The Stuff You Didn't Like

4100078472_5a516c0a19_z.jpg


Sometimes designers come up with things that are incomprehensible. It probably sounded like a good idea at the drafting table - but as a camera!
The Voigtlander Prominent was one of the clumsiest cameras made in the 50's. Built like a tank and about as practical! Howvere, the lenses were good, really good. I still have the Nokton 50f1.5 - and with an adapter I can use it on my Nikon Rf's. I donated the body to a friend who likes things that are complicated - an obviously is not a photographer!
 
OM system flimsiness of film transport. It made me feel like handling an unknown Contax II or Kiev cameras: you don't know when that ribbon will break. Contax II with newly replaced ribbons, on the other hand, is something very reliable for several years.
Bronica SQ. I found it, unexplainably, very uncomfortable to use. Too unwieldy. I also own a Pentacon Six TL with 180/2.8 Sonnar, tah I find quite comfortable.
Shutter release on Olympus XA series. I find it to be very unpredictable, even after cleaning.
Fiddly controls of Minox 35 series. Wonderful lens, however.
Flimsy and ratchety film adavnce of Yashicamat 124g. Wonderful lens couldn't compensate it for me.
Overall form of Yashica Electro 35 GSN or GT series. Wonderful lens, though.
 
On the other hanc, I quite enjoy using Olympus Pen F and EES-2, just like Exakta, that I didn't quite get along with, initially. Exakta/Praktica's curtains are another story, however.
 
Oh, yeah. A cost of owning any of Leica equipment. Love the form, hate the cost, don't know about image quality. I can have about 5 Contax II/IIa cameras with 50mm lenses for the cost of M3 with any 50mm lens, if shopping carefully.
 
Tom A said:
4100078472_5a516c0a19_z.jpg


Sometimes designers come up with things that are incomprehensible. It probably sounded like a good idea at the drafting table - but as a camera!
The Voigtlander Prominent was one of the clumsiest cameras made in the 50's. Built like a tank and about as practical! Howvere, the lenses were good, really good. I still have the Nokton 50f1.5 - and with an adapter I can use it on my Nikon Rf's. I donated the body to a friend who likes things that are complicated - an obviously is not a photographer!
Click to expand...

I owned one of these and found it to be a classic example of a love/hate relationship. As you say Tom it is a camera which is built like a tank. I was particularly impressed with its satin chrome finish which unlike a Leica M (which scuffs if you so much as look at it hard) this camera was virtually impervious to any marks. But it was, like many German cameras, quirky in the extreme to use. I did not use it enough in the end to justify keeping mine in the long term but had I not needed the money from its sale to fund some other purchase (which I think happened to be an M3) I think its the sort of camera I would have enjoyed keeping to haul out once or twice a year just for the novel experience of annoying myself. :^).

There were one or two better reasons to keep it in retrospect however - both relating to its leaf shutter. It is very, very, very quiet - moreso than an M3 shutter and being a leaf shutter it can also sync with flash up to its maximum speed (which however was only a modest 1/500th of a second). I read that in the 1950s many photo reporters used the camera for these reasons.
 
The Leica MP.

Among the Leica rangefinders I have used (II, IIIc, IIIf, M3, M4, M4-P, M5, M7, MP, M9) and still own (M2, M6, M8), I have to say the MP is the most disappointing.

After knowing and loving the M3/M2, and an M6/M7, the MP just felt like an odd me-too. I prefer the M5 over the MP; I may even one day own an M5. I wouldn't turn down an MP if given, but I would not buy one. If I were given a choice between that and an M4, I'd rather go for the M4.
 
Oh, and the Bessa R2; I owned it, didn't quite ever warm up to it. I still own the original "R" -- can't think of letting that one go.
 
Bronica ETRS. Couldn't warm up to how it handled.

Konica IIIm. The EV setting coupled got me mad and sold it.

Leica M8. Those flashy filters needed to be screwed on and off when sharing the lenses with my M3. Traded it towards an M6 0.85 Classic and cash.

Nikon F90x. With the sticky rubber back door.

Nikon F70. With the weird display and menu.

Ricoh 500 RF. Small lenses, strange sideways trigger wind.

The list goes on
 
Minolta SRT101. It was the first non-Pentax SLR I used, after growing up with my parent's Spotmatic SP and K1000, and later my own MX and LX bodies, and it just felt... weird.

Fujifilm X100 mkI. I'd like to have a go at one of the later editions, but the first model, with early firmware, was by far the most frustrating camera I've used.
 
All Leicas pre-1954 and post 1966

Most of those Leicas up to the iiif look quite pretty but surely only a dedicated masochist would consider using one for actually taking photographs? All that messing around trying to load a film in one, then squinting through two tiny pinholes to view and focus the picture. No thanks! I have a few but they stay firmly on the shelf where they belong.

As for anything post M3, why bother? By the mid sixties even the lovely M3 had become an anachronism, having been bettered in almost every way by cheaper Japanese SLRs.
 
Fuji X10

Nice looking modern digital, almost like a real camera. And best of all, a proper viewfinder instead of a stupid screen which becomes invisible as soon as the sun comes out.

But the image quality seemed no better than most other pocket cameras and the zoom range was limited, so I couldn't really see what all the fuss was about.

And worst of all, mine refused to focus or release the shutter as soon as the warranty had expired. Fuji wanted more to repair it than the cost of a discounted new one, so I vowed never to buy another Fuji product. Quite fortunate really, because it saved me from being tempted to waste more money on the overpriced X100.
 
Mackinaw said:
The absurd way of changing focusing screens on a Nikon F. I have to use my pocket knife (!) to press in the release button on the back of the camera, turn the camera upside down and shake, then hope the screen falls into my hand. As much as I like my F, the screen/prism changing procedure is not one of its finest features.

Jim B.
Click to expand...
Better than the retaining clip most cameras use, IMHO

The Nikon F- yes it's "raw" and "basic"- the F2 is a much nicer camera to use- removing the back to change the film... ugh

The Contarex- you buy it for the lenses- yes the bodies are mechanical marvels but no one knows how to service and the aperture dial on the body (while very futuristic) is a pain to use - same for the Contax series (especially when you're focusing near infinity with the 50)

EDIT: forgot - Film point and shoots- yea, you get okay to very nice photos out of them, yeah, they're small- but dear god, they're SLOW
 
nickthetasmaniac said:
Minolta SRT101. It was the first non-Pentax SLR I used, after growing up with my parent's Spotmatic SP and K1000, and later my own MX and LX bodies, and it just felt... weird.
Click to expand...

SRT-101 was my first SLR and I used it throughout my college days until, sadly, it was stolen. The original Spotmatic was a nice camera but I never liked the stop-down metering however I tried and really liked the Spotmatic ES, which seemed very solid, looked wonderful and had auto metering at full aperture.
 
sevo said:
Canon A-1 (most hostile manual mode ever)
Click to expand...

Tell me about it. What a pain. It's like manual mode was just an afterthought. They certainly wanted users to focus on the auto modes. The A-1 was my first SLR film camera. I still have it and have a soft spot for it, though.

I owned a Canon FD 35mm f/2 for a while before I sold it. It was a great, sharp lens, but it was so heavy and ultimately didn't think it was worth carrying around.
 
I agree on the K1000 - major disappointment compared to the SP. Yashica YK comes to mind as a singularly uninspiring bugger of a camera. The Lubitel I threw away in disgust ... :D
 
sevo said:
Canon A-1 (most hostile manual mode ever)
Click to expand...

Canon AE-1. Everyone I knew at the time owned one, and they all loved them. I bought one and promptly became the exception. All the controls had the tactile feel of a plastic toy.
 
When I went to Barnacks a long time ago, I expected the film loading and finders to be a hassle. That turned out not to be the case for me, they work fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom