The oddest/quirkiest/most unusual camera you have ever used...

Cool hammertone paint, looks similar to a 1950s era Bell & Howell that my father used. Also, I am kinda surprised that no one in this thread has mentioned the Argus C3, a.k.a., the brick. I actually used my father's brick at Christmas to take retro style pics of Christmas decorations in my neighborhood.
 
Twilight Zone moment - I picked up a roll of pics from my Brick this afternoon!

Very, very rare in the UK - I've seen 4, and one of them is mine.
 
I was surprised how sharp the Argus 50/3.5 Cintar was wide open, but even better at f5.6 and smaller apertures
 
A Wolcott Mirror Camera. Some time ago I bought a half dozen 5” spherical first surface mirrors with a focal length of 7”. The camera body was Mahogany, with a trap door to view a White focusing plate or tgesensitized plate, which stood on a post at the focal point. Exposure was by largecap at the open end.
 
Nikon D300 (current leave at work camera)- or indeed any camera where the designer thought it was a good idea to adjust apertures and shutter speed via buttons, thumbwheels and an LCD screen rather than properly via a ring on the lens and a dial camera top right. I can never remember which button to press and wheel to turn, and when I’ve found it, I always go the wrong way first time. And why is the self-timer on another fiddly dial where the rewind crank should be, along with half-a-dozen other options which I can’t read without finding my specs which I put down God only knows where to look through the viewfinder. What’s wrong with a clockwork escapement on the front of the camera. I could go on, and on, and on….
 
My Kodak brownie, box , no viewfinder, no aperture, or shutter speed to fit tile with. A small read hole in the back showing what frame you were on. The early version of a point & shoot. I was six or seven when I first used it.
 
My new "Reality So Subtle" pinhole camera. Lots of quirkiness and a steep learning curve. And the name is frosting-on-the-cake for quirky fans; it's from a quote from Mr. Stieglitz himself. Quirky dude if there ever was one.
 
Hoo! Many interesting, informative, amusing threads here.

As the (new) owner of a 1954 Leica iif, after having taken it out for its test run and putting two rolls of Ilford B&W film through it, I can happily add it to my list of quirkiest cameras - a reviewer on another web site described the Leica LTM as looking "...like the superstructure of a 1900 Dreadnought battleship" which, I think, sums it up well.

My iif was a one owner camera and came to me after several decades of sitting patiently in its leather case on a shelf. It fired up well after a run-through of the speeds and the Summitar (with pristine glass) was a bit stiff at first, but has now loosened up nicely. In all, this iif still works wonderfully well, tho, in fact almost as new, and the Summitar 50/2.0 lens I got with it has produced some amazingly sharp images. So I'm a happy quirk-user...

What is even better, an elderly neighbor who was once into Leicas noticed me snapping away at local landscapes and produced a collapsible Summicron 50/2.0, which he kindly gave me. This 'cron is a little hazy and will be dismantled and cleaned next month, but hey, not a problem - it's win-win for me, quirks and all.
 
It would have to be my Seitz Roundshot panoramic camera. The camera rotated and exposed a thin vertical stripe on a roll of film and as the camera rotated the film moved in the opposite direction giving a long strip negative. I did many 360 degree full panoramas for annual reports and did a series of golf courses for 24’ prints.
 
Dralowid said:
I win! I win! ...oh, did you say 'used'? I've only gazed at in admiration or perhaps incredulity...

IMG_3824 by dralowid, on Flickr
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That’s pretty nice - who makes it? The controls seem to be a wee bit more than you’d find on a simple ciné camera - besides the spring-wind, footage counter, and open/close, it looks like you may have frame rate and continuous/single frame controls. Nice lenses!
 
KW Patent Etui is the quirkiest camera I have. I found it in Prague in the 90s. The dude at the shop looked at me quizzically when I told him I wanted to buy it. "Das ist fur eine dame" he said to me (or something like that). Such a bizarro little camera. The bellows draw on it will boggle your mind. It also has a wire finder, a waist level finder, a bubble level and the front has a generous amount of rise. Crazy for such a tiny camera. It is barely larger than a Kodak Retina and actually thinner but is a 6x9 camera! One of these days I'll actually use it. I've only had it for 26 years....
 
Quirkiest I've used is probably my Nikon 995. Digital was new to me when I bought it. Thankfully I could use it in 'AUTO' mode and it provided great pictures. They were so great, I never used it in 'MANUAL' mode as it was too much trouble and the buttons were so small they were hard to press one at a time. It would be interesting to see how many shots I made with it, but I don't have a battery that works or a CF card it'll read now.
I took this camera everywhere with me, and people soon found that if I didn't have it with me there was something wrong.
Coolpix 995.JPG
I give this camera full credit for getting me where I am today with my photographic journey.
 
Mr_Flibble said:
Kodak Graphic No.0

Had to make my own spools and everything.


Graphic0-09.jpg
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I would be afraid that if I pushed the little plunger, the camera would explode!
 
Weirdest camera I ever used was as a student when I shot with a Wollensak Fastax High Speed Camera. There is a piece on YouTube about these. The camera shot 16mm film and the last few feet of the film roll disintegrated as it could no longer cope with the power of the accelerating drive chain. The footage was fine but it was by far the oddest photographic equipment I've ever utilised.
 
Apple QuickTake (if I recall the name correctly). You held it like a large sandwich. Results were not impressive.

In film cameras, the Polaroid 250 Automatic was a bit challenging. The rangefinder worked okay. Unfolding and folding it was a chore. Pulling the film gave the challenge of holding the camera, and hoping that I cleaned the rollers well enough. Results were fairly good for instant peel-apart film.
 
Gordon Moat said:
Apple QuickTake (if I recall the name correctly). You held it like a large sandwich. Results were not impressive.

In film cameras, the Polaroid 250 Automatic was a bit challenging. The rangefinder worked okay. Unfolding and folding it was a chore. Pulling the film gave the challenge of holding the camera, and hoping that I cleaned the rollers well enough. Results were fairly good for instant peel-apart film.
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That killed me ... "A large sandwich." 😂
 
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