Old Cameras and what they mean to us

[fraley]

A friend at work brought in a Zeiss Ikon Nettar for me to look at. It belonged to his father who was taking pictures with it before my friend was born. It's probably more than 50 years old yet opens smoothly and everything looks good. I showed him how to wind on the roll that was in the camera, taken by his father a long time ago. We'll see if the film can still be developed. I recommended a camera store that will help him pick black and white film, and show him how to load it. It's a way of connecting with someone who has passed on, when you take pictures with the same camera they used years ago...

 

[colyn]

It's a way of connecting with someone who has passed on, when you take pictures with the same camera they used years ago...

I still use the Leica IIIa camera my granddad gave me in 1959. He bought it new in 1938 I believe.
I think of him whenever I use this camera. He passed away in 1977..

 

[ErnestoJL]

My dad´s cameras were lost in a theft some time ago, but if I had them today, they will surely be used for shooting.
I still keep my father in law´s (who passed away in 1989) Zeiss Ikon Bob 510/2 which is still in good shape and I´m restoring a Voigtländer Virtus which belonged to a friend´s father, who´s gone in 1977.
I think both cameras have a lot to do yet.

Ernesto

 

[jan normandale]

I've got a couple of older cameras, Ikonta's , Perkeo's, Argus C3 etc. I always wonder what these camera shot before they came into my hands. Who had them and if they really got used, or sat on shelves.

I like to think these cameras are excited to be used again and do their best for me; I love 'em for that!

 

[Jocko]

I've got a couple of older cameras, Ikonta's , Perkeo's, Argus C3 etc. I always wonder what these camera shot before they came into my hands. Who had them and if they really got used, or sat on shelves.

I like to think these cameras are excited to be used again and do their best for me; I love 'em for that!

Beautifully put, Jan! When I use one of my older FEDs I inevitably find myself imagining the world which that camera saw and of those who used and made it. They had certainly lived through appalling, astonishing times. Those little cameras would have recorded the mending of broken lives, hope joy, beauty and love. They were an act of faith, which we have the honour to maintain.

In the same way I always feel rather sad when I see a dirty little instamatic in a junk-shop bin, because one summer holiday, 30-plus years ago...

Cameras are for life! Use them!

Cheers, Ian

 

[Dracotype]

Its so wonderful to hear all these great stories of cameras that have their own histories that will contiue with great people to use them...

I now have an old (and I mean old 😀) Poco Long Focus model that was used by my grandfather. Not a rangefinder, but it still works okay. One of these days, I am going to sit down a use that camera. Its so beautiful that I would love working with it for just that reason. Thats how it is with lots of old cameras. They exude charachter and I love cameras like that.

Drew

 

[wlewisiii]

I've got a couple of older cameras, Ikonta's , Perkeo's, Argus C3 etc. I always wonder what these camera shot before they came into my hands. Who had them and if they really got used, or sat on shelves.

I like to think these cameras are excited to be used again and do their best for me; I love 'em for that!

Jan,

That's a glorious way to put it. I wonder, sometimes, what my Speed Graphic has seen. I've got an Anniversary model from 1943 & since Cameraosity tells me the Ektar is from the same year along with the 5" Hugo Meyer (non-adjustable) rangefinder I tend to wonder if the bits of this old gal may well be what came out of the factory 63 years ago. Where has it been? Did it capture some important bit of history? Or, in someways better, did it work for some small town newspaper? I'll never know beyond what little that SN says - that this blacked out camera came out in the middle of The War with a lens and RF that match what I have today.

I only hope that I can do right by it in the meantime and that, someday, my son will shoot it as well.

William

 

[nico]

I still use my dad's Voigtlander Vitoret. I think he used that camera for shooting all the family photos for more than 25 years. I just hope to do the same with it and my bessaR in the next years...
bye
Nico

 

[Diomedes]

I still use very extensively couple of cameras and lenses from my grandfather and father.

My first rangefinder camera is Zorki-S. It was bought by my grandfather in 1957. He spent half of his monthly salary for that camera. He bought it from one Russian volley-ball player during the tournament. This good, old Zorki is guilty for 50% of all old family photos. One of the family legends says that my future father during summer vacation with my future mother have dropped this camera in the Adriatic sea on some deserted island somewhere in the Zadar’s archipelago. Normally, the camera has been loaded with fully exposed Ilford. Can I say that the photos from that summer are still proudly staying in family album!? Try it with your digital 😀 !

The second camera is the SLR Exakta RTL1000. It was bought brand new in 1971 by my grandfather with set of three lenses: Meyer Gorlitz Orestegon 29/2.8, Oreston 50/1.8 and Orestor 100/2.8. It was very expensive camera. My grandfather paid something like 700$ for the whole set. It’s the last Exakta and ancestor to the whole Praktica L SLR line. It reminds me to Nikon F from “the East” I will always remember the first moment when I took in my hands that mechanical “tank”.

 

[Dougg]

I inherited my Dad's old Petri 7S, and his Olympus Pen FT, both of which he got in Navy PX stores on various trips to Japan. And the Nikon FG and Tamron zoom I bought for him as a gift. The Nikon didn't survive a bath in salt water, probably on an outing in their sailboat. I've had the other two CLA'd and have found they work well. Now that I have custody of all the family photos, as I go through them I'll likely discover where in the world each camera has been, as my parents traveled widely. Should be fun!

 

[Ash]

I got a large format lens from my grandad a few days ago (which annoying has already had the paint stripped from it because of lighter fluid! ARGH! Don't ask!). He was given it by his wife (my grandma's) boss when she left her job. It is meant to have variable focus, but was jammed, but on a bellows camera it works fine, and the aperture (at the expense of the paintwork) is smooth. He also gave me my first slr, that I treated badly because I was young.

It's not just the camera's though, its also the pictures. My other grandparents, who are very poor, they have amazing photographs of them when they were young or in their adulthood. Everything looked a lot simpler back then, although neither of them had it easy.

I guess my camera's I've bought have a history before me, but are being given their own history with me as well.

 

[KoNickon]

Great stories. I wish I had some of my folks' cameras. My mother received a Leica (IIIa, I think) when she graduated from high school in 1938. My grandparents were doing pretty well, obviously! She took that camera to Europe when she was in the Red Cross, and only traded it ten+ years or so ago for a Pentax SLR. I remember playing with it when I was a kid, and it was beautifully brassed but fully functioning. I wish I had had the money and interest when she unloaded it; I would have bought it from her and continued to use it now!

My folks' first SLR was a Miranda Sensorex. I remember my father deciding to get it (this was 1970, I think) after reading a report on SLRs in Consumer Reports magazine. I would love to see that article now -- I bet the other cameras were things like the SRT 101, Spotmatic, FTb and other worthies. I think my sister still has it, though it doesn't get out much.

 

[rpsawin]

A friend of mine has a M2 with a deep "v" shaped indentation on top. The story behind it was that my friend was doing guerilla photojournalism in Chicago during the 1968 Democratic Convention. He used the M2 to sheild his head from a blow from a bellyclub.

The camera will be around his neck when he is buried. It served him well in this life, so......

Bob