Worst camera you ever owned?

[5aru]

Mine should be the Pentax Spotmatic early needle-metering version. It could be I suck at using it. The fresnel focusing doesn't help, as most of my images weren't focus properly on subjects that I wanted, and the needle metering is slow compared to LED metering. Guess I'm not the vintage camera lover as I thought I am. It's now collecting dust in my cupboard. 🙂

 

[ronnies]

Has to be a Kodak Instant camera (not an Instamatic !) or any Polaroid camera !

Ronnie

 

[ray*j*gun]

Every Kiev I ever owned......I don't always learn the easy way!!

 

[sreed2006]

A Kodak DC290 digital point and wait, and wait, and "Hey where did everybody go?", and then "Click."

Purchased December 1999, this is the only camera I've ever returned after purchase. The time between pressing the shutter button and the camera getting around to taking a picture was well over 2 seconds, making is totally worthless for me.

 

[degruyl]

Olympus digital P&S (no idea which one). Or was that POS? It refused to take pictures when the shutter was released, and insisted on hunt-focusing.

Of real cameras, I have had very good luck with my decisions. My worst camera is also my best and was my most used: Mamiya 7. I hate the fiddly operation (shutter interlock, which has been fixed) and the built-in meter, but I love the pictures and the ease of carrying.

I tend to use the 4x5 field more often lately, but always wax nostalgic when I am too lazy to carry the LF and opt for the MF.

 

[sevo]

My former service queens: Leicaflex SL, Minolta 9000 and Olympus OM4 - arguably I had many cameras which were as bad or even worse, but I paid at least ten times as much for each of these as for any other similarly unreliable camera.

 

[jsrockit]

Some of my earlier digital P&S cameras were bad, but they did the trick at the time since I didn't take them serious. I didn't get along with the D700, but we all know that isn't a bad camera. Wow, I really can't think of one...and I've owned a lot.

 

[Harry S.]

Olympus XA.

Overrated, terrible viewfinder, poor construction, mediocre lens, least tactile shutter button Ive ever felt.

 

[ferider]

My iphone (3G). Every time I'm tempted to use it, when I look at the full size pics at home, they are cr*p.

Roland.

 

[jsrockit]

My iphone (3G). Every time I'm tempted to use it, when I look at the full size pics at home, they are cr*p.

Roland.

My god, you are right! I forgot about that one. I will jack your idea and say x1.

 

[oftheherd]

I have trouble liking my Kiev 4am, but I think I just don't prefer 35mm RF. The camera works fine. The XA takes fine photos, but I have trouble liking the controls. Great as a small camera to carry though. My Rolleiflex. I just don't like 6x6 much any more except in small folders, because they are small to carry. I loved the Yashica 124 MAT G when I had it and no 6x7 camera.

Worst? Hard to define. I have an 8x10 I have never used. In a dark room, looking inside the camera with a flashlight outside, you would swear you were looking at a NASA photo. Maybe that's the worst.

 

[rodt16s]

A GS645, one of the only cameras I've ever sold... look to be the real deal, but was temperamental, mechanically fragile and the thing I could never get to grips with default to portrait.
The worst I've never owned = EOS 5, eye position recoginition in the vf..!!

 

[shimokita]

it was a 120 format folder that I owned in the mid 60's. I can't for the life of me remember the make, but it was german and had a fixed lens with folding finder. It ate every roll that I put thru it, and not sure if I ever got a photo out of it... eventually moved on to a successful time with a Mamiya Super Press ...

Casey

 

[matthewm]

Hands down, the Lomo LC-A+ was the worst camera for me. My mother bought it for me for Christmas a couple of years ago after I mentioned it to her as an idea. The scale focusing sucked. My wife actually sat it down and scale focused it to all the different settings and they all looked the same. It was junk. Very expensive junk and I got nowhere near what mom paid for it when I sold it.

Crappy little thing. Of course, every kid that walks into Urban Outfitters now wants one and has one and they wouldn't know a good photograph if you hit them in the face with it so I'm sure the Lomo people are just cranking them out as fast as they can for $250 a pop.

One good thing is that mom bought me the ringflash to go with it and while it sucked on the Lomo, it worked GREAT on my G10. That was a fun little setup for close-up, wide angle portraiture. 🙂

 

[StenSture]

It is a Nikon F5 with some letter to follow. It wants to do everything by it self. Very Auto-everything. Terrible!

 

[x-ray]

I owned 2 Rollei 3003's back in the 80's. Loved the design and loved the Zeiss lenses but mechanically they were terrible. I had one out for repairs constantly and a loaner backup from Rollei for a year. Magazines scratched film and one plastic gear in the motor stripped every few weeks. If it had been built well it would have been one of the best slr's made. It was designed much like a Hasselblad EL with interchangable backs including polaroid and built in WL and eye level finders, TTL and motor. The interchangable backs were a gereat idea.

 

[tlitody]

My iphone (3G). Every time I'm tempted to use it, when I look at the full size pics at home, they are cr*p.

Roland.

I should have put options for P&S and phone cameras in the poll:bang:

 

[JohnTF]

Kiev 88, and a Horizon, both made repeated trips to Kiev USA who charged me a fortune in postage every time they failed to fix the cameras, but the repair price itself was astronomical. Took someone who knew Saul personally to get a partial refund on the Kiev service.

If only I had the frequent flyer miles these cameras had.

I took the Kiev back to Prague, found some Russians who sent it to, -- wait for it -- Kiev, to replace the shutter, fix the backs, -- then I sold it to a guy who loved it.

Flexarets should be terrific cameras, but they are problem children, even when you have the pick of the litter, sold one to a guy who was not happy, gave him his money back, told him to keep it and let me know if he could get it working, -- he still flamed me, guess his free camera still did not work?

Pentagons -- another idea that should have worked, my friend took one back to Prague 3x and it seems to be working now, you always seem to get a little bag of parts back, never knew if these were broken or left over. Still, the lure of all that Jena glass--

Feds-- gave up actually putting film in them, holes in shutters, etc., but have some to look at. More problems than the Pentacons.

Would rather use my efforts in the image than unreliable or difficult equipment, adapted the P6 glass to Mamiya.

Lost opportunities are more expensive than good equipment.

Regards, John

 

[Mark Wood]

Lomo (sold as a Zenith in the UK in the 1980s) LC-A. Despite being imported and checked by TOE, only one out of three worked and the electronics on that packed in half-way through the second film. The lens was a different story as I think it was worse than the electronics! Nothing sharp, odd colour balance...truly awful. Sorry Lomographers, they're junk. (Try a web search for "Emperor's New Clothes"!)

A year ago I'd have nominated a Kiev 88CM, bought brand new and leaking light from every available angle around the cloth shutter (when the second shutter curtain wasn't sticking before reaching the end of its travel). Now the remarkable bit though... Keith Leedham (mentioned in other threads on Olympus servicing) was prepared to have a look at it and he really did manage to sort the whole thing out. A dozen or so films later, it now seems to work a treat, especially with Pentacon Six CZ lenses. (And yes, it did make one trip to Arax who gave me the money back for servicing, saying that there were just some cameras that couldn't be made to work!)

 

[bsdunek]

Stylophot! Cute and clever, but never could get a good photo from it. Love my Minox B.