The best camera you never liked?

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

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

Angelo
 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
mfogiel said:
...Olympus Pen F - I just could not stand the terrible winding mechanism and horrible shutter vibration....
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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. :)
 
mfogiel said:
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.
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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.
 
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. :D

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.
 
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.
 
cosmonaut said:
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.
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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.
 
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