The best camera you never liked?

[Sid836]

Leicas, just because I cannot afford one! 😛

 

[Harry S.]

• Leica M6. Still own it but I find it neither reliable nor conducive to getting good photos. That's my problem though, I cant work fast enough with a fully manual camera.
  
• Olympus XA. Overrated flimsy garbage.

 

[wakarimasen]

Canon T90 - too big and noisy for a manual focus camera
Ricoh 500G - just didn't understand why people liked it
Yashica Electro 35 - cost a lot to get going and then never told me which shutter speed it was going to use
Fuji GS645S - didn't like the 'portrait' format
Olympus OM1 and OM2 - just couldn't get on with the control layout - I guess I'm used to to the 'standard' shutter speed position
Konica Auto S3 - didn't seem anything special to me
Pentax K1000 - gritty in use!
Minolta SRT 101 didn't offer me anything better than I already have

Apologies for offending anyones' favourite camera!

 

[sevo]

Usually, I don't care for rather than dislike a camera. But there have been a few cameras I positively disliked, like the Nikon F3 or Leica M6 TTL. Thinking about the reasons from a distance, it looks as if they all were cameras with some small but jarring ergonomic difference relative to some cameras I knew by heart and which they were supposed to replace (F2/FE and M4-P/M6 in the above cases).

 

[k__43]

My Contax T2, no fun using it but the results are stunning. I'm always thinking about selling it but when I look at the scans I think maybe not.

Also I borrowed a X100 and it produces incredible pictures when it managed to get the focus right. I'm not really fond of the retro design, although I love the control I have with it. Someone should ask Fuji what they dislike about half stops clicks.

 

[erikhaugsby]

D700 ... just can't like it. But I have no intention of selling it and the shutter count is rising!

Irony! 😀

I know that feeling. It's the most competent camera that I've ever used - digital or otherwise - and is as sturdy as a bag of rocks. It's a straightforward SLR, but that's the catch: it's an SLR. 🙄

 

[D.O'K.]

Minox GT. The good lens is no compensation for its uber-fiddly controls and rather cheap-feeling plastic build. I never found the metering very good either--a tendency to overexpose, but not predictably enough to work around.

Regards,
D.

 

[p.giannakis]

Zeiss Ikoflex Ib. I shot a couple of films with it and then I realised that the TLR design is not for me...

 

[Ronny]

All Leicas with Batteries.

 

[angelog]

A Canon EF which has an unchangeable focusing screen which isn't the split image patch. Imagine that!

Angelo

 

[konicaman]

Canon 5d MKII - lousy jpgs, good RAW (but only after A LOT of work), hit'n'miss autofocus.

 

[cosmonaut]

In defense of Nikon a little I have an F4s I like. But it's not menu driven but more buttons and dials.

 

[mfogiel]

The cameras I have never bonded with are:
Leica R4s2, Minolta XD7 - for the ridiculous shutter lag plus Leica R5 for both the shutter lag and small viewfinder.
Olympus Pen F - I just could not stand the terrible winding mechanism and horrible shutter vibration.
Olympus OM1 and OM4 - they just feel in the hand as if they were to fall apart from one moment to the next.
Leica MP - a completely useless camera - should have been made without the internal light meter, and without these ridiculous 75 and 50mm frames stuck together. I bought one on purpose for using the 75mm frame, but in practice the Summilux 75 is unusable on a rf as a lens because of the focus shift, so I use it only for portraits with the C Sonnar, and I curse every time I mix up the framing. I have had the 75mm frame removed from my 0.85x M7, and it has been the best move in my Leica experience.

 

[defconfunk]

The current crop of entry level DSLRs. Set to full auto and they take amazing photos. I honestly feel they are great tools for people who don't want to bother with the technical side of photography. But I really hate holding them in my hands. They feel so flimsy. I'm not a fan of the plastic bodied lenses either (EF-S and DX), which is odd because I have no such problem with the smaller Olympus 4/3 and m43 lenses.

On the film side I was about to write that I've never met an SLR I didn't like, but that isn't true at all - I just forget about them. Again same problem, plastic bodies. "Consumer grade" SLRs from the 90s, whether it be Nikon, Canon, Minolta, whatever, just feel wrong in my hands. Give me a metal body (even the rubber coated OM40) and I'm happy as a pig in mud.

 

[Vics]

Rolleiflex TLR.
I love the IDEA of the Rollei, but I don't seem able to make very good pictures with it. I'll keep trying, though.

 

[Doug]

...Olympus Pen F - I just could not stand the terrible winding mechanism and horrible shutter vibration....

Agreed, and some individual Pens are smoother than others. The problem is the design of the shutter-cocking mechanism. The rotary shutter's rotation is parallel to the axis of the lens. The wind lever rotates a vertical shaft, so there is a right-angle gear in there to handle the transfer of rotation to a horizontal direction. In the Pen cameras this has been a trouble spot, and cause for a rough feel in the wind lever. Crazy TTL metering in the Pen FT but otherwise the Pen SLRs are nifty little cameras. 🙂

 

[cosmonaut]

The cameras I have never bonded with are:
Leica R4s2, Minolta XD7 - for the ridiculous shatter lag plus Leica R5 for both the shutter lag and small viewfinder.
Olympus Pen F - I just could not stand the terrible winding mechanism and horrible shutter vibration.
Olympus OM1 and OM4 - they just feel in the hand as if they were to fall apart from one moment to the next.
Leica MP - a completely useless camera - should have been made without the internal light meter, and without these ridiculous 75 and 50mm frames stuck together. I bought one on purpose for using the 75mm frame, but in practice the Summilux 75 is unusable on a rf as a lens because of the focus shift, so I use it only for portraits with the C Sonnar, and I curse every time I mix up the framing. I have had the 75mm frame removed from my 0.85x M7, and it has been the best move in my Leica experience.

Surprising comments on the MP I have wanted one for years. Early on to expensive and now I don't shoot enough film to justify the cost.

 

[shadowfox]

Leica M3 - With all the hype on its greatness, M3 just felt so ordinary to me. And what's up with the goggles just to use a 35mm lens. 😀

Canon SLR/DSLRs - Can't get used to the controls. Maxxum 9 and 7 are much better in this regard, some Nikon also are better. But I really like Canon LTM rangefinders and FD/FL SLRs.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

Nikon F2 and 8008s. [FONT=&quot]I found the 6006, a less expensive camera than the 8008s, to be much more user-friendly. [/FONT]

Any Leica. I respect them greatly and love the idea of rangefinder shooting, but gave it up after literally 40 years of trying because I could never quite make it work for me. In my heart I’m a globe-trotting, Leica-toting, primes-only, black-and-white-film-shooting photojournalist. But in real life I’m an SLR, zoom lens, color photographer whose work on my best days might slightly resemble Sam Abell’s. Ah, me.

But I am what I am. Might as well deal with it. It isn't the camera's fault.

 

[thegman]

Surprising comments on the MP I have wanted one for years. Early on to expensive and now I don't shoot enough film to justify the cost.

I hankered after a Black Paint MP for a while, and eventually got one at a price I could live with. I found it to be a lovely camera, but preferred my M3 which I had before. Frankly I've found any relatively modern Leica to be a bit 'meh', but the M3, IIIf etc. deserve their reputation.