The Camera Of My Dreams-

[sf]

I am interested to hear what people out there would love to have. If you had no financial limits, and could have ANY camera/lens combination, what would it be? And, to make it more interesting, where on Earth would you most like to be with it, and in what time in human history (what century, what era, etc).



In my case, I would say I'd most likely choose to be there to see it happen, like maybe waiting on the shores of the Eastern USA for the Spanish captain, Columbus, with a Fuji G617II, a tripod, a roll of Velvia 100f, and a roll of Provia 400f. Just get that beautiful panoramic of the row boats arriving on the sand. (assuming the big ships would anchor far off-shore).

Or get a superwide shot of the native people of the plains hunting buffalo. In black and white, of course.

I suppose, for history's sake, I could say D2X, a couple spare batteries, and a couple 4 gig CF cards to cover something like the Boston Tea Party - but, that would NOT be a rangefinder.

Or an my own birth, or the birthdays of my parents. That would be weird.

 

[Stephanie Brim]

My dream camera....that's hard. Probably a custom MP or an M3 with a complete set of nice Summicron lenses: the 35, the 50, and the 90. I'd want tons of good black and white film available for use, probably mostly Ilford Delta in the various speeds and also some Pan F. I'd want to go back in time to photograph the peoples of Egypt 4,000 years ago so that I could finally understand completely the rituals and the religion. I'd also love to be in the field in Roswell the day that the 'weather balloon' fell from the sky to document what really happened.

 

[ErnestoJL]

Mine is a simple choice. At 15 y.o. I had for some minutes a Contax IIIa with Sonnar 50/1.5 in my hands. After falling in love with it, I decided to have one. After 37 years I´m still pursuing one of those beauties (even being owner of a Kiev 4 with J8 50/2) (my Contax is next to arrive!) with such a big glass. Meanwhile I got an excellent camera, a Mamiya Super Deluxe with 48/1.5 which is perhaps better in some ways than the Contax. Then my camera of choice is either the Contax or the Mamiya, both with normal lens; the time, today. And of course a bag with hundreds of HP5 36 exp. rolls in it!

 

[pvdhaar]

The camera of my dreams? That would be the Konica Hexar AF.. literally. It's the only one existing camera I've ever had a dream about. It was years ago, but I can still recall that it was about somebody trying to buy it from me against my will. Very unsettling.

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

I would simply show up at the wedding of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith with my Argus C-44 a full set of the Steinheil Cintagon lenses and hope to God that Powhattan didn't kick my a$$ for using a flash.

😉

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Oh, and a bunch of Kodachrome 25 to top it all off 😉

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Because I will have had a TARDIS on hand to find the film

 

[Stephan]

A Hasselblad H1D with all the possible lenses, a few extra batteries, a couple dozen 4Gb faast memory cards, and to be asked to document my travels wherever I wish to go (nowadays... 😛 )

 

[aizan]

that's strange. i had a dream about the hexar af last week! it was my dad's camera and i was apparantly impressed by his good taste.

for the most part, my dream camera would be a digilux 2 with a brightline zoom viewfinder; plenty of other important details, too.

 

[varjag]

A custom MP with a pre-asph 35/1.4. My current location and epoch would do.

 

[Pherdinand]

I think i'd go for the mamiya M7II...three lenses...
Where in spacetime? now that's more difficult. You mean just an excursion right, not like living there forever? No, i have to think.
But one of the first chices would be: Time: Nowadays, Place: No matter where, if it's in a bubblebath with Milla Jovovich 😀😀

 

[RObert Budding]

Any decent M body will do, along with all of the new Zeiss Ikon lenses.

Robert

 

[johne]

Fedziilla_Bob
For what it is worth, Pocahontas married John Rolf, was presented to the Royal Court in London, died and is in buried in Plymouth, UK
Johne

 

[Sonnar Brian]

As I understand it, Pocahontas basically "adopted" John Smith, embraced him as her son in order that he not be harmed. I guess he could not marry her after that!

 

[titrisol]

Pentax 645 with 75/2.8, a 55 and a 200 mm.

in RFs a leica M3 with a few old non-coated lenses or a Contax IIa

 

[Fedzilla_Bob]

Fedziilla_Bob
For what it is worth, Pocahontas married John Rolf, was presented to the Royal Court in London, died and is in buried in Plymouth, UK
Johne

Its worth a lot- I stand corrected 🙂

 

[jlw]

I'd also love to be in the field in Roswell the day that the 'weather balloon' fell from the sky to document what really happened.

It wasn't a weather balloon. It was a "balloon train" launched as part of Project Mogul, a secret effort to detect Soviet nuclear-bomb tests via high-altitude sensors suspended at specific temperature bands in the atmosphere. Because knowledge the technology would have led the Soviets to implement countermeasures, the Air Force had to lie about it and classify all the materials. The stuff stayed secret even after Project Mogul, because the same temperature-band technology was being used to track Soviet submarines in the ocean, and the US didn't want to tip off the Soviets about this.

Later the Roswell group worked on other classified high-altitude research projects, such as one to develop pilot escape systems for U-2 spy planes: these tests used a small, gray, human-featured crash test dummy made by the Sierra Mfg Co. and dubbed "Sierra Sam," sightings of whom were responsible for the stories about small, gray alien "UFO pilots" being held captive at Roswell.

There WERE people there all that time who took pictures of all this stuff, but the AF kept it all "top secret" for years; it's only been within the last couple of years that the time limits have expired and it has begun to come out. A guy named Kal Korff wrote a fairly comprehensive book about it.

A lot of people (and I'm sure we'll hear from some of them!) just flat don't want to believe it, though, so I wish you HAD been there to take pictures and could publish them now!

 

[rbiemer]

I think i'd go for the mamiya M7II...three lenses...
Where in spacetime? now that's more difficult. You mean just an excursion right, not like living there forever? No, i have to think.
But one of the first chices would be: Time: Nowadays, Place: No matter where, if it's in a bubblebath with Milla Jovovich 😀😀

Nikonos or Siluro cameras then? Or is there an underwater housing for the Mamiya? 😀
I have a different camera in mind but I agree that the gear choice is the easier part of this question.
In high school, I was a science fiction junkie and wrote(badly) a story about time travel. My premise was after time travel was invented that led to a knid of tourism. Which then changed history. All of the crowds at the Beatles' Berlin shows were time travellers so nobody from that time got to see them and so the band never got their big break and broke up. No british invasion here in the US. And music was changed forever. Hey, I said it was bad. 🙄 That's why I'm a chef and not a writer...
Have to give this some thought.
Rob

 

[Pherdinand]

Nikonos or Siluro cameras then? Or is there an underwater housing for the Mamiya? 😀 Rob

Rob you are naughty...naughtier than myself 😀
I did not think about making underwater shots...i swear i didn't!

 

[berci]

My dream camera is my XPan II and it's in my bag. #:-]