Favorite? My immediate reaction to that one would almost certainly be, to say, my M42-Screw 1972 Sigma MK1 Richoch Copy.
It fell out of some-ones attic circa 1993, and was gifted to me for shifting boxes! Plus no-one else could remember how to work a completely clock-work, full manual SLR!
And I had a 'moment'. At the time, M42 lenses were incredibly cheap as out of fashion. Primes even more so.... so decided to built up a 'period' 60/70's 'all-prime' SLR kit around it, when I popped in the camera shop for film, having a rummage through the 'bargain-baskets' for lenses, often cheaper (then!) than a roll of film!
It's one 'chunk' of all metal camera, you KNOW you have something in your hands! And when that metal focal-plane shutter fires, there's a definite mechanical 'ker-chunk'... in fact all the controls... well, both of them! Are like that! It's just such a tactile and definitely mechanical camera to actually use.
B-U-R-T.... then I start to ponder... and there's my 'first' Camera, an Olympus XA2.... I have three, two others bequithed to me when I grumbled my original, given to me as an 11th birthday present in 1981 was 'finally' almost dead, with a scratched lens.. it doesn't 'always' manifest itself, but whe the AE sets the 'wrong' aperture + the suns in the wrong direction it gives horrible flare spots that were getting gradualy worse for about three years.... but given it was a teen-ager's camera, went every where with me for almost two decades, and has probably cranked more miles of film and more miles of travel than ANY other camera I have ever owned.... Probably about 1/3 of all the film photo's I have ever taken (a total in the 10's of 1000's!) were with that camera.
I have a soft spot for the thing! If I stuffed some batteries in it and a roll of film, it would still take photo's, too.... just a shame that some of them would be ruined by the lens scratch!
But.... SINCE its only partially functional, and I have hung on to it, that has to say 'something'. It's certainly my 'Most Used' camera, and one of the bequeathed successors still gets slipped in my pocket on outings.
A-N-D so, as more a sentimental keep-sake, than a 'camera', begs mention of the other 'sentimental-keep-sakes'....
Some while after my Grandad died in 1994, his old Konica C35 was found in a draw and handed to me, and I have cherished it ever since. It still works and damnably 'well', and I keep it loaded, and as a 'just-in-case' camera. It's something a bit personal to the fella, as well as useful. And 'every-one' seemed to have one of these when I was a kid; they were one of the first 'affordable' almost point and shoot friendly 35mm cameras in the early 70's, even the wife could use, with enough 'over-ride' for Dad to get a bit pretentious with... if either remembered to take the lens cap 'off'! Lol! (Main sales feature of the later XA2 ISTR actually! Is clam-shell cover, you 'had' to open to take a picture so 'couldn't' forget to take the lens cap off!)
Slightly later, doing my C&G Photo-Course, I had a junk-shop camera assignment, but no money to spend in a junk-shop!!! Which begat my other Granddad giving me his 'old' Voiglander TLR, which he bought in a bizarre in Jerusalem, when in the RAF, to take his wedding photo's with.... I ran one roll of 120 through that one for the assignment, to discover that the rollers were corroded to heck and scratched the emulsion like a Charlie Chaplin movie! So one for display-only, that one.
But those two, begged the start of the collection of 'Family-Cameras', that now includes my Granddad's oft vaunted Kodak Retinette 35mm, that succeeded the Voiglander so he could shoot colour slide film; and my Gt Uncle's Ziess Ikonta 'folder'. Two cameras they frequently argued the merits of in my childhood at family gatherings. Granddad vaunting the merits of being able to shoot 'cheap' colour slides (No-one ever got to see, as he perpetually needed a new bulb for the projector!); Whilst uncle John, countered that his 120 Folder let him take 6x9cm B&W's that he could, using his army training from the war, develop in the kitchen sink, and 'contact-print' for the family album the same night, without any more than a couple of pains of glass and an old baking tray!... While with only 8 frames on a roll, it didn't sit around in the camera for (literally!) years before being processed!
I have used, that Zess Ikonta, and it still has a film in it, I believe! Another wonderfully 'tactile' camera to work, and not 'too'cumbersome, to weild, either, surprisingly. But not often reached for, unfortunately. Last time, was when the kids convinced me to go to a WWII 're-enactment' day at the local preserved railway. 1940's 'event'? 1940's Camera? Seemed to fit.... but I took the Sigma! I rather liked the idea of being able to take more than 8 photo's!
SO! Can we put the 'Sentimental-Keep-Sakes' on a shelf and say that they aren't 'really' cameras?
If so, then the vote goes to the Sigma... if not... Well, you try take'em! I have a Zenit! And I am NOT afraid to defend the shelf with it!
The OM's? Well, yeah, you can take them, I suppose.. and that electric-picture-maker thing? I would probably not mourne it's loss too much.. you can DEFINITELY take the ruddy camera-phone! No no I can live without the 'phone too!
So where does that leave things?
Err... on the shelf... on the record-player.. decorating the fire-place I think! No-No-No-oh! They are NOT cameras... they are obje-d'art! That's MY excuse and I am sticking too it! Lol.