The WORST Cameras of all time..

[Doug]

Belomo Elikon: Small clamshell RF camera made in Belarus, copy of the Olympus XA but f/2.8 Minitar lens has severe distortion, well illustrated in this shot.

 

[jsrockit]

A lot of nice cameras is this "worst" of all time thread...seems at least a few are very spoiled or heartbroken by a lemon. I've personally experienced some of the cameras here and had 0 issues. Some would even be considered pleasant to use. I would think a thread like this is not about toy cameras or the odd bad camera someone had to deal with (that has otherwise been ok for most), but a model that is universally panned.

 

[CMur12]

I don't think I've every had a camera that I didn't like.

Probably the most problematic for me were the winding/cocking mechanisms of older Yashica-Mats. Every one I've had would jam, advance film part of a frame, or otherwise fail. I have a Yashica-Mat EM rebuilt by Mark Hama many years ago, but I'm still wary. (I haven't used it for a long time, so I don't recall if this one has failed in that regard, or not.)

- Murray

 

[Bolo Kukus]

My worst camera list would unroll halfway down the next street, bearing in mind that my choices are usually based on one often only minor flaw. A perfectionist, I am.

Introduction done with, my worst ever choices are -

The Mamiya Universal Press. Designed by a sadist, pleases only masochists.

Any Mamiya R* 67 series camera - RB, RZ, you name it. Like trying to lift two cement blocks with a lens (oddly, often as not a truly excellent piece of glass, which sort of softens this acidic criticism). Likely created by an out-of-work designer for the Folmer Graflex Company. Come to think of it, also any Graflex, which despite its bulk produced acceptable results if one could live with the early Venetian blind focal plane shutter and those odd speeds. In my teens i was gifted a 5x7 home portrait model and used it a few times before selling it to a collector. No tripod I could afford would hold it aloft, so I made do with a small picnic table and short entirely landscapes. One had to be super fit and strong to use those Graflexes back then.

The Kodak Brownies from the 1930s and 1940s. Square brick-like boxes with tiny holes for a mirror and two pieces of bottle glass. Even 616, 116 or 122 film negatives scan like mush. Anyone who has ever used a Brownie will understand this.

Was there a camera called the Polaroid Swinger? I think I gave my mother one, along with a few rolls of instant film, for Christmas in 1970. She wanted to photograph her cats and my nieces with it. Crap results from Day One, it died after less than a year and at most six rolls of gooey color film. I was almost disinherited. I still have a few family cat snaps from it, all out of focus, strange colors, almost completely faded.

Any Kodak amateur camera from the mid-1960s to about 1990. I say this as one who is currently trying to scan a few hundred color negatives shot by my partner's family with these crap boxes. A maddening experience. The scanning, I mean. The actual shooting was child's play, which probably explains the quality of the negatives.

Disclaimers. Take your pick. All this is purely subjective and basically my opinions. Posted entirely without prejudice. The writer declines to enter into any future correspondence with anyone regarding his choices. Que sera sera.

 

[Huss]

Ugh,
Leica R-anything... light leaking always... and heavy...


Ciao,
Mme. O.

I've got R-E x2, R7, R8, R9.

All superb. None leak light.

 

[CMur12]

Oh, and a pox on anyone who dares to pan Mamiya TLRs!


- Murray

 

[Oscuro]

I've got R-E x2, R7, R8, R9.

All superb. None leak light.

M. Huss,

I am happy for you! You are keeping my language better. Our R3, R4, both leaking. Husband is telling me that in English I should have said R-something not R-anything to mean because I couldn't remember the model number. My lovely man and I gave up on Leica SLR when we discovered how Nikon was in SLR. It would have maybe been Canon but magazine pool kit was Nikon. So we bought for ourselves. We are have keeping Leica M for long time!!

Grazie!

Mme. O

 

[Pál_K]

From a reliability perspective, I think the Petri SLRs had the worst reputation. I never owned one, but heard laments from those that did.

I never could stand to even look at the Argus C3, let alone use one.

And I don't think I've ever seen a sharp or decent looking picture from a Minox 8 x 11 format. (I know, it's just me.). Handy size, but unsatisfying results.

The Argus C3 - yes, i could not stand using it. Even after selling it 50 years ago, I can still feel the sharp jab of the shutter release in the pad of my index finger. My index finger is still rough from focusing it. The palms of my hands still have indentations from the camera's sharp corners. In 50 years, the Argus C3 is the only camera I've ever sold.

Minox 8x11mm photos can be very sharp. I made a series of portraits of coworkers with my Minox B - all excellent. One in particular was where my friend was wearing a badge and the cloth lanyard around his neck had small writing on it - maybe 3mm tall - well, I made a portrait of him from about a meter away and on the print you can read those little letters perfectly. I didn't even use the measuring chain - a lucky guess-focus by me.

How that dinky writing actually got resolved onto the actual 8x11mm frame boggles my mind.

Using a Minox is a learned skill - first to keep your fingers away from the lens, but more importantly to provide "counter pressure" from beneath the camera as you gently press the release. At least that's what works for me.

 

[Dave Jenkins]

The Exa, hands down. A miserable piece of junk which no one remembers, for good reasons.

The Mamiya RB67, on the other hand, was a great studio workhorse which made me a lot of money in the '90s.

 

[Beemermark]

Leica M9. The least reliable camera per-dollar.
Phil Forrest

I forgot to list that with the CL. The M9 has/had a 100% failure rate.

 

[ColSebastianMoran]

How about this one? Five pound wonder. Proprietary film cartridges. Rechargable battery and built-in flash. Sold door-to-door in the 60's! Interesting shelf queen today.

 

[Scrambler]

My worst camera list would unroll halfway down the next street, bearing in mind that my choices are usually based on one often only minor flaw. A perfectionist, I am.

Introduction done with, my worst ever choices are -

The Mamiya Universal Press. Designed by a sadist, pleases only masochists.

Any Mamiya R* 67 series camera - RB, RZ, you name it. Like trying to lift two cement blocks with a lens (oddly, often as not a truly excellent piece of glass, which sort of softens this acidic criticism). Likely created by an out-of-work designer for the Folmer Graflex Company. Come to think of it, also any Graflex, which despite its bulk produced acceptable results if one could live with the early Venetian blind focal plane shutter and those odd speeds. In my teens i was gifted a 5x7 home portrait model and used it a few times before selling it to a collector. No tripod I could afford would hold it aloft, so I made do with a small picnic table and short entirely landscapes. One had to be super fit and strong to use those Graflexes back then.

The Kodak Brownies from the 1930s and 1940s. Square brick-like boxes with tiny holes for a mirror and two pieces of bottle glass. Even 616, 116 or 122 film negatives scan like mush. Anyone who has ever used a Brownie will understand this.

Was there a camera called the Polaroid Swinger? I think I gave my mother one, along with a few rolls of instant film, for Christmas in 1970. She wanted to photograph her cats and my nieces with it. Crap results from Day One, it died after less than a year and at most six rolls of gooey color film. I was almost disinherited. I still have a few family cat snaps from it, all out of focus, strange colors, almost completely faded.

Any Kodak amateur camera from the mid-1960s to about 1990. I say this as one who is currently trying to scan a few hundred color negatives shot by my partner's family with these crap boxes. A maddening experience. The scanning, I mean. The actual shooting was child's play, which probably explains the quality of the negatives.

Disclaimers. Take your pick. All this is purely subjective and basically my opinions. Posted entirely without prejudice. The writer declines to enter into any future correspondence with anyone regarding his choices. Que sera sera.

With 3 of 6 cameras listed (Mamiya Press, Speed Graphic [with required bizarre shutter speed selection], Brownie) in my 'user collection', plus a close relative of a 4th (Yashica 635), I'm a little worried whether I might have masochistic tendencies?

 

[jsrockit]

Jeez... this is the most entitled list of worst cameras ever... Leicas on the worst ever list...hahaha.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

When conditions were right I made some pretty good photos
with inexpensive 126 and later 110 Instamatic-type cameras.
Also I was new to photography then, with "fresh eyes"...

Chris

 

[Scrambler]

Jeez... this is the most entitled list of worst cameras ever... Leicas on the worst ever list...hahaha.

The M5 was a good camera: just didn't sell well enough for the company.

The M9 should have killed Leica. When its only direct competitor was a camera sold under a photocopier brandname, and made from a film camera (which was based on a low-cost SLR design) and a superseded crop sensor, there was no excuse for the multitude of failings: decaying sensor and screen being the most significant but IR filter, crop sensor thrown in. That Leica are still making cameras is a testiment to their determination, but no testiment to the M9. By any standard the M9 was a rolling disaster. That it could also take pictures is true. So can most cameras. Even Holgas. An expensive lemon is just as sour as a cheap one.

The only product that I would rate similarly was the VW Transporter we owned. Great vehicle, loved it. Until the PLASTIC in the GEARBOX wore out... WTF?

 

[jsrockit]

The M9 should have killed Leica. When its only direct competitor was a camera sold under a photocopier brandname, and made from a film camera (which was based on a low-cost SLR design) and a superseded crop sensor, there was no excuse for the multitude of failings: decaying sensor and screen being the most significant but IR filter, crop sensor thrown in.

I think you mean M8. And the decaying sensor in both models could not have been anticipated. It was unfortunate... However, there are still many fans of both cameras. Why?

 

[Out to Lunch]

Also, there are still many fans of the Epson R-D1 series of cameras, including the later R-D1s, and R-D1x.

its only direct competitor was a camera sold under a photocopier brandname

I wonder whether that is an argument, or just plain stupid reasoning? Cheers, OtL

 

[Larry Cloetta]

Jeez... this is the most entitled list of worst cameras ever... Leicas on the worst ever list...hahaha.

Yeah, I am starting to think that I must be unusually accepting of camera quirks. If it takes a picture it must be good by definition, is how it seems to work in my head. I tend to think of them as children, even the errant ones, so “worst” is hard for me to apply to any of them.

Though I never owned this thing:

 

[zuiko85]

Don’t understand this selection. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. Primarily made to sell more Kodak film and photo finishing. And it certainly did that. And, millions upon millions of 3.5in X 3.5in snapshots were produced that, all considered, fulfilled the expectations of the end user.
And, if one gathered, from all over the world every sample that could be found, and if 126 film was still made, 99 out of 100 would still work.

One more thing, that, and similar cameras started many of us old timers on our photographic journey.

 

[Ambro51]

I agree. As a kid I got an X-15 Kodak NEW for Christmas. I used it for years. It took my first really great photo (to me anyway) of a balloon ascent into a deep blue sky, with a bushy moustached pilot waving. The print is long gone......but the photo has been in my head for a half century.