What is your 'camera for life'?

[FotohuisR]

Cheap and after some maintenance good working: Zorki-6 with some LTM lenses J-8, J-12, J-9. I have two Zorki-6 bodies. They are about the same age which I am.

 

[Archiver]

As a side note, my cousin in Canada recently emailed her response to a query I made two years ago. It seems the family's 616 Kodak Box Brownie my stepdad bought in 1943, is now in the hands of my sister-in-law, my stepbrother's widow. She has no use for it but refuses to part with it. This gal made it her life's goal to get our family's entire estate, but my stepmom lived to 102 and when she passed in 2021 there was nothing left.

I did get almost all of the family's original 616 negatives when I was in Canada in 1982, so in that way I'm the one best off.

People like that can be so infuriating! Make sure your will specifies she is to get nothing because she is a vituperative harpy, just to be on the safe side.

 

[Shadams]

Fujifilm X100F. 9 years now, if I don't count all the previous X100 models. So, 15 years. But nine for the "F" model and going strong. The Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F that started this is still in the gear cabinet. - that dates back to '68. It works but I haven't shot that since the '80s. No, the X100f should outlast me.

 

[underlord]

vituperative
What a great word! I had to look it up 😁

 

[Shadams]

....

The story I've heard (second-handedly) from one of the attendees was, as the casket was lowered into the ground, his partner put a Leica M3 on top of the box ,which then descended into the ground, and was most likely buried.

If the tale is true, it meant the loss of a fine Leica.

How about this post from more than a decade ago? Leicas, heartbreak, funerals and buried M4s: How did you get into Leicas?

 

[Bolo Kukus]

How about this post from more than a decade ago? Leicas, heartbreak, funerals and buried M4s: How did you get into Leicas?

I thought about it, but decided I had to draw the line at grave-robbing. The digging would have been too much for me.

 

[Tim Murphy]

Fujifilm X100F. 9 years now, if I don't count all the previous X100 models. So, 15 years. But nine for the "F" model and going strong. The Asahi Pentax Spotmatic F that started this is still in the gear cabinet. - that dates back to '68. It works but I haven't shot that since the '80s. No, the X100f should outlast me.

Dear Shadams,

Get that Spotmatic F out and give it a go! I bought one a couple of years ago for $ 18.00 from Shopgoodwill with a 55mm f1.8 SMC Takumar and clean case. It works perfectly and really did rekindle my interest in film photography. The best thing is that if the light meter works it will work forever with alkaline 625 batteries because the camera has an internal voltage regulator.

Have at it!

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

 

[Bolo Kukus]

People like that can be so infuriating! Make sure your will specifies she is to get nothing because she is a vituperative harpy, just to be on the safe side.

We are (again) somewhat off-topic here, but this post is too good for me to resist commenting on.

Just before Covid a friend, an accountant now retired and greatly missed who has settled many estates, gave me some good advice about dying, wills, bequests and money-grabby families.

He made a few suggestions which I took on board, to thwart any attempts by disgruntled family members to leech into my estate after the inevitable final event of my life.

When my mother died in 2021 my SIL told the weekly newspaper in our home town that I had "passed away" in 2020. According to my accountant, this could go against her in making any claim on my estate. Also given the difficulty (and costs) of engaging a lawyer in Australia from Canada.

On advice I've 'pre-gifted' all I possess to my partner, with the proviso (in writing) that some items will eventually be given to a (select) list of my partner's family and a few friends. There is one condition - I have the use of all these items in my lifetime. My partner will eventually decide who gets what. The relief this has given me is, in a word - tremendous.

My cameras and lenses, my darkroom and the stocks of films and papers I have will go to friends or a camera club.

All this relies on the 100% trust I have in my partner and in-laws. They have all been in my life since 1997 and they are more my family than my few surviving rels in Canada.

Of course the risk is all this is, I may go suddenly - as an old friend put it, "knowing you, caught in bed with a 21 year old and shot by a jealous partner!" Highly unlikely, but it did give this mostly-past-it oldie a good laugh.

So we are 95% prepared for the eventual. I harken more to the side of a Buddhist friend who says, "dying is nothing special, anybody can do it."

Naturally, being me I do worry about the other 5%, but we don't live in a perfect world. Who would want to?

I'm an independent type who at the end of my time will refuse to be incarcerated in an overpriced and understaffed concentration camp so-called 'aged care facility'. We are now making plans and preparing to sell up and relocate to Malaysia to be close to our Asian kin.

The Malaysian health care system is of an enviably high standard (I personally rate it as better than Australia's in most ways, especially in anything to do with the public health system). When my time comes I'll go into a good private hospital, in my own room overlooking a pleasant garden (I've already prebooked) with all services excepting whatever advanced medical care I need, at the amazing cost of AUD $50 a day for room and board. Not to be sneezed at...

As ever, my profuse apologies to the OP and other posters for having (again) taken a thread away from its original topic. If anyone has particular objections, I will consider reposting this into its own thread, with moderators' approval.

Let's now return to things far more pleasant, photography.

 

[Archiver]

How about this post from more than a decade ago? Leicas, heartbreak, funerals and buried M4s: How did you get into Leicas?

@Oscuro wrote the most incredible thing I've read in ages here. Wow. What a tale of gifted Leicas and lost loves. Geez. I understand the sentiment but I would never put such thing into a casket/site. And after all those years! Wow. Just wow. 😩😳

See, this is why I love RFF. It's not just about the cameras and photography, it's the beautifully written stories that come out of nowhere.

 

[Richard G]

I thought about being buried with my M2, only for a second or two.

 

[Pioneer]

This thread is about cameras FOR life. Not AFTER life.

 

[JohnWolf]

I thought about being buried with my M2, only for a second or two.

Better to pass it along. Besides, assuming all goes well for you, the 1000 max shutter speed will be useless in all that Light on the Other Side.

 

[luuca]

My first analog camera has been a second hand 2004 Leica MP bought in 2010 (1800€ on ebay 😱)

It's my camera for life.

Many others arrived after 2010, some already gone, some still on the shelf, but the first one is special.

 

[JeffS7444]

I don't understand the strong emotions about an old Kodak box camera: It's common and inexpensive even now, and I imagine if folks today regard it at all, it's as a keepsake or display piece.

 

[ChrisPlatt]

In recent months I have had several different model Pentax mechanical 35mm SLRs serviced by Eric Hendrickson.
I am confident these cameras will outlast me. So I guess you could say these could be my "camera(s) for life"...

Chris

 

[Shadams]

Dear Shadams,

Get that Spotmatic F out and give it a go! I bought one a couple of years ago for $ 18.00 from Shopgoodwill with a 55mm f1.8 SMC Takumar and clean case. It works perfectly and really did rekindle my interest in film photography. The best thing is that if the light meter works it will work forever with alkaline 625 batteries because the camera has an internal voltage regulator.

Have at it!

Regards,

Tim Murphy

Harrisburg PA 🙂

Thanks, Tim. Indeed, that kit went through the hard bits of SEA before it got to me. They're great picture making machines but I'm a colorist. Sort of. Mostly. Kinda. And, (sigh) well, Kodachrome, right? I'll be honest and say that about once a year I take out the Speed Graphic and remind myself of why I always felt that film was to be tolerated. Don't misunderstand, I love working a print - for about a day - and my own impatience reminds me of where my craft really lies. Or my ineptitude. If I'm shooting film, it's gonna have to be B&W and it's gonna have to be big. These are all just excuses, I suppose. Excuses for a boomer that embraced the digital evolution early after thirty years of film.
I'll give it a whirl.

 

[Bolo Kukus]

This thread is about cameras FOR life. Not AFTER life.

To me after is as important as for and now. I intend to enjoy using them while I can.

Again to the Buddhists, who believe there is no such thing as the future anyway. As one friend puts it, "at midnight, tomorrow will be today." So yes, in that sense I agree with this poster.

As for the past, it's now history. But that's opening another box maybe best left closed.

Isn't all this such fun!!

Back to the present. What cameras will youse all be using today?

 

[Bolo Kukus]

I don't understand the strong emotions about an old Kodak box camera: It's common and inexpensive even now, and I imagine if folks today regard it at all, it's as a keepsake or display piece.

It's a family heirloom. My folks weren't given to Rolexes or gold pens. All my childhood photos were taken with that 616. It's one of very few things I really wanted to have from my late parents. To me this is important. Am I making myself clear in this now?

 

[Archiver]

Until the '90s the concept of owning one camera and a 50mm lens was the norm. Most of us had only the one lens, and we did everything with it. I was in my late 20s when I finally coughed up enough spare cash to buy additional glass, in my case two Hanimexes, a '35 and a '135 for a kit I took with me on a six-months tour of the Pacific and Asia. Somewhere along the way I acquired a zoomie, IRRC an Elicar 70-210 with glass I soon came to suspect was made from soft drink bottles. Used at f/11 it produced a few passably good Kodachrome slides, several of which I sold to stock photo markets.

I wish you would collect all of your posts and writings into an event-based chronology, perhaps as a book or a file. You have so many interesting experiences and a crafty way with words.

Most families I knew in the 80s only had one camera, maybe two if that. It was used sparingly through the year, usually only on birthdays and Christmas, so it wasn't uncommon to only fill one roll a year, maybe two if someone went on holiday.

Dad was a bit of an outlier for the old 'family camera' thing. He taught me how to hold and focus with the Minolta SR-T 101 that his father bought for him in the 70s. Dad said that each of the lenses, a PG Rokkor 50mm f1.4, MD W Rokkor 35mm f2.8 and Tele 135mm f2.8 were bought by his father. In the early 80s, Dad bought another SLR, a Pentax ME with SMC M 50mm f1.4. Then came a Nikon L35AD in the late 80s, of which I unceremoniously lost the soft case during a family trip overseas. Looking back at our images, I'm pretty sure that we brought the Pentax ME on that trip, too. We also bought a Kodak Disc Camera, which is the only one we cannot find. It might even still have a disc of film in it, so if it ever turns up, it will be like finding long lost treasure.

 

[Leon C]

it will be like finding long lost treasure.

The emotional experience we got when we had these developed a few weeks ago from a film shot 22yrs ago on a family holiday in Scotland brought a tear to my eye, probably the OM1 but it's not the camera that really counts but the memories associated with it. [These are just phone pics from a light box but look beautiful in the flesh]

This is just one and there's a whole roll of them.