what are your coolest/weirdest cameras?

I dunno. I have an Olympus Pen-F which is ingenious, but hardly freaky. Love that vertical mirror integrated into the small body. Great camera btw.
I have a Wisner 5x7 which freaks _me_ out, but only because I can't believe I purchased it.
I had a sub-mini chrome Minox B of my grandfather's which I traded for an M3 plus some cash. Cool as beans, but not useful to me.
I had a Raja 8x10 that was mostly held together with clamps. It looked freak-ish, but was really just a dark box to hold film.
 
I agree on the oddities of the Mercury II. My boys used mine with a home-adapted flash gun to go into caves and take pictures many years ago. I recently tried it out and it has an amazingly sharp lens. Attached are a photo of the camera and some examples of its work.
 
As I recall, the hump was a result of using a rotary shutter adapted from motion picture cameras. The two-piece shutter rotates at a fairly constant rate and varies the exposure by varying the width of the slit between the two pieces, similar to the linear gap in a Leica focal plane shutter.
 
Benjamin Marks said:
I dunno. I have an Olympus Pen-F which is ingenious, but hardly freaky. Love that vertical mirror integrated into the small body. Great camera btw...
Click to expand...

I have the Pen F too, and agree a great little camera. The weirdest camera I'm using right now, which coincidentally also has a vertically oriented vf, is a Fuji GA645, a MF p&s.

🙂
 
OldNick said:
I agree on the oddities of the Mercury II. My boys used mine with a home-adapted flash gun to go into caves and take pictures many years ago. I recently tried it out and it has an amazingly sharp lens. Attached are a photo of the camera and some examples of its work.
Click to expand...

Wow! Maybe I need to take another stab at getting my functioning again.
 
Quote:

Originally posted by bmattock:

I always liked the Weltas, although I have never owned one. I keep thinking I'll get one sooner or later.

I have a Japanese roll-film folder that is an apparent rip-off of a "Franka" camera - but this is called a "Frank." I like that. Frank. Works well, too.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks

_________________________________________________________________

They are fun little cameras Bill. If you ever get one you are sure to like it. Welta made at least two RFF cameras; one in 120 and then the Weltini. It is a little larger than the Welti, but not much. One of these days I will get a working model of that too. But I will still like the little Welti. They fit in a pocket will, and take really nice photos.
 
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I absolutely love my Pentax Auto 110. Some manual control would be nice, especially because the format limits it to EI 80 or 400. But it's wicked fun and the interchangeable lenses are nice. The standard lens, which is about the size of a soda bottle cap, focuses veyr close and has really nice "bokeh." (below left)

I cut 127 for the Yashica 44 from 120 rollfilm and roll it with saved backing paper. The remainder is 16mm film, which is easy to roll into 110 cartridges, so I can shoot B&W with the Pentax Auto 110.

I'm using a Chinese Great Wall DF-2 SLR (below right) a lot lately--it's basically a low-rent Kowa 66 with a shutter similar to the Exa SLR. It has a 39mm lens thread, so a LTM lens can screw in for extreme macro.
 
derevaun said:
I absolutely love my Pentax Auto 110. Some manual control would be nice, especially because the format limits it to EI 80 or 400. But it's wicked fun and the interchangeable lenses are nice. The standard lens, which is about the size of a soda bottle cap, focuses veyr close and has really nice "bokeh." (below left)

I cut 127 for the Yashica 44 from 120 rollfilm and roll it with saved backing paper. The remainder is 16mm film, which is easy to roll into 110 cartridges, so I can shoot B&W with the Pentax Auto 110.

I'm using a Chinese Great Wall DF-2 SLR (below right) a lot lately--it's basically a low-rent Kowa 66 with a shutter similar to the Exa SLR. It has a 39mm lens thread, so a LTM lens can screw in for extreme macro.
Click to expand...

I carried a Pentax Auto 110 when I was in the service. Very nice, lasted a long time, I finally lost it somehow. Only ever had the standard lens for it, though. I still have some of the negs, I take them out and scan them once in awhile for fun. The quality is not too high, but the color print film is from circa 1980.

I'm curious - when you cut up 120 film to make your 127, isn't 110 got a single perforation on one side? How do you simulate that, or is it not required?

On the GW SLR - what's the back-focus length? You might could get away with using lenses made for the Braun Paxettes - even the non-coupled ones, since you would not need a rangefinder coupler tab. They had a back-focus distance similar to a M42 - something like 44mm as I recall, vice the Leica 28.5 or whatever it is. I guess you could also do a t-mount to m39 stepdown - someone mentioned having one that appears to have been taken off of one of those no-name generic bellows units that sell for cheap.

I'm an inveterate lens-hacker, so I'm curious.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
My only really weird camera is a triple-pinhole that I made from foamcore. It makes very abstract images that are nice with color film.
 
I have a Great Wall too - and a DF-2, I presume, since it has no accessory shoe and no self-timer, though mine does look different to this one - and it is a delight to use. Examples attached.
(Derevaun: how d'you mean - extreme macro? I'm curious; I love getting close.)
 
bmattock said:
I don't have one (don't I wish) but this lists high on the freak-o-matic scale to me:

http://www.vintagephoto.tv/foton.shtml

Bell & Howell Foton

An American rangefinder with a British lens, calibrated in t-stops! Come on, who would not want one of those?
Click to expand...

I have a B&H Foton on the way back from a CLA by Ken Ruth. It is by far the coolest camera I own. I've got the 2" and 4" lenses but doubt I'll ever find the 12", which I can only imagine as massive!

The Dover 620 is definitely a weird one: http://www.merrillphoto.com/Dover620A.htm
 
lynn said:
(Derevaun: how d'you mean - extreme macro? I'm curious; I love getting close.)
Click to expand...

Leica Thread Mount lenses (like the Russian lenses for FED and Zorki cameras) will mount in the Great Wall, but the flange-to-film distance is about 2.5 times what they're made for. You have to mount them at their infinity setting, and the focus is a wafer-thin plane around 4 inches:
 
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raid amin said:
I have an old 8x10 camera with a huge 362mm f 1.64 lens. It seems to be custom machined by the US Navy.
Click to expand...

Woah! A 362mm f 1.64? Is that even possible? I thought I had a whopper in a WWII-era Kodak Aero Ektar 178mm f2.5. I'd love to see a photo OF that lens, as well as a photo taken WITH that lens!

The mount may well have been made by the Navy, but they weren't ever in the lens-grinding business that I know of - so perhaps a Kodak or a Wollensak or whatever? Any ideas?

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
I just sold a Vitessa N that I had for a long time. A beautiful camera and a great picture taker. I aquired a Pentax 110 some time back. My only thought was, it's cute. It was the complete kit with all the lenses in a nice aluminum case. When I sold it on the bay, I stated that it felt and looked like a toy and appeared to be very fragile. Even after saying that, I was amazed at how much interest it generated. It sold for a good price without the case, that now holds my Leica IIIa kit.
Art
 
AGN said:
I just sold a Vitessa N that I had for a long time. A beautiful camera and a great picture taker. I aquired a Pentax 110 some time back. My only thought was, it's cute. It was the complete kit with all the lenses in a nice aluminum case. When I sold it on the bay, I stated that it felt and looked like a toy and appeared to be very fragile. Even after saying that, I was amazed at how much interest it generated. It sold for a good price without the case, that now holds my Leica IIIa kit.
Art
Click to expand...

Mine wasn't fragile. It went into the cargo pocket of my camoflage utilities and lived in the field for six years. Deserts, mountains, it didn't seem to care.

Best Regards,

Bill Mattocks
 
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