taskoni
Well-known
The 1964 M2 with the DR Summicron
What is your longest and most used camera? Film and digital
- Thread starter Archiver
- Start date
- Latest activity Latest activity:
- Replies 88
- Views 5K
Canyongazer
Canyongazer
Black Nikon F, plain prism, body bought used for $75.00 in 1972.
It and an FTn added later were my main cameras until I bought an F100 in 2000(?). Thousands of rolls went thru that F tho not anywhere near Garry Winogrand territory.
Only film camera I still own is that original straight F. Post-digital dawn it sat unused until a few years ago when I did a job for the Texas Historical Commission which insisted I use film(!)
Digital---two Fuji X Pro2's purchased as soon as Fuji released them and which I plan keeping forever....maybe 30,000 clicks combined. (wild guess)
It and an FTn added later were my main cameras until I bought an F100 in 2000(?). Thousands of rolls went thru that F tho not anywhere near Garry Winogrand territory.
Only film camera I still own is that original straight F. Post-digital dawn it sat unused until a few years ago when I did a job for the Texas Historical Commission which insisted I use film(!)
Digital---two Fuji X Pro2's purchased as soon as Fuji released them and which I plan keeping forever....maybe 30,000 clicks combined. (wild guess)
Archiver
Veteran
Man, I love that! You had the camera, and you had the eye even back then. I have a few images of highlights on bald heads, hahaha!
Perhaps my first camera was a 110 cassette Kodak Brownie, or it could have been a Keystone XR33. I didn't use either one very much. The only photos I have from either of those cameras was only developed in the last five years, after I found the Keystone buried in a box of stuff. It held images from when I was not even a teenager, photos of my best friend at the time, and our old house. But it obviously wasn't used since the early 80s.
mike rosenlof
Insufficient information
Longest owned, mamiya c-330f purchased new by me for my 23rd birthday in 1982. Hundreds of rolls through it but not thousands.It was my primary camera until 1994 or so, and used with varying frequency since then. I used it for a project leading up to my 60th birthday earlier this year. these days, I am more likely to use the hasselblad for 6x6, but the mamiya still gets use, especially if weather might be a factor, or if the hassy just looks too expensive.
bayernfan
Well-known
6 years with my trusty M2. The slow speeds are getting stickier, but I rarely if ever use them. Funny thing, when the camera is upside down, the slow speeds work just fine. That tricky little escapement mechanism is picky about camera orientation.
Axel
singleshooter
About 25 years with the Agfa Optima, over 20 years Leica M6 and 13 years Fuji S20Pro until today.
Steve_Pfost
Established
My longest and most used camera is my Nikon D700. There is sentimental connection between that camera and I. As I'm sure most of you have with a certain camera.
I'll never forget the day I convinced my parents to allow me to purchase it new from the local camera shop in 2008. I was a proud owner and couldn't wait to set my eyes through it. That camera got me through photojournalism school. It photographed my grandparents alive, and my grandparents deaths. It was with me when I chased my first (and only tornado) while at the Dallas Morning News. It captured moments throughout the years with my family. It got me my first job freelancing after it worked with me through my internships. I even used it when I finally got hired as staff 7 years later. Countless stories, countless moments, joyous and tragic, have been seen through the lenses attached to it. I brought it on assignment across the world to Africa and again to Thailand. Not to mention road trips across the US.
It has always been there by my side. When my wife went into labor I packed the photo bags with my expensive and treasured Leica M4, my fuji x-pro 2, and my D700. I made sure I photographed my daughter with it the moment she arrived on earth.
One day I'll hope to pass it on down to her, or one of my future children, explaining to them the sights it has seen and how through its sensor it captured such memorable moments created by their great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and them. That camera has become a part of me.
Film wise, I love my black chrome M4. She's a beaut. I've run about 200 rolls through it since getting back into film a couple years ago. Best camera Leica ever made hands down.
I'll never forget the day I convinced my parents to allow me to purchase it new from the local camera shop in 2008. I was a proud owner and couldn't wait to set my eyes through it. That camera got me through photojournalism school. It photographed my grandparents alive, and my grandparents deaths. It was with me when I chased my first (and only tornado) while at the Dallas Morning News. It captured moments throughout the years with my family. It got me my first job freelancing after it worked with me through my internships. I even used it when I finally got hired as staff 7 years later. Countless stories, countless moments, joyous and tragic, have been seen through the lenses attached to it. I brought it on assignment across the world to Africa and again to Thailand. Not to mention road trips across the US.
It has always been there by my side. When my wife went into labor I packed the photo bags with my expensive and treasured Leica M4, my fuji x-pro 2, and my D700. I made sure I photographed my daughter with it the moment she arrived on earth.
One day I'll hope to pass it on down to her, or one of my future children, explaining to them the sights it has seen and how through its sensor it captured such memorable moments created by their great-grandparents, grandparents, parents, and them. That camera has become a part of me.
Film wise, I love my black chrome M4. She's a beaut. I've run about 200 rolls through it since getting back into film a couple years ago. Best camera Leica ever made hands down.
Archiver
Veteran
Agfa Optima? Wow. Which one did/do you have, and what kinds of things did you shoot with it? What about the M6?
RichC
Well-known
18 months...
That's for my main, everyday camera - a Sony A7R II. If I had the money, it'd be gone today, replaced by the A7R IV!
Photography is all about the image for me. So I treat cameras as tools, and are therefore regularly replaced when they become obsolete - which may simply be because I can afford a better one, or perhaps to match how I take photos more closely.
The camera I've owned the longest is a Mamiya M645 film camera - for about 5 years. I also haven't used it for 5 years!*
(*I've given up film this year, so this camera will be sold - a practical decision. I like film - you can't replicate the colours of Portra in digital, and prints of film and digital images look different. To be honest, I prefer prints of photos taken with film over digital ones. But digital is so much more practical - faster, cheaper, more user friendly... I keep meaning to do a project using film again, but always end up using my digital camera.
This year I faced up to the fact that I will never use a film camera again. The difference between the appearance of digital and film prints is outweighed by convenience.)
That's for my main, everyday camera - a Sony A7R II. If I had the money, it'd be gone today, replaced by the A7R IV!
Photography is all about the image for me. So I treat cameras as tools, and are therefore regularly replaced when they become obsolete - which may simply be because I can afford a better one, or perhaps to match how I take photos more closely.
The camera I've owned the longest is a Mamiya M645 film camera - for about 5 years. I also haven't used it for 5 years!*
(*I've given up film this year, so this camera will be sold - a practical decision. I like film - you can't replicate the colours of Portra in digital, and prints of film and digital images look different. To be honest, I prefer prints of photos taken with film over digital ones. But digital is so much more practical - faster, cheaper, more user friendly... I keep meaning to do a project using film again, but always end up using my digital camera.
This year I faced up to the fact that I will never use a film camera again. The difference between the appearance of digital and film prints is outweighed by convenience.)
Archiver
Veteran
This is a lovely story, exactly the kind that I didn't expect to read in this thread, but it's so pleasing that they are turning up. On DPReview, there was a woman who's husband was an avid photographer. She was pregnant, but sadly, he had terminal cancer. They bought a D700 with either a 35mm or 25-70 lens, and he set it up for his wife so she could document their child after he was gone. I wish I could find that thread.
Archiver
Veteran
It's wonderful that you have a single camera that has been there with you for so many memorable events and times. I bought my Leica M9 with that intention, although I have shot family and friends notable events with other cameras, too. My Canon S70 and Fuji Natura Black film compact shot my grandfather, and my Canon 30D and Fuji F30 were there to shoot my grandfather's funeral only a short year after.
My M9 shot my maternal grandmother through several birthdays, Christmases and family events until her passing, and it shot at her funeral, too. M9 has been overseas and interstate, on a once in a lifetime trip to Japan with one of my closest friends (who is messaging me even as I type) and rocked the streets of Hong Kong. It's shot national and professional athletes for promo and documentary work, and portraits of an actress. Taking my M9 on an important engagement gives me a sense of security in knowing I've got the best image quality and character of all the gear I have.
Axel
singleshooter
It was an Optima Sensor 500 and I shot all I could with it 😉
Few pictures with cubeflashs in the early 70s but most point&shoot and don´t care. The M6 was, and I think it would be today, the best camera to deal with the light.
The workflow of taking a time and aperture and sometimes have a look at the meter is still mine. But with the digitals there came so much easy things around the work after the picture is taken that I won´t go back to film.
I have all I need with EVFs and a couple of nice lenses to get my pics like I want.
skucera
Well-known
My oldest camera is my Pentax Auto 110, that I got as a Christmas present in high school from my mom. I don't shoot it, or my other 110's, because my local camera shop couldn't fix the minilab that developed 110 film automatically, so they develop it by hand now, and their quality sucks compared to the old minilab. Too bad.
The camera I've used most is my Olympus XA, that I bought at a pawn shop in college. I used it for years for backpacking trips and for travel, and it's captured many more rolls than my beloved Auto 110. I gave it to my oldest daughter to replace her beloved but broken Minolta Hi-Matic 9. I've since gotten another.
Scott
The camera I've used most is my Olympus XA, that I bought at a pawn shop in college. I used it for years for backpacking trips and for travel, and it's captured many more rolls than my beloved Auto 110. I gave it to my oldest daughter to replace her beloved but broken Minolta Hi-Matic 9. I've since gotten another.
Scott
Graham Line
Well-known
Probably the most used was an M2 I bought secondhand from Malone's in Dayton, OH in the early '70s and used steadily up until the late late '80s when it was passed on to someone desperate to own an M2.
TenEleven
Well-known
Longest used has to be my Minolta Autocord with a bit more than a decade on it, with the runners-up of Rolleiflex 2.8.
robertofollia
Established
- Local time
- 2:38 PM
- Joined
- May 11, 2007
- Messages
- 109
My dearest camera is Praktica BX20 from 1989, bought in 1991 (it was my dream camera at the time), used for 3 years about 15-30 rolls each year.
REplaced in 1994 by a Contax S2, has had about 200-300 rolls, sent to service badly repaired 3 times due to out of focus pictures under f 5.6. Continuous use until 2016 when meter packed up. Was just a loose rivet under battery compartment. Now working again faultlessly at last due to a 3rd and final repair by a good repairman in the UK who finally fixed it (he told me the shutter unit and mirror housing were loose!)
From 2016 on, Zenit 122 from 1994 bought with dead meter for less than 20 usd with lens. Replaced leds and worked faultlessly since then. Has received endless knocks, even has fallen from a bicycle on the road (the transport bag broke). around 50 rolls since feb 2016 and still going strong
Digital, a trusty pentax i-10 which documents tinkering on my cars and other repairs, so it's always dirty. Going through 3rd display but still shooting. Dirty sensor but still works.
I still keep my 1st camera, a 1980 kodak instamatic 25, and nearly all of my cameras I had (the second one was an agfa optima 500 and the 3rd one a Canon Snappy 20. 4th one Praktica MTL5B, after that came a Canon AS-6, snd many others)
All of them work
Best regards
REplaced in 1994 by a Contax S2, has had about 200-300 rolls, sent to service badly repaired 3 times due to out of focus pictures under f 5.6. Continuous use until 2016 when meter packed up. Was just a loose rivet under battery compartment. Now working again faultlessly at last due to a 3rd and final repair by a good repairman in the UK who finally fixed it (he told me the shutter unit and mirror housing were loose!)
From 2016 on, Zenit 122 from 1994 bought with dead meter for less than 20 usd with lens. Replaced leds and worked faultlessly since then. Has received endless knocks, even has fallen from a bicycle on the road (the transport bag broke). around 50 rolls since feb 2016 and still going strong
Digital, a trusty pentax i-10 which documents tinkering on my cars and other repairs, so it's always dirty. Going through 3rd display but still shooting. Dirty sensor but still works.
I still keep my 1st camera, a 1980 kodak instamatic 25, and nearly all of my cameras I had (the second one was an agfa optima 500 and the 3rd one a Canon Snappy 20. 4th one Praktica MTL5B, after that came a Canon AS-6, snd many others)
All of them work
Best regards
curmudgeon
Member
Longest used film camera: a Leica IIIc my father bought in 1945 and I started using about 8 years later.
Longest used digital camera: an iPhone I bought in 2017. (I don't have a "proper" digital camera.)
Longest used digital camera: an iPhone I bought in 2017. (I don't have a "proper" digital camera.)
Tom R
Established
Leica M2 with a Summicron 35mm lens; used only this for nearly twenty years.
About twelve years ago, I picked up 2 M4-P bodies, and a 50mm Summicron and a 28mm Elmarit lens. This way, I never had to remove lenses and could quickly provision as I traveled extensively.
Finally, about five years ago I picked up a mint condition M8.2 because I needed the digital workflow for a while.
Of these, I could easily go back to the M2 with a pre-ASPH 35mm Summicron lens without giving it a second thought.
About twelve years ago, I picked up 2 M4-P bodies, and a 50mm Summicron and a 28mm Elmarit lens. This way, I never had to remove lenses and could quickly provision as I traveled extensively.
Finally, about five years ago I picked up a mint condition M8.2 because I needed the digital workflow for a while.
Of these, I could easily go back to the M2 with a pre-ASPH 35mm Summicron lens without giving it a second thought.
Tim Murphy
Well-known
This is easy for me
This is easy for me
Dear Archiver,
My oldest film camera is my Grandfather's Nikon FTN. When he purchased it new it was a Nikon F, and it had to be modified by Nikon USA to accept the FTN finder. As best as I can tell it's a late 1961 or early 1962 S/N.
I inherited it when he passed away in 1989. Early on I used it a lot as it was my only camera, and I took it with me everywhere. Today, if I squeeze a roll or two through it each year that's a lot. But I'll never part with it and I had both the camera and 5.8cm f1.4 Nikkor S lens refurbished in the last few years.
My oldest digital camera is an Olympus C-2020 that a friend gave me a long time ago. I still have a working smart card for it so I use it for 25 to 50 shots a year. For 2.1 Mpeg it still does a great job for pictures I want to post to the internet.
My most used older digital is a Canon EOS 1DMK2. I shoot mostly nature and wildlife pictures. I have several newer Canon cameras with greater resolution, but it just works no matter what I do with it. While it is only 8.1 Mpeg, and I can't use more than ISO 1250 with it and get an image that I can process due to noise, I still use it quite often. Paired with a Sigma 150-600 lens it nails focus with more accuracy than any other newer camera that I own. For that alone I find it difficult to part with.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Harrisburg, PA 🙂
This is easy for me
Dear Archiver,
My oldest film camera is my Grandfather's Nikon FTN. When he purchased it new it was a Nikon F, and it had to be modified by Nikon USA to accept the FTN finder. As best as I can tell it's a late 1961 or early 1962 S/N.
I inherited it when he passed away in 1989. Early on I used it a lot as it was my only camera, and I took it with me everywhere. Today, if I squeeze a roll or two through it each year that's a lot. But I'll never part with it and I had both the camera and 5.8cm f1.4 Nikkor S lens refurbished in the last few years.
My oldest digital camera is an Olympus C-2020 that a friend gave me a long time ago. I still have a working smart card for it so I use it for 25 to 50 shots a year. For 2.1 Mpeg it still does a great job for pictures I want to post to the internet.
My most used older digital is a Canon EOS 1DMK2. I shoot mostly nature and wildlife pictures. I have several newer Canon cameras with greater resolution, but it just works no matter what I do with it. While it is only 8.1 Mpeg, and I can't use more than ISO 1250 with it and get an image that I can process due to noise, I still use it quite often. Paired with a Sigma 150-600 lens it nails focus with more accuracy than any other newer camera that I own. For that alone I find it difficult to part with.
Regards,
Tim Murphy
Harrisburg, PA 🙂
bhop73
Well-known
I got my M6 in 2009. It's not the camera i've had the longest, but it's the one i've used the most. As far as how many rolls.. no idea.. i'd guess.. hmm.. 300-500? Averaging out an estimated 3 rolls per month. Give or take some rolls.. just a guess, could be wayyyyy off *shrug
Similar threads
