Tell me about your camera(s)! (Still, video, movie, digital...)

In My Humble Opinion
41

Mostly Super 8, now and then Double 8mm, occasionally 35mm, and very rarely 16mm.

Well, a bit of both. I do some silly live-action things, and occasionally more polished short animations, but mostly just vacation home movies. But I tend to film great amounts with the intent of later editing it down into a narrative of some kind and filming additional linking scenes once I’m back home to make the story more cohesive. They’re still bizarre, no challenging that, but you can follow them.

Super 8 cameras are or can be crystal synced, too, but mine aren’t (although the 1014e has a flash contact, that could be used to record a sync track with). If there’s an interesting sound, I’ll record it wild-sync. After the film is processed, I’ll sound-stripe it, and add what amounts to a musical score with a few bits of not-very-lip-synced dialogue or ambient noise.

42

Major camera junkie here. My current arsenal:

35mm:

Nikon FM2 body
Nikkormat FT2 body
Nikkormat FT body (bought new in 1973, still works perfectly)
6 assorted lenses for the above
(The Nikkormats will be buried with me, even though I hardly use them anymore)
Nikon Lite Touch AF (superb little point ‘n’ shoot, no longer made)
Olympus Stylus Epic
An ancient Bolsey 35mm rangefinder
3 or 4 assorted cheap plastic point ‘n’ shoots

Someone recently gave me a Minolta SRT-101 with two lenses, but it needs a bit of work.

Medium Format:

Yashica-D TLR, have had it twenty years but never done much with it

Digital:

Kodak DC3400, only 2 MP but superb image quality
Canon G3, 4MP, loved it but is no longer needed and will sell as soon as I figure out where I put the damn software
Panasonic DMC-FZ20, 5MP, the best damn camera I’ve ever owned; love my Nikon film cameras but this thing runs rings around them in terms of utility, what with its gorgeous lense, 12X optical zoom and image stabilization
Kodak CX7530, 5 MP, bought as a backup because it takes the same (SD) memory card as the Panasonic and runs on AA batteries, but the image quality is so disappointingly inferior (even to the DC3400, IMO) that I’m probably going to get rid of it

Video:

Sharp Hi-8 Viewcam, used mainly for aviation and railroad subjects

No, more toward the street-photo/journalistic side of things, with a sideline in transport photography (planes, trains, automobiles and shipping)

No, although I shoot a lot of stuff for my employer’s company newsletter and have occasionally done a bit of work for a PA-based property management company.

43

Hey Gotpass, the lens in large format really isn’t an obstacle, so long as you don’t insist on the newest and fanciest. I’ve gotten some Wollensak lenses (Raptars) in Wollensak Rapax shutters for a song and they are still in excellent shape. You see then on EBay all the time. They don’t get outstanding writeups, maybe due to a lack of snob appeal. Ektars can go for a little bit more because of the name, but are very very good, with the Commercials being the best. Right now Dagors are high. But, using me as an example I got the Calumet camera for $100. The 135mm Raptar in the Rapax shutter was another $35. Film holders were going for dirt cheap at the time, so I got them a few at a time. The 545 Polaroid holder was another $45. All told, that’s less than many people pay for their 35mm and 120 film outfits. The camera itself requires a beefy tripod and head, but you can get a wooden field camera (much ligher) or a Speed/Crown Graphic. The Graphics and field cameras won’t have as much movement as my monorail, but you don’t really use much anyway. Depending on the lens, as little as 3 degrees forward tilt will give the effect/illusion of infinite depth of field. Landscape guys love that.

44

I forgot to add, with a lot of professionals going digital and dumping their “old” equipment, now is a great time to jump in. Hell, some people are even going bigger - there is a thriving secondhand market in 8x10, 12x20 and BIGGER.

45

I’ve got an Olympus C-4040 4mp digital, a Canon T-70 with a couple of lenses, and a Sony digital-8 camcorder. I like photography a lot, but I haven’t been able to justify spending money for really good equipment. I’d love one of those 8 megapixel digital SLRs, but I can’t bring myself to spend a couple of thousand bucks on camera gear right now.

What I will get fairly soon is a smaller digital camera that I can carry with me all the time. The most expensive camera in the world is no good if it’s at home in the camera bag when an opportunity for a great picture arises. So I want to find a nice 4 or 5 megapixel mini digital camera with a 3x optical zoom, small enough to fit in my pocket.

And the Sony camcorder is on its last legs. It’s six years old now. I want to get a new, smaller digital camcorder.

46

12x20? Yow. I don’t think the lens in my 3A would be able to cover 8x10, so I’ve been contemplating 4x5. (The image size on the 3A is something like 4 1/4 x 5 1/2) Not sure if it’d be able to cover much in the way of lens moves, though.

For some reason, the Bender camera kit has been on my mind. Probably for the “I made this” factor. Of course, I wouldn’t pass up a Sinar if I found one on the sidewalk.

47
      • Semi-related, possibly useful: just today I discovered that my digital cam can be used to store other file types. The camera is a Sony DSC-P51 Cyber-Shot, a 2-megPix camera a couple years old, that uses Sony Memory Sticks. The file types it produces are uncompressed jpeg’s for stills, and avi’s for its no-sound “movies”. When it is connected to the computer however, it is represented as a removable drive and you can drag and drop (apparently?) any file format you want onto and off of it. I tried with a bunch and it took and maintained all of them, even powering off and back on.
        ~