottom-feeding way 🙂
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But still appealing for some reason. 🙂
 
Praktica FX3, which was my first 35mm SLR. Taught me an awful lot about the basics of exposure and made every mistake you could make, often more than once

That was replaced by a Minolta SRT100, which I still own (I replaced the original, which was completely trashed).
I often like to take out the SRT100, it's my old friend.
 
I notice we're creeping further and further up the food chain here. Some of the cameras being mentioned were hardly bottom-of-the-range cheapies when first released.

...Mike
 
http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134812

http://www.rangefinderforum.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134812

i am devastated!
The majority have mentioned most of my collection..
some were free or very cheap. Like Starbucks coffee cheap.

One lost is the Nikon EM. Used one to do a portrait of a famous photographer, for a magazine cover. The lens, an early Soligor 28mm Pre-set...Subject was not impressed, with my equipment.
Result was a stunner! Almost no light, pushed development..

Canon Ae-1P, AV-1, Pentax MV, Fujica 605, Chinon Cm-5.
The only camera still not used a Practika SLR.

Love these poor guys!
 
mfunnell said:
I notice we're creeping further and further up the food chain here. Some of the cameras being mentioned were hardly bottom-of-the-range cheapies when first released.

...Mike
Click to expand...

I don't think anyone has mentioned any cameras which were really bottom end. I think the spirit of the thread has been paying bottom end prices for excellent quality gear.
The Pentax Spotmatic was not a cheap camera when it came out but was one of the first bodies mentioned here. Same with the H1v and the Fujicas and the mid-range Nikon and Canon film bodies. Bottom end is a disposable and some of them provide excellent results.

Phil Forrest
 
one of my favorite cameras at the moment is the Fujica ST-605. full mechanical, manual, metallic body, compact and cheap slr. the lightmeter works with modern batteries and it his an excellent viewfinder in the range of m42-cameras.

another one i like is the Canon AT-1. i also have the a-1 and av-1. but the simple at-1 i love the most.

that's an nice quality of earlier budget models anyway. at the beginning of the age of automations the low-end models had often the same body, just missing the automatics. not a bad thing anyway.
later the low-end also had automatics but now missing the manual mode of the "pro"-cameras.
 
tunalegs said:
I don't really know that I like the Praktica Nova. But they were really cheap when new, and they look pretty cool. The viewfinder is very bright (brighter than later Prakticas - somehow) and it's a simple camera, but it just feels cheap. Compared to the Edixa which is smooth as butter, the Praktica feels rough and unrefined.
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I've opened up both of these at seperate times, and having seen their insides this statement is somewhat surprising. The Edixa is built... Well, actually, like a tractor. There's an article floating about on the web that states that this was the norm for the Wirgin Kamerawerk. This while the Praktica Nova is within tolerances of being built like a camera.

On the other hand, I've also handled these cameras in a more normal setting and I do know what you mean. It's just odd that their respective build quality seems to point in the other direction.

Favourite low-end camera? I have a very nice Praktica L that I bought for €1,- with case and Pentacon 50/1.8. I have a weird soft spot for these 😎 Also, a Zenit 3M is a very nice, very basic SLR of wonderfully simple design inside and out.

Cheers,
Derk
 
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I love my Nikon FG-20, it's light, it works in aperture priority, it makes fabulous pictures with good lenses. And it has deeper meaning to me due to it's heritage 🙂 Being the second camera I have owned after Olympus 35RC.

And I've always preferred it to the newer film bodies (I've used Nikon F70 too). It's simple, just works and also has manual shutter time for times when battery dies.
 
Santtu Määttänen said:
... It's simple, just works and also has manual shutter time for times when battery dies.
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1/45th of a second. I can't tell you how many times I've used that! Not because the batteries died, but because it locks in 1/45 until you reach frame 1. So all my 00 and 0 frames on the FGs I've owned (I'm on my third) are at 1/45th of a second.
 
I've never experienced that my self, then again I generally don't start shooting before frame 1. Yes I know I waste some film there, but for some reason it seems to be making sense 🙂
 
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