I'm clearing out stuff and getting rid of all my old camera gear.
Put an old range-finder on ebay and got twenty quid for it.
That leaves my old Praktica TL3, lenses, flash gun, camera bag and other sundry stuff. Seems the Praktica's not worth as much as the range-finder from looking at ebay prices.
Any suggestions as to the the best place to flog it for sensible money?
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It's sad really, the demise of film. By far the nicest camera to use is my Olympus OM1, and I have a truly ridiculous assortment of lenses for it. Don't think I'll ever get rid of it though, although the digital SLR I have is astoundingly easy to use, nothing quite gives the satisfaction of the OM1 to actually use it.
The OM1 uses a now unobtainable mercury battery for the light meter, but you can get a Japanese made battery converter in this country that enables the use of readily bought batteries.
None of the stuff you list is likely to be worth much, you can get a good second-hand camera bag in a shop for £10, so I doubt they pay any more than a fiver for one. Bay of E sometimes surprises, but I can understand someone not wanting to go there.
I think you are not far from St Albans and Clarks on Holywell Hill are well known as a real camera shop and do sell some second hand kit.
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It might be worth contacting a local photography club, they can have a whole range of enthusiasts. Unfortunately obsolete equipment has little value unless it is rare and high quality and is in mint condition.
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Ohh, thought of something else, some colleges who teach the artistic elements of photography like their students to use film. So they might be a useful contact too.
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My son bought a mint Canon A1 a while ago. It's lovely and I still covet one.
Back along I bought him a mint AE1 Program (to replace the one I bought him in about 1986) at a car boot sale over here for five euros.
All that engineering gone for nothing.
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Photo students like Pentax gear. The heavy, clunky and very basic K1000 clunked on well into the digital age because colleges recommended it, and whenever I went to my local shop to look at the secondhand selection there were a couple of students looking at Pentax bodies and lenses. A 1980s K1000 body would fetch more than a lighter and more capable ME Super or even an MX, entirely because of student demand.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Thu 12 Nov 15 at 16:01
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Modern digital equipment is remarkable, although I was brought up on film. My D90 and Nikon 18-105mm lens is matched by an earlier final production F401 body and superb Tamron 28-200mm auto lens (as compact as a standard lens), but I also have an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic bought in 1966 with an outstanding f1.8 Super Takumar 50mm standard lens.
As others have rightly point out though, fully automatic cameras followed by modern digital cameras of the past 10 to 15 years (yes, it's that long), followed by first class mobile phone cameras in many cases, have brought the enjoyment of photography to a vast new number of people over that time.
I still have a Minolta E203 compact camera from 2001 that cost £199.99 (I bought it at a bargain price against the normal £350) that had 2Mp, an excellent 3x zoom lens and the ability to enable cracking A4 prints to be turned out, thanks to that proper optical lens.
Yet, like some two-thirds of digital cameras at that time, it was produced in Taiwan, which was the source for so many excellent photographic products.
Last edited by: Stuartli on Fri 13 Nov 15 at 00:34
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As others have rightly point out though, fully automatic cameras followed by modern digital cameras of the past 10 to 15 years (yes, it's that long), followed by first class mobile phone cameras in many cases, have brought the enjoyment of photography to a vast new number of people over that time.
Except, you would not believe how truly awful the majority of photos are taken on mobile phones. I run a website for the local scout group and of what I get postulated for publication, at least 3 out of 4 are unpublishable. Some of the ones that are on the site I've had to doctor/photoshop to remove things from view that had they appeared in a normal viewfinder, I'd have hoped no rational being would have pressed the shutter release. Perhaps I've got too high standards, but I really am using just the very basics.
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>>Except, you would not believe how truly awful the majority of photos are taken on mobile phones>>
Would generally agree - I normally use a phone for making calls or surfing...:-!
However, my last mobile phone (an HTC One X) had a quite remarkable camera which was capable of taking photos and videos in excellent quality right down almost to darkness (and usually without the use of flash). They stood up well when compared to my Nikon DSLR's results.
The replacement HTC One M8's camera is but a pale shadow....
However, you use the most appropriate camera for the results required...:-)
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Phones can often make quite acceptable images, but the real problem is, put something that takes pictures in their hand and the man in the street thinks he is David Bailey.
Super portrait format (ie tall and thin) is the usual problem, but there are many others. I have published phone images, but rarely.
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>By far the nicest camera to use is my Olympus OM1,
Very true.
I still have my OM1 plus lenses.
Compared to it's rivals at the time, the OM1 was very light, very quiet and had every control right under your fingertips. Very, very quick and intuitive to use. With the f1.4 50mm and a Vivitar S1 70-210mm (sadly gone) I got some excellent shots.
I also have an OM4 which has a metering system that was lauded as 'state of the art' when it was introduced. In reality it doesn't do anything I can't do with the OM1 and just tends to get in the way.
People are asking silly money for OM4s (£300+) on ebay.
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Basically landfill now. I guess every house in then land has a few film cameras in a cupboard somewhere. Virtually no market for the stuff unless it is very high end.
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Got three 35mm SLRs in the loft. A Cosina CS-1 and Edixa Prismat TTL of my own plus a Praktica that belonged to late Mother out law.
Not much use except as aids when Mrs B is teaching relevant parts of a Physics course.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Thu 12 Nov 15 at 16:49
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>> Virtually no market for the stuff unless it is very high end.
And there's me thinking my 1965 Voightlander Vito CLR might by now be a collectors item.
Last edited by: Clk Sec on Thu 12 Nov 15 at 16:59
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chucked my ME super in the bin.
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Powered up mine last week. It's heavy, clunky, and goes off with a loud bang compared to my iPhone....which will probably take better pictures as well.
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I still have an ME (not Super), a K1000 (the Japanese made one) and a MZ5N. All worthless I imagine. The last despite being inexpensive was my favourite - all the automatics and sophisticated metering but traditional controls for manual use - shutter speed knob on the right, exposure compensation on the left, aperture setting on the lens ring.
Last edited by: Manatee on Thu 12 Nov 15 at 17:42
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Mrs CS tells me that a nearby charity shop has quite a few 35mm cameras for sale at a few £s each. I might drop the Voightlander off there tomorrow.
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"chucked my ME super in the bin"
Can't quite bring myself to do that with mine Z, or the MX (with a nice f1.4 50 mm lens and telephotos). As someone said above, they are nice pieces of engineering and I keep kidding myself that I'll go and buy a film, take the photos, go to Boots for prints and look through them and stick the good ones in an album rather than losing dozens of digital photos somewhere on the computer.
Don't feel quite the same about the old Zenit B (1970?) which I bought when couldn't afford anything else (though the lens seemed quite good at the time!).
Mind you, also got a few old digital cameras in the same box under the stairs (Canon Ixus 2.1 mp or Ixus 3.2 anyone?, couple of Fuji Finepixes 5 something? Samsung W700?- seemed miraculous at the time!!)
Mrs W has a similar collection!! Along with about 20 old mobile phones!!
Guess my latest Panasonic (DX 10 or something?) will end up in same box soon!
P
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>> "chucked my ME super in the bin"
>> Can't quite bring myself to do that with mine Z, or the MX (with a
>> nice f1.4 50 mm lens and telephotos). As someone said above, they are nice pieces
>> of engineering and I keep kidding myself that I'll go and buy a film, take
>> the photos, go to Boots for prints and look through them
And find they were all under exposed....
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Had an OM10 years back, and bought a wodge of lenses of various types. All this was on the verge of chuckery, but then found for about a tenner on the bay an adaptor for my digital Olympus Pen.
So have had lots of interesting experiments using 30 year old lenses on the new kit. Lots of drawbacks, but does mean that my super duper zoom lenses from years back are now pressed into service as double powered super duper lenses, giving me the ability to take photos up the nostrils of someone half a mile away, if there's a nuclear explosion to actually light it.
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>> And find they were all under exposed....
Exactly the (ironic) point I made to a CAB colleague using his phone to capture several of us being presented with our City and Guilds certificates in energy assessing. The decent shots were on the bureau's twitter feed in less time then it would have taken to walk a 35mm cartridge to Boots.
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I've got a Brownie 127, a 1935 Retina, and a nice mahogany Victorian plate camera with brass fittings.
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And you, privately, think they're all a bit modern, don'tcha?
};---)
What is the photographic equivalent of the Volvo 240, I wonder. Hasselblads went to the moon, Leicas were good enough for Cartier Bresson, Nikon Fs have been just about everywhere else...
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>> And you, privately, think they're all a bit modern, don'tcha?
>> };---)
>> What is the photographic equivalent of the Volvo 240, I wonder.
My Canon Asus does everyhing I want, it's very manoeuvrable, tight turning circle, reliable, and of course is shaped like a brick.
My father lugged the plate camera about the Yorkshire dales on honeymoon in 1946. After that he bought the secondhand Retina, which I later used for years, until fairly recently. It's pocket-size, unlike a lot of later better cameras.
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"And find they were all under exposed...."
Don't forget the over exposed and out of focus and the ones where I forgot to switch on the flash!
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More photos have been taken in the last ten years than in the entire history of the world. Someone said that most of them will disappear into the ether as the colour fades on cheap prints or media becomes obsolete. Maybe film has one big advantage. I have a photographic record of at least 30 years of my life on film. Most of my digital life exists on memory cards, hard discs and in the cloud...all a bit vulnerable...
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>> "And find they were all under exposed...."
>> Don't forget the over exposed and out of focus and the ones where I forgot
>> to switch on the flash!
>>
My ME Super (well actually it was an ME-F, but 99% the same) developed an irritating habit of randomly underexposing one photo in three or thereabouts by several stops, I don't think it was the only one. Replaced with an SF-7 then an MZ5n I got cheap, the latter was and is a very nice camera, even if I haven't used it since about 2006 :-/
Must admit if I ever get my photography mojo back I'll probably get a CSC rather than an SLR, despite my collection of K fit bits and pieces. Same optical quality in a significantly smaller / lighter package. Sony A6000 would be my current choice, albeit you're looking at a grand with a couple of lenses.
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Interesting how many of us here were ME Super owners. I think I passed my 2nd one on to daughter and she was using it until about 5 years ago. My original with lenses was stolen in a burglary about 20 years ago and the insurance company at that time paid out on the second hand value which was about 100% more tha I had paid about 20 years before that.
I still have collection of 3 Olympus Trip35s (originals) which were in the glove boxes of every car for about 20 years until about 2 years ago. Perhaps I should take the films out and see what was on them. Really should get rid.
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I'm another, and I still have the habits it taught me, chiefly that aperture is the most important parameter in most cases, so the one to set first. When I moved to an MZ5n and then a *ist-DL2, I mostly kept the mode dial at A, and I still use A a lot even on the tiny Canon S100 that is my main camera today. And, of course, I can - and do - still use the SMC-A lenses on the newer bodies; focusing the 50mm f/2.8 Macro is a real mechanical treat.
Last edited by: WillDeBeest on Fri 13 Nov 15 at 10:49
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I still have my first " proper" camera, An Edixa SLR with an interchangeable pentaprism and screens.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edixa_Reflex
My understanding is his predates the Pentax ( who copied the lens fitting ). The waist level viewfinder enabled me to take many photos that were impossible /very difficult with almost all 35mm SLRs.
I will not be binning it.
I miss the depth of focus scale on my old lenses. I used that feature a lot.e
I also have Pentax film SLR and Canon film SLR. The Canon lenses fit my digital Canon which is a bonus.
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>> I still have collection of 3 Olympus Trip35s (originals) which were in the glove boxes
>> of every car for about 20 years until about 2 years ago. Perhaps I should
>> take the films out and see what was on them. Really should get rid.
>>
I can't resist them :-) bought another one for 4 quid in a charity shop the other week, I've got two pointless Trip35s and a Minolta equivalent now.
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Are you a catalogue stylist? Most of the clothing catalogues that arrive addressed to Mrs Beest feature 19-year-old models pointing 1960s rangefinders vaguely in the direction of a Routemaster or a Pashleyesque bike - presumably after getting instructions from the art director on which way up to hold it.
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>> Perhaps I should take the films out and see what was on them.<<
I've just checked my Voightlander and there's a part used film which must have been in there for about 15 years, but I guess that's likely to be well past any chance of having it developed.
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>> Perhaps I should take the films out and see what was on them.<<
The old Praktica in my OP had some film in it. A couple of the pics had deteriorated, but the rest were OK. We dated them as being around fifteen years old.
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>> We dated them as being around fifteen years old. <<
I'll pop them in to Boots. That should give them a larf.
Thanks, Tom.
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"I'll pop them in to Boots."
Do they still do it? Ours has lost is processing section and replaced it with screens and printers.. :-(
I do use digital cameras, but I still have a Mamiya TLR, to remind me what a real one looks like! Rather wonderfully, the instructions open with: "We are highly gratified that you have selected the MAMIYA C330 from among so many makes of cameras on the market". So nice to be appreciated...
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>> "I'll pop them in to Boots."
>>
>> Do they still do it? Ours has lost is processing section and replaced it with
>> screens and printers.. :-(
I haven't got around to that yet, but I'll call in this afternoon and ask them.
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>> Do they still do it? Ours has lost is processing section and replaced it
>> with screens and printers.. :-(
>> I'll call in this afternoon and ask them.
They've told me that they can send my film away to be processed. Even said they could get this done quickly for an additional charge. :-)
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Thanks, CS. I found an exposed film in my old Yashica SLR recently and I really ought to get it developed - it may even have photos of the former Mrs JBJ on it.. :-)
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>> Thanks, CS. I found an exposed film in my old Yashica SLR recently and I
>> really ought to get it developed - it may even have photos of the former
>> Mrs JBJ on it.. :-)
>> Remember, posting revenge porn on Facebook is now an offence...
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Every time I look at my SLR I feel quite sad. Though it weighed a ton I took it nearly everywhere with me for years. I couldn't possibly get rid of it. Silly really. Can't imagine ever being attached to a digital thing.
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>> Every time I look at my SLR I feel quite sad. Though it weighed a
>> ton I took it nearly everywhere with me for years.
I know the feeling only too well. Last week we embarked on a little "de-cluttering". Out from the cabinet came the Pentax ME Super, K1000, Voightlander range finder, Olympus Trip and Contax T2. Beautifully made, wonderful heft in the hand, satisfying mechanical sounds and worth nothing. So of course after humming and hahing and general playing around they all went back again. To be repeated in about a year. Maybe then I will have Zero's resolve.
Shortly before this I was making a slide show (on iPhoto) for my daughter's wedding, using old prints and 35mm slides. Images readily to hand after 30 years. Hope we can say the same about our digital images whether on hard drive or cloud.
alfalfa
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By chance I noticed this morning that the supermarket in Oradour still sells Fuji roll films and has a developing service. I might be tempted. I have a lovely Minolta XG2 with all lenses, etc, in a holdall, a Voightlander Bessa folder, all sorts of stuff including SWMBO's father's Zorki 1 fake Leica, all in working order, as far as I can tell. It's all the stuff I couldn't bear to part with when I sold everything else to a dealer in the UK before leaving. I thought he was being generous, even then...
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Tesco, Max Spielmann and, as far as I'm aware, Boots and no doubt others, still have a film developing and printing service for those interested here...:-)
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I've got two Pentax bodies, a Z10 and SF7 plus various lens. Like others, I just can't bear to bin them.
I also have a Cannon DSLR, compacts are all right and great to carry round but I hate not having a viewfinder, I just can't get on with viewing on the LCD screen.
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I am yet another ME Super and K1000 owner, together with a very old Miranda SLR before Dixons took the brand over and ruined it. The latter has interchangeable viewfinders (eye level prism and waist level) that are beautifully engineered.
Also got one of the folding Russian enlargers and developing tanks etc. How many happy hours were spent producing prints...............lots. How many of them were any good.............very few.
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A couple of ME Super cameras were auctioned today on eBay - each one fetched about £25.
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One of our charity shops had a load of camera eqpt donated. We researched it and as is often the case it was the lenses rather than the cameras that were the more pricier items.
We priced them up appropriately and put them in the shop window to attract passing trade. Sold a few of them to enthusiasts and then someone decided to smash the window at 4 in the morning and took the rest.
So looks like there is still a demand for them!
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My father gave me a good SLR camera with a small but very good telephoto lens, which i usually kept on it.
Got two great shots behind my hotel in Chad, one of a French Jaguar fighter flying down the Chari River leaving a ripple under it, the other of a fisherman in the very act of casting his huge net over another bit of the river. That was taken just after a long and complicated bit of interpretation in a clamorous bus queue sort of thing, but all that is out of sight and it's apparently African rural paradise.
I'm especially pleased with the Jaguar shot, the camera is following the plane so the background is blurred.
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>> taken just after a long and complicated bit of interpretation in a clamorous bus queue sort of thing, but all that is out of sight and it's apparently African rural paradise.
Sorry to be boring. In the bus queue, an undisciplined crowd as usual, there were Nigerian 'peacekeepers' of the OAU force, and also Chadians from at least two armies or armed organizations. All luggage was being searched and perhaps rifled through. The Nigerians had arrested the owner of a suitcase in a corner of which they had found two Kalash rounds, 'military equipment'. Although the Chadians and Nigerians came from areas not a hundred miles apart, it turned out they had no common language and that I, having two European languages, could serve as a vector. With my help, the Chadians prevailed and the terrified geezer was released. The suitcase belonged to his brother who had been 'killed at the front'. But the peacekeepers didn't return the Kalash rounds.
Feeling chuffed, I wandered off to look down at the river and saw this fisherman chap gathering his big round net to cast. All I had to do was focus the camera and fire it at the right moment, which for once I did. The clamorous bus queue, only yards away, might as well not have existed.
Photos are often odd like that. I've got a shot of a Libyan pilot being frogmarched into captivity by one of the Chadian groups too. Although he was surrounded and being jostled by his captors, none of them are visible and he looks as if he is taking a relaxed afternoon stroll on his own.
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I love the "When the Going Was Good"-type reports from AC.
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Wet processing ceased to be any fun after - at University - my department had a fully fitted dark room including processing machine. Put the undeveloped print in at one end, and the developed print dropped out at the other end 90 seconds (or whatever) later. Flat and dry. For all that I never put any fun photographs - as opposed to photographs of samples - through it, I *could* have.
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Some old 35mm cameras can remain useful in certain situations; my son was delighted to get hold of a Nikon FM2 on ebay as a back-up on Arctic assignments. He claims the camera has a mechanical rather than an electronic shutter and is therefore not dependent on battery power to get a picture.
At the moment, he mainly uses Canon gear - C300s for video and 5Ds for still, along with a selection of GoPros.
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He claims the camera has a mechanical rather than an electronic shutter...
He's right - although 'electromechanical' or 'electromagnetic' might be a better contrasting term for other cameras of that age. The ME Super has a 125X setting for its one purely mechanical shutter speed.
Both still need a battery for the meter, of course.
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"Both still need a battery for the meter, of course."
If it's so cold that the meter (battery) fails as well, there's always guesswork.
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>> "Both still need a battery for the meter, of course."
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>> If it's so cold that the meter (battery) fails as well, there's always guesswork.
>>
or my faithful Sangamo Weston Master Five ( with invercone )inc cases
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>> or my faithful Sangamo Weston Master Five ( with invercone )inc cases
My father had something similar to calibrate his double eight cine camera.
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Double eight? I know about standard eight and super eight, but double?
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>> Double eight? I know about standard eight and super eight, but double?
It was actually 16mm film. Ran through the camera once, exposing half the width. User then had to retire to subdued light and turn the film over to expose the other side. As part of processing the film was split laterally and the two sections spliced together.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/8_mm_film
EDIT: apparently it was an alternative name for Standard Eight.
A plane spotting friend of mine in the seventies used it. We inventively used a rubbish bin and somebody's coat to create the subdued light required for a film turnover. Doing so while the unusual plane he wanted to film had just reported at the Outer Marker - about 2.5mins from touchdown.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Sat 14 Nov 15 at 14:06
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Interesting, ta.
I have an actual 16mm film in my loft I took 40 years ago, but never got to see it, and nor did anyone else.
I ought to make an effort to get it digitised, as it was taken at school when in the CCF RAF thing and there are bound to be picture of planes and shooting and marching and goodness knows what else, as well as the school grounds and people, of course. Luckily I didn't have to do any of that tedious stuff, because, sir, I'm shooting a film you see.
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>> "Both still need a battery for the meter, of course."
>>
>> If it's so cold that the meter (battery) fails as well, there's always guesswork.
In the cold white arctic you always know its going to be backlit 24 hours a day
Except when its dark 24 hours a day. then you can shoot nothing.
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"In the cold white arctic you always know its going to be backlit 24 hours a day"
I'll have to take your word for that, Zed, I've never been there.
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Its an assumption, neither have I.
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>> Its an assumption, neither have I.
I'd guess that a professional photographer, stuck with a single mechanical fallback exposure time, would have an intuitive feel for the required F stop. Try a couple more either way for good luck and then rely on the processor being able to fix it.
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The Sunny 16 rule, as used to be printed inside every Kodak film carton. That was set at 1/125; the FM2's advantage is that the full range of speeds is available even with no battery.
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>> Except when its dark 24 hours a day. then you can shoot nothing.
>>
We took many photos of the northern lights when we were in the Finnmark area, you have to get away from any light pollution for real darkness and good photos of the sky.
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Getting rid of old 35mm camera gear - Slidingpillar
