What did you find to be better than expected?

[Hamfish]

Fatherhood

Best answer.

 

[noimmunity]

Every camera that I took the time to learn how to use.

 

[shadowfox]

Fatherhood

Amen .

 

[Robert Lai]

As the father of a 5 year old and a 2 year old - both boys, I can only quote Dickens in a Tale of Two Cities.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.”

I love my sons, and they like each other - when they're not trying to knock each other out. Best of all, they represent about 95% of my photographic subjects.

 

[Phil_F_NM]

When I got my Mamiya 6 I was surprised to feel how solid it is even though it looks like a plastic camera. That's only plastic covering a very heavy duty metal chassis.
I had heard the system was amazing but I was, and still am, floored by the results it can deliver.

Phil Forrest

 

[philipus]

It is very nice with a positive thread, thanks for the excellent initiative!

I was positively surprised by the CV Skopar 35/2,5 II which I bought as an introductory 35mm lens to my TTL. I used it while travelling in Australia for a few weeks and was consistently pleased with the results. Tiny, well built, cool-looking, very inexpensive for an M mount lens. Great image quality of course. The one thing I didn't like was that it was comparably slow at 2.5 so rather than having two 35mm lenses I replaced it by a faster lens. But bang for the buck it is an outstanding lens, imho.

I have also been pleased with Kentmere 400 bulk film. I bought a roll to try out and found it perfectly ok for almost all situations.

The one lens that keeps impressing me is the 50 Summilux Asph. It has simply never failed me and it is by far my favourite lens. True, it is expensive but it is a masterpiece and looks great on film.

Those are things I can think of at the moment.

cheers
Philip

 

[David Hughes]

Hi,

Leica mini III and a lot of far, far cheaper P&S's. All bought second-hand in charity shops.

And the FourThirds Olympus f/2 50mm macro lens.

Regards, David

 

[Richard G]

A theme in this thread is you have to try something to get the reward of it being better than expected.

Since 1977 I’ve had the Leitz tabletop tripod and small ball head. I never felt I needed or could justify the expense of the large ball head. I was used to tightening the ball in position, slightly higher than I wanted knowing the camera would sag a little into the correct position.

When I bought the large ball head four years ago I was blown away by the lock, on the ribbed sphere. The locking mechanism goes from loose to locked tight with no intermediate not-quite-tight-enough stage.

Apart from that instant discovery, another theme here is slowly finding it’s better than expected because you do the work to make it so.

 

[Peter_S]

Wide-angle adapter from AliExpress for the GRiiix. Works at least as good as good (better even from my limited testing) than the GW4 and is a lot smaller and lighter - though the GW4 is a tad wider

 

[Leon C]

Most of the cheap broken less common lenses I buy and fix up, they all have their own unique quality which sometimes is very beautiful, limited in use but nonetheless very interesting.

 

[neal3k]

I feel odd saying it but the Kodak Charmera.
I got one for Christmas and it is much better than expected and fun. But I'll still stick to film.

 

[Godfrey]

I'm sorry, but I have little to add to the "works better than expected" list. Most of the things I buy work pretty much as I expect them to because I research my purchases pretty thoroughly and have fairly exacting things I'm looking for when I buy stuff.

One thing that has worked better than expected recently, however, is adapting my Leica Focusing Bellows-R plus Leica Macro-Elmar-R 100mm f/4 to the larger sensor in the Hasselblad 907x/CFVII 50c. I usually expect a lens designed for 24x36 mm format to show some edge and corner falloff on the larger MF digital sensor, but in this case it seemed as if the focusing bellows and lens were made for a larger format than Leica R cameras had. Perfect quality right the corners of the frame, no vignetting or falloff, truly stunning performance.

G

 

[Disappointed_Horse]

A few years ago I found a nice Pentax Spotmatic with a 50mm f/1.4 Super Takumar lens at a camera shop. The meter didn't work, but it was otherwise in very nice shape. I negotiated the seller down to $20 and it was mine.

Other than the non-functioning meter, the camera turned out to be an excellent performer. To my surprise, I found I enjoyed shooting without an internal meter. And I was blown away by how good the Takumar lenses are. I am not sure why (maybe slightly greater contrast?), but I find the images from the Takumar lense more appealing than what I get from my Nikkor lenses. So, the Pentax M42 cameras and Takumar lenses definitely exceeded my expectations.

 

[Harry the K]

My two Voigties: Nokton 1.5/50 LTM and Heliar 1.8/75. Just great on M- bodies.
I bought them because of their good looks, but they proved perfect performers, with rendering not distuingishable from Leica glass, on film, at least. Don´t know about digital.

 

[Timmyjoe]

Gotta go with Griffin on "Fatherhood".

That said, I was pleasantly surprised when @das sent me this Kodak Retina Reflex S camera that someone had left behind when they moved. I was hoping I might be able to get it to work but was delighted to find, once I cleaned it up inside and out, not only did it still work, but the light meter (sixty six years old) still worked and it is accurate.

It's a very cool little camera and fun to make pictures with.



Best,
-Tim

 

[38Deardorff]

The very early 3.5cm f3.5 Elmar i bought off Ebay for $75 Cad/ 45€.
A tiny lens that gave stunning results.

 

[Glenn2]

I have the 3.5cm f/3.5 Summaron, another tiny gem. I can hold the lens in my closed hand next to the other hand and it’s difficult to tell which hand the lens is in. Have done this to show others how compact these old rangefinder lenses are.

 

[p.giannakis]

And I was blown away by how good the Takumar lenses are.

find the images from the Takumar lense more appealing than what I get from my Nikkor lenses

I agree, Takumars proved to be much better than I expected. Pentax-m lenses too.
I use Nikon most of the time, that is because their cameras just work well and the lenses do the job. But I think Zuiko and Takumars are better than I initially thought.

 

[Sanug]

Lucky C200 colour film. Nice colours, fine grain, very good overall quality. Easy to scan. The film is perfectly flat, absolutely no curl like Kodak Ultramax.




Rollei 35 S
Lucky C200
Adox C-Tec C-41 Kit
Plustek Opticfilm 7300, Vuescan

 

[Sanug]

Orwo/Wolfen NP100 film. Fine grain, good sharpness, good antihalation. Great quality, but expensive and not easy go get.




Canon 7s
Leit Elmar 4/9cm
Wolfen NP100
Adox XT-3, 1+2, 12 Min.
Plustek Opticfilm 7300, Vuescan