What is your longest and most used camera? Film and digital

[Pioneer]

My most used 35mm is my Leica MA by a pretty good margin.

My most used medium format camera is the Rolleflex but my Ikoflex II will likely pass it by the end of the year since I have found that it is easier for me to focus without using the magnifier.

My top cameras over the past few years are -

1. Leica MA - 35mm
2. Wanderlust Travelwide - 4x5
3. Rolleiflex Automat - 120
4. Zeiss Ikon Ikoflex - 120
5. Pentax K1000 - 35mm
6. Zeiss Ikon ZM - 35mm

I own far too many cameras and use all of them to some extent but none come anywhere close to the amount of use that these six cameras do.

 

[Chris101]

That would have to be my OM-1n, bought new in 1983 with the 50mm f/3.5 Macro. Still have and use both (and I've even bought a few more lenses for it.)

 

[Archiver]

Still loving all these stories! Thank you so much to everyone who has posted so far. 🙂


I'm a little envious of the people who have had cameras which lasted for over ten years of regular use. I have cameras older than that, but they only get used sporadically, if at all. As mentioned earlier, my longest running camera in regular use is my Leica M9, which at nine years and going, is well on its way to being my long term camera.

 

[mcfingon]

Film camera: Leica M6, owned since 2016, with which I've shot 204 rolls.
Digital: Sony A7S, since 2014 and I don't know how many shots. Maybe 4,000?
What I like about the A7S is it can use the M series lenses too. The first DSLR Nikons I bought back in 2004 (D70) and then 2007 (D40) are still in the family with my daughter and son still using them. I used to own a Nikon FE2 when I was a newspaper photographer in the mid-80's and consider that the most reliable and usable film SLR that I ever operated. My son has an FE2 now, so he's keeping up the family tradition in that regard too.
John Mc

 

[Doug]

My longest used camera would be the Leica M2 button-rewind I got used in 1967. I used a Pentax H3v before that but the one I have now is not the same one...

I still have my first digital camera, a Kodak/Chinon DC50 that cost me $990 in Mar 1996. And its sensor sports less than one megapixel! 🙂

 

[David Hughes]

Leica CL bought secondhand with both 40 and 90mm lenses when the new ones were still on sale, so a long, long time ago.


Regards, David

 

[Abbazz]

Film: my camera with the longest period of use is my black Rollei 35SE. I have been shooting with it for 37 years (with a few interruptions) and it still works very well, even though Rollei 35s do look ugly when their paint or chrome wears out. I have now two more 35SE and two 35S as well, just because I find these little cameras fascinating...

Digital: I have a few digicams and DSLRs from the early 2000s that are still working (Canon Powershot S45, Pentax *ist D) but I cannot say I use them very often. The oldest digital camera that I still use regularly is a Sigma DP1. I bought one new in 2008, but it ceased to function early this year (lens not extending), so I bought another one on eBay because who needs more than 4.7 megapixels? (Have you ever wondered how many megapixels there are in a Van Gogh by the way? And in a Monet or Seurat?)

Cheers!

Abbazz

 

[zenza]

Bronica SQ-A bought in 2005 at the age of 16 after a summer of mowing lawns. Still my favourite camera to use.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

A Contax 139Q, purchased when they were introduced in 1979, is my longest running, in continuous use, camera. Camera ownership started around 1956, with a Brownie, but the ones before ‘79 are long gone. I’ve certainly got older cameras which are in continuous use now, but I wasn’t the original owner. ( And, I do smile whenever I hear someone knock these as being either unreliable or unrepairable.)
So, 40 years for the 139Q, seemed like a lot to me, but it’s nothing compared to some of the stories here.

Digital bodies come and go starting around 30 years ago, but they don’t hang around long enough to get attached to them (with one exception, my remaining one of two Fuji S5 Pro bodies, owned since 2007, which, aside from it being aps-c and low Megapixel count, produces files, within its shooting envelope, which are unsurpassed in most ways and unequaled in other ways, even compared with my Leica SL, Sony RX1, or Nikon Z7. Amazing, unique, and sadly abandoned sensor tech on that thing.)

 

[Out to Lunch]

AD 2019, who'd actually care which camera anyone else has used for the longest time? What is the use of this information?

 

[Goodtimes]

My longest used camera is the one my parents gave me in 1978 when I was 15 years old: Minolta SR-7 with a 58mm f1.4.
They bought it in South Africa when I was a very young kid in 1964.
I used it a lot for many years and it is still working fine with no dent and no wear sign since we always protected it very well.

The most used digital camera is my Leica M8.2.

 

[Larry Cloetta]

AD 2019, who'd actually care which camera anyone else has used for the longest time? What is the use of this information?

Many of these seem more like personal stories than gear stories, to me. Taken in that vein, none of this is of any “use”, but enjoyable just the same. I’m not very pragmatic, a fault which has allowed me to find much of this to be interesting.

 

[CharlesDAMorgan]

My longest camera was the Pentax 67 with 300mm lens, 2x multipliers and two sets of macro tubes. Problem is, it rather sagged so was probably most ill used too.

As to used, I think my 1933 Leica III has had the most use but wears it well. I just wonder what it was used for in its first 12 years of life.

 

[Out to Lunch]

Larry, I get it. My first camera...a Lubitel when I was 12. Prints to show for it but they're in a safe 16 hours flying away from where I am now. Cheers.

 

[ACullen]

I’ve had my Contax 139Q since 1983 and Yashicamat 124 from around the same time. The 139q remains a frequently used camera the Yashicamat has been displaced largely by a Rolleiflex 3.5f I bought four years ago as I got back into film.

Last year the Rolleiflex and a Pentax Espio Mini were my most used cameras with an M2 close behind. This year it’ll be the M2 and a new to me Agfa Super Isolette. Next year different again....

 

[DownUnder]

Longest owned? Hm...

A Rolleiflex 3.5E2 I bought new in 1966. Used a lot until about ten years ago. Serviced for the first and only time in 2001. Taken out and tested (winding, speeds checked etc etc) This thread is a kick in the pants for me, and I'll be taking it out in the very near future for a shoot.

Next, a pair of Nikkormat ELs I bought in the late 70s. Still working a new. I take them out of mothballs 1-2 times every year and shoot a roll of B&W film in each, to remind them that they are still loved. Alas, I've not processed any of these films since 2012. So!

Two Rolleiflex Ts I bought in the 1990s, equipped with 16 exposure kits, for use in my travels at the time. Very little used. Taken out and played with like the Nikkormats.

All this reminded me that it's time for me to get more into film again while I can, before it (and I) disappear from this avatar...

Digital, not so long ago. Two D700s, one bought (new) in 2012, another (used) in 2017. Both malfunctioning (gross overexposure) and unreliable. A Nikon Df (a gift to me in 2018). I bought a Nikon Z6 this year but had to return it three times to Nikon for servicing and the camera shop owner finally gave up and I was refunded.

I now wonder why I didn't keep the Nikon D90 I bought new in 2009 and sold last year to a friend who still uses it and produces superb imagery with it. Built to last. Which would make it 11 years old and still in use. The very best of the Nikon DX prosumers, I reckon.

We won't be writing any future posts like these about most digital cameras. They are, purely and simply, consumer products. You buy them, you use them for a while, they malfunction or die outright, you pitch them into the nearest trash can and you start the process again. Tools. Nothing much else.

So I've decided. No more digital Nikons for me. Life's too short and my aggravation levels over new camera gear sold for top dollar but defective, have risen to way above stratospheric cloud levels. Film is the way. While it lasts...

 

[tunalegs]

Since I have a lot of cameras, they tend to be used only a few times over a very long period of time. One camera that I used intensely though was an Edixa Prismaflex which I was constantly running film through from 2012 through 2016. I ran Agfa Precisa through it, almost exclusively, and when that film was discontinued I stopped using it. Its last real outing was when I took it with me to Japan and it developed a front-focusing issue, so now it's on the shelf.

I still have five or six rolls of Precisa I need to drop off...

 

[dmr]

Probably the K1000.

I don't use it as much as before, lately preferring the MX or MG

It does need a good CLA if I start using it regularly again.

 

[George Mann]

A Nikkormat FT2 since I was 7 ('75)

 

[Ccoppola82]

My first real camera was a canon 6d which I still love using for certain things. My longest film camera is my grandfathers brassed black Spotmatic F which I will never get rid of.