Original intent has some merit, but there's always room for creative license. With that, I'll be focusing more on photography than all other disciplines. This doesn't mean that random art and design topics won't show up from time to time. I've become increasingly interested in vintage film cameras and will be pursuing traditional film photography in greater detail.
I've had a few 35mm SLR cameras for some time and then experimented with 120mm through a couple Holgas and an original Diana. I've had an interest in rangefinders ever since I found a few for sale at a good price on Craigslist. After several attempts to contact the seller in order to purchase them at the agree upon price they no longer responded to my messages. After that, I was even more set on purchasing vintage rangefinders.
Months later, on New Years Eve 2018, I was having breakfast while browsing the free section on Craigslist and found a "Diggers Sale" just a few miles away. The horrible cell phone pics in the ad showed a few darkroom lights that I needed, so off I went to explore and acquire the safelight and maybe find more darkroom equipment. I was amazed at all the stuff piled up in the garage. No wonder they call it a diggers sale. There was a dumpster in the driveway they had been filling for three weeks in preparation for the Estate Sale. Inviting the public to rummage through stuff and "pre buy" items was another way they reduced the amount of items to inventory.
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The group of 17 cameras. How many can you identify?
I removed the 200m lens from the Nikkormat for his pic. |
I started poking around in the pile and rummaging from shelf to shelf looking for those darkroom lights. We were only allowed in the garage and the lower basement. I came across a couple old camera's and then noticed a couple more. I soon had an armload and was looking for a place to make a pile. I found an empty folding table outside of the open garage doors and began to fill it up. After about an hour, I had filled the table top with various camera bags and individual cameras. I was just grabbing anything remotely functional, interesting and potentially valuable. There were only a couple other people there. They were very helpful and would let me know when they found another more camera stuff.
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| Three fun little Rangefinders. |
After almost 2 hours I had settled on a small paper cutter and various stuff for my dark room and a load of vintage camera stuff. I only chose cameras in working condition and only a couple duplicates. I ended up with 15 rangefinders and two SLRs, a Nikkormat and a Heiland Pentax with various lenses. The Estate Sale guy there didn't have a clue about each camera, he simply looked at the amount of stuff without looking inside each camera bag and gave me a price. All this for less than $200, I could easily make my money back by selling a good number of these cameras, and that was my plan.
I spent almost 12 hours New Years Day researching all the goodies. There was no better way to start the new year! After cataloging each camera with an estimated "value" based on internet research, I was growing fond of my investments. I decided they each need tested because this would add "value" but also because I was curious to see their capabilities for myself. I plan to produce a series of prints from each one and provide a critique of each camera and the process here on this site.
I hope you enjoy film photography and are interested in all the nuances and quarks of vintage film cameras. Check back often or simply subscribe to get updates on each camera as the project unfolds. I'll be showing unique photos of this project on my
website.
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The only Yashika I purchased, I should have grabbed them all.
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| The lovely Argus C3, aka "The Brick". |
