Will YOUR camera out live you?

[Pherdinand]

The thread title and the poll question are sligtly (completely) different.

Many of my cameras will probably outlive me. Unless end of world suddenly happens and we all die, together with our cameras,🙂, i don't see why my 70 y old rolleiflex would not live 70 years more.

However the longest ownership for a camera i still use (once in a while) is only about 5 years.

 

[Pherdinand]

I must add i am only 30 and also, my years before i was 15 were spent behind a certain curtain (not a shutter curtain, but similar functionality, and with a strongly jammed opening mechanism...lol) so practically the camera i own the longest is a stupid little smena 8m. I used it when i was a kid, my parents used it when they were young, it must have at least 30-35 years, and I think it still works, but no i don't use it anymore. I don't even know where it is.
And i don't have nostalgic feelings to that piece of cr@p. 🙂

 

[oftheherd]

My god ... fancy you having a Fujica that long! Who would have believed it? 😱 😛

Bite your tongue sir! 😀 😀 😀

I'll see your bid and raise you a Fujica AZ-1 I recently purchased that is still chugging along.

 

[bean_counter]

My main, every day camera is a IIIf my father bought while in the army in the early '50's - it and a summitar for $80 plus an old scale focus camera in trade. The original GI orginal owner bought it in Germany, but lost his shirt playing cards, and my father had ready cash and a bad case of GAS.

Alas, my father 'borrowed' it back 3 weeks ago for a trip down to the Keys - it's been so cold and lonely....

 

[Dogman]

All the cameras I currently use were purchased within the last 5-10 years. But some of them were purchased used--some are 20-40 years old. I have lenses that are even older. One of my lenses has already lived longer than I have.

 

[David Goldfarb]

The camera I've owned the longest and still use is a Canon New F-1 that I bought new around 1983 (with insurance money from the theft of an A-1 and a few other items) or so and still use. It's the only 35mm camera I own these days.

I own and use many cameras much older than that. My 11x14" American Optical camera is over 100 years old. I would expect most of my cameras to outlive me.

 

[Pherdinand]

Alas, my father 'borrowed' it back 3 weeks ago for a trip down to the Keys - it's been so cold and lonely....

I'd love to see my father borrow any of my cameras...
He's pensioned and i'm desperately trying to rise his interest for ANYTHING in this world
he loved to go fishing and did it for tens of years, but even that seems boring to him now. i don't know what to do...
He stands in the kitchen window looking out through, and smoking a cigarette, more or less that's how his days are spent lately

 

[Finder]

He's pensioned and i'm desperately trying to rise his interest for ANYTHING in this world

How about a grandchild?

 

[Pherdinand]

Finder 🙂)
excellent idea
at least we thought so
so he has a grandchild now
but the complications are, that all of us three kids live abroad
his grandchild is at a long day travel distance by train
and he's SO difficult to decide to go over there... not that he'd have anything to keep him too busy from traveling...just the hassle, and he's not feeling that magnificent and young neither.
Maybe in a year or two, when my niece gets a bit bigger, they can go back hoe sometimes.
but this does not help the simple daily life getting more interesting...

 

[marke]

I have been dieting and exercising so I hope I am turning the tide against my cameras.

I wish I could say the same. 😱

Thi sounds like a fun poll, so I'm in.

My first "real" camera is a 1973/74 Argus/Cosina STL 1000. It's currently being used by a student in high school who couldn't afford a camera for her photography class. It might possibly out live me, if she's taking good care of it.

My Leica M6 TTL probably will out live me. And my Leica IIIf RD might also. Whatever the case, this poll has given me a renewed interest in getting back in shape. Now I just need to do something with that interest! 🙄

 

[otaku]

I have owned three cameras in the last five years (or less) and used far more than that I do however know many film owners with 30+ year old cameras they still use and plan on keeping till they die I could see myself finding the perfect camera (hoping to get my hands on an M series from leica some day preferably M6 or M7) and holding on to it awhile

 

[pvdhaar]

As a result of a quite drastic equipment purge, none of the cameras I currently own has been with me longer than 5 years. Doesn't mean they're less than 5 years old though, the M4 is from 1970..

 

[Gabriel M.A.]

Hard to tell: will I drop it? Will I smash it? Will it smash me?

Will I lose it?

Will I wrap it in plastic and put it in a display?

 

[MartinP]

Well, my main 35mm camera is (gasp, horror etc) an SLR. I have had the Contax 139Q for more than a quarter of a century, and it was bought second-hand by trading in a Leica II. Not really sacrilege as it needed a lot of work on it and I was a student at the time.

There is nothing on the Contax which is not in the right place, or which works less than wonderfully - in fact it occurred to me recently that I should find a spare, so now I have three bodies and some light-seal & body-cover kits from Akihiro Asahi.

A couple of FSU rangefinder cameras have been with me for only a few years, but are older than I am. Strangely, that Leica II came back to haunt me in the shape of a very good condition Zorki...... 🙂

 

[HankOsaurus]

Greetings, Forum.

Interesting thread going here.

I would guess that one's age could be a big factor in this too. I am 60. My last NEW camera was an F2 I bought in 1975. It is still my favorite overall. I also use an F which I purchased before that, plus some other cameras I bought used since then. Those include a 1959 Leica M3, a 1930s Rolleiflex Standard, an early 50s Voigtlander Vito II, and a 1969 Kiev 4a. I use them all, and they all work properly. I replaced the ribbons in the Kiev several years ago with some guidance from Rick Oleson and some Arsenal ribbon from Oleg in Moscow. I hear that is about all that ever goes wrong with a good working sample.

I know for a fact that the M3 I use outlived its original owner, and it will probably outlive me too. It has only needed and received one CLA by Sherry Krauter since I bought it.

I am thinking about "adding" a digital capability, but have not chosen a body yet. I have no expectation that a modern, automation centric, plastic computer with a lens on front will have longevity anything like the laboratory grade imaging instruments of a generation ago. When the digi breaks I would probably want the next and improved computer with a lens mount anyway... same as with this old PC in front of me. The old one will go the way of the 5-1/4 inch floppy drive.

I suspect that when I and all of the current generation of digiwonders have passed from this earth, that my old M3 will still be recording images for some discerning young photographer. I hope so.

Happy day.

🙂

 

[cmogi10]

My M6 and MP will, in the short months I have owned my current M6 (And the only one I will ever own, it's so smooth and so quiet) I have been less then gentle with it, the previous owner never used it and I have quickly destroyed it's collectors value but it's built to last. It will be used and abused but last forever.
My MP is brand new but when you hold it you know it's a camera that will last forever.

Time will tell when it comes to the M8, but the other too should have no problem outliving me.

 

[payasam]

Still use a Canon FTb bought new in 1975. No longer have the Rolleicord which was over 20 years older -- but the Zorki I got a couple of years back was made in 1953 or 1954 and works flawlessly. My Canon A80 digicam and Olympus E-300 digital SLR will not out-live me.

 

[sepiareverb]

I still use my Brownie Hawkeye about once a year- got it when I was in the second grade, a while ago shall we say? 😉

 

[cosmonot]

Only camera I've bought new is my digi point & shoot. It does what it does, and does it well.

All my real cameras are older than me, often by a factor of 2x, though some are lookng at 3x. FWIW, I'm 27.

 

[Bingley]

I am the original owner of my Oly XA, which I purchased new at 47th St. Photo in NYC in the early 1980s. It's still going strong (w/ some chipped paint).

Regarding the question posed in this thread, I fully anticipate that my Canon P will be clicking away when I'm gone, although I've only had it since late 2005.