As I've mentioned here in the past, I've been on a multi-year trek to:
1) Reprint every significant neg in my collection to workbook quality,
taking advantage of several decades of improved printing technique,
VC cold light heads, etc.
2) Re-acquire every great camera I ever owned. (In my youth, buying a new
camera meant selling my old one.)
#1 remains a multi-year activity because new negs keep getting in the way ;)
#2 is possible because film cameras are cheap on eBay (if you bid with restraint
and patience). Nothing replaces my 'Blad and Wisner 4x5, but, as I've acquired
these old gems, the requirement is that they are made fully functional and that
I use them again. Except for things like shutter CLAs, I've done most of the
work
myself including tearing down and fixing a "bad" Nikon FtN Photomic metering
system (!).
I am very close to done with this. My most recent find was a super clean Mamiya
Universal with a Graflok back and 100mm f/3.5 lens (which CameraWiz redid). The
chrome Universals are hard to find in decent shape and the Graflok adapters are
fairly rare. That 6x9 format was- and remains my absolute favorite as a balance
between portability and image quality. Even with the very average Sekor on that
camera, you'd be hard pressed to see a big difference between something shot
with
it and an APO Symmar on 4x5 until you REALLY magnify.
Now on to what I believe will be the last of the lot: A clean, completely
functional
Nikon F3HP to round out the Nikon stable. For some reason, people want too
much money for these - probably because it was arguably the greatest film
camera Nikon every made (though my soul still belongs to the original F).
It's been a real joy to doing this. I guess as we age, the need for atavisms
sets in, but I really wanted to reconnect with this hardware and to reflect
onStatus Of
approaching 50 years of shooting monochrome film... where did the years go?
Someone asked me why I was "collecting" cameras. I tried to explain that I was
not - that I was using these regularly as time machines. They looked at me
oddly
and beat a hasty retreat ;)
P.S. When I am done , I guess a picture of the pile-o-camera gear
will probably be in order.
P.P.S. Sadly, one of the cameras I bought and never sold, is no longer
repairable. The
Fuji GA-645Zi was a brilliant "point and shoot" 120/220 rollfilm
camera. But it
suffered from a flex PC circuit that cracked over time and is no longer
available.
I am looking into seeing about having clone parts manufactured because
so many people
have- and love these things.
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