Your Favourite Camera?

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Carl
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So yesterday on a Facebook group, someone asked the question about which film camera is your favourite. There were a lot of interesting answers, although I’m sure that some people just wanted to post their most expensive camera. It got me thinking (dangerous, I know), and I thought I’d ask a similar question here:

If you had to get rid of every camera you own except one, which camera would you keep, and why?

No cheating and saying one camera for X and one for Y etc. Just pick one ;)
 
My Nikon F3 plus all my lenses of course.(y)

The camera achieves everything that is required in photography, the camera 100% reliable, feels good in the hand.

One of Nikon,s best at a very good price.
 
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An almost impossible question to answer....

However, I would probably pick my Mamiya C330f. It's a bit of a beast but it does everything well and the lenses are stunning.
 
h'mm there is only one logical answer and it would be a camera that could cope in the most situations of shooting...so out of my lot it has to be the Canon T90 even though I prefer medium format.
 
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I only have two to choose from at the moment, but I am new to this crazy party, give it a couple of years and I'll be at the AA meetings with the rest of you. :banana:

But out of the two I'd keep the Nikon FM. Only have a 50 1.8 with it at the moment but I love that it is all mechanical bar the meter, and the cheap 50 is extremely sharp.
 
I could happily let all my 35mm gear go without a second thought, apart from my new Xpan. Hard to judge that one right now as I'm still on the first roll. But I think that one going out the door would make me very, very sad.

I'd also cry a little when I waved goodbye to my Mamiya 6, because I love using that camera - it feels so good in the hand, and delivers incredibly high quality photos (great slides in particular). But I'm not the biggest fan of rangefinders, and the lenses are of limited focal length.

Rolleiflex 3.5F...?...this is a toughie...I like it, but not as much as my Rolliecord Vb. So that would go.

The Rolleicord was my first MF camera and still one of my favourites. I'll never actually sell it, but as this is a hypothetical exercise...it's gone.

Holga: gone.

Homemade pinhole camera: gone.

So the winner is: my Hasselblad 503. It delivers lovely high quality images, has a flexible range of lenses (love the 40mm), can be used for almost any kind of photography, is reliable, very rugged, light enough with the WLF to carry all day, doesn't require batteries, and is simply joy to use.
 



D3S, D3X, D810, D850 and 16 lenses…
Define the task and I'll tell you which combo is favorite.
Tools and jobs are to be suited for one a another!
 
Nice set Kodiak however I'm not sure how you get the film in those cameras :ROFLMAO:

Only one camera? Tricky.

Think for me it would have to to be my Nikon F4s and 50mm f1.4 lens.
 
My Ebony (SV45TE) is without a doubt the camera I would keep. With the exception of the emotional attachment to my D700, all the rest I could easily live without.
 
I'm not sure how you get the film in those cameras
:banghead::banghead::banghead: … my bad! I didn't read the section this is! :coat:


TAKE TWO!
I don't use them anymore but still have my F3HP's and D4E's.
Getting less younger… I would go for the F4's!
 



D3S, D3X, D810, D850 and 16 lenses…
Define the task and I'll tell you which combo is favorite.
Tools and jobs are to be suited for one a another!

OP did your favourite and it is FILM. OPPS beaten to it.
 
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My Ebony (SV45TE) is without a doubt the camera I would keep. With the exception of the emotional attachment to my D700, all the rest I could easily live without.

Bad boy Jonathan.:)
 
From the point of sentiment, I'd hate to lose my Exakta Varex IIB - it went through my last year at school, university and beyond with me. Beyond that, 35mm doesn't really appeal as the only film size I can use. I feel that for colour I can do better with a digital camera than 120 film, and LF colour doesn't appeal. So that brings it down to black and white which is my preferred medium anyway. Hence, it will be a large format camera.

The bellows draw limits it to the Walker Titan and Canham DLC. The Canham is lighter, but can only be erected and folded on a tripod because of the positioning of the locking levers. So my choice would be the dishwasher-proof Walker Titan.

The only joker in this pack is that I was given my Mamiya C330f by someone on another forum - it was his father's, and he wanted it to go to someone who would use it. So I'd feel honour bound to only give it up if I could find someone who would also use it. No difficulty here, I think!
 
This has to be an emotional response as much as anything. My choice (which I do not want to make) would be my Voigtlander Vito B. It is small, compact, solid, has a Prontor shutter (takes a lot to beat), will cope with nearly all photographic requirements and was the camera that started me collecting cameras. It is also the most aesthetically pleasing of my cameras.
 
I only own half a dozen or so film cameras (!), but don't use most of those. So I'd have to choose between a Pentax MX and Pentax LX. I think it would be the latter for its incredible metering system (he says, fingers slightly crossed with an as-yet-undeveloped film on the shelf!).
 
Cosmic 35m, It never ceases to amaze me how good the shots are from such a simple camera using only the sunny 16 rule, the one I have at the moment was my mothers (forced upon her by my dad) and I love the fact there are no electronics to blame or give credit to when the photo goes wrong or looks fantastic.
 
I could narrow it down to two, but not one. I'm really attached to my AE1, and my RB is also a keeper.
 
The OM-1 was the camera that immediately sprang to mind, so it would be that one. I'd miss a lot of the others, but the OM-1 the most I think.

It takes lovely photos, it's compact and looks the part, and has the best viewfinder ever.

I would have to keep my original model Olympus Trip 35 as well though, because my dad gave it to me. The selenium cell has failed, so I don't use it (although I could always shoot it at the 1/40 sec shutter speed it defaults to), so it doesn't really count I feel, as it's more of a keepsake than something I shoot with. :)
 
I don't shoot as much 35mm as I used to so out goes the Hexar AF, Leica M4, and my Nikon bodies (F3HP and FM2n)

While I love shooting/printing 4x5 (especially for portraits), it's never going to be fast enough for candid work. Bye bye to my Tachihara and Linhof Tech V kit (which would really hurt as I'd never find a kit like that for a long while).

Medium format is a nice compromise between the two formats above. I have four medium format cameras: a pretty comprehensive Pentax 67 kit and three Rolleis, (one MX-EVS, a 3.5F and a 2.8F).

I'll have to pick my Rolleiflex 2.8F out of all of them. Amazing quality, just as good for portraiture as a 4x5, I have the Rolleinar 1 and 2 for close ups, and it takes up such a small amount of space in my daily backpack. With a prism finder I can actually shoot quite quickly with it so it pretty much works like my Pentax 67, and it's as silent as my Hexar AF.
 
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Lots of interesting and varied cameras posted so far!

Two cameras that I'd hate to get rid of are my Praktica BX20, as it was my dads for years before he gave it to me, and my C220 as it was the first film camera that I bought.

However, if I had to keep only one camera, it would be my Bronica ETRS. It's got a lovely bright screen and the split prism makes it super easy to focus. It's got a great meter and aperture priority works really well. Out of every camera I own, the ETRS gives me by far the best "hit rate", and there's very rarely a photo that's out of focus or poorly exposed. The only thing I dislike is that I always accidentally leave the meter switched on and because of this, I end up changing the battery all the time!
 
My EOS 620 is pretty capable, and can take all the current Canon Lenses, but I really did love my Pentax ME Super.......
 
Mamiya 6 or Chamonix 045f1 for me, depending on how far I'm walking. Either that or my fm3a, but I'm still early days with that one and only have a 50mm 1.2 to use with it
 
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.
 
Minox 35 EL (from new) and currently has film in it. My Olympus OM1, also from new, hasn’t had film in for 10+ years so must be disqualified :(
 
Rolleiflex. A good Rolleiflex offers a combination of near-silent operating, large negatives, excellent image quality in a compact camera.

I did think about the 'blad - but with dark slides, backs - it does feel like a more technical camera.
 
Contax 139
They just keep working and feel right. The lenses are not bad either :)
 
It was going to be a tie between my Leica M2 and Shen Hao 5x4 field camera until I found that I have to pick only one.

By a whisker, it would have to be the M2. But I'd keep the LF lenses (the camera is the box bit, right?) and beaver away in my workshop to make a replacement 5x4...
 
It'd have to be Arby the RB67! Sure it's a bit battered and bruised, but it's great fun to use!

Although the 645AFD is more convenient, I'll be taking that RB67 to the grave...
 
My first ever camera, an Olympus Trip 35.
 
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