Vintage Cameras Still In Use

[mattwithahat]

That's an awesome story! You may not think it's worth much, but if you find the right collector, it could be. As long as you still the letter that explains the camera's story.
I have some old stuff my grandfather left me, and one of the things is a camera similar to this. Too bad I don't have a story to go with it though.

 

[HeyMoe]

I do actually - or rather my mother does, she has all the letters he wrote home to my grandmother and his family. I also have all the photos he took with the camera.

 

[martinsantos]

I use a lot - just film cameras.

My "darlings" are leica III (1937), IIIf (1953) and Contax II (1937). One of the Leicas is always at my suitcase or at my neck.

Now just looking for an enlarger by Leitz; hard to find. Mine is an Omega B22 that worked too much!

 

[TidiousTed]

I have a 1952 Rolleyflex de luxe edition and a large Kodak from 1924. They both take 120 film and I use them as often as I can. The Rolley take great pictures. The Kodak I use more for fun, the pictures are of poorer quality than the Rolley take, but not that bad really.

And I got a Canon F1 series 1 from 1970 with 6 lenses and filters, the lot. I guess that would be regarded as retro, even vintage by some now in the digital age. I love that camera and actually use it more than my two digital cameras.

 

[dhermann1]

I have my dad's 1933 vintage twin lens reflex Voigtlander Superb. As a kid it was the family camera. I recently stumbled across the original receipt. He got it new at Willoughby Photo in Manhattan in August 1937. It cost $88 and he got a $15 credit for trading his old camera in for it. I pulled it out last year, found some Ilford 120 film, and played around with it. Flubbed up the settings and made a lot of bad shots, but got a few good ones. There's a guy in Virginia who refurbishes these babies, and I think it needs and deserves a little cleaning and tweaking.
Any advice on a light meter? I figured out that my digital camera can perform the role, but it would be nice to be "pure".

 

[Marla]

If you want to be "pure" don't use a light meter.

 

[dhermann1]

No, a light meter is really a necessary and appropriate part of the process. You compute the shutter speed and aperture opening based on the speed of the film and the light level. But many vintage light meters go bad for some reason, internal corrosion of some sort. I've looked at several on Ebay, but have never pulled the trigger.

 

[Doctor Strange]

I can go without a light meter in certain situations. For example, in my Minox cameras, in which I only use 100-speed films, and which have a fixed aperture of f/3.5, so there's only the single variable of shutter speed to be guestimated. And I have shot other cameras using the "Sunny 16 Rule" (see below) with good results... especially on films with wide exposure latitude. But I often carry an old GE Selenium meter, circa 1950, and have surprisingly good results with it. (I've got a nice Luna Pro too, but that's for studio work.)

The problems with older light meters are: 1 - Selenium meters can read way off, or stop working entirely, if they have been exposed to light for years and their Selenium degrades. (But even really old ones that have been kept in the dark can still be functional and accurate. My sixty-year-old GE is an example.) 2 - Many pre-80s CdS meters are designed for now-banned Mercury batteries, and don't necessarily behave quite accurately with modern equivalents. 3 - CdS meters are also more complex devices, and can suffer from a number of circuitry-degrading conditions, including battery-liquid corrosion, leading to inaccuracy or total failure. (Selenium meters don't require batteries, but they're less sensitive/useful at the darker end of the range than CdS meters.)

Sunny 16 rule: Use the film speed as the shutter speed at f/16 in bright sun, and vary accordingly for darker conditions. So, for a 400-speed film, use 1/500 (most cameras don't have 1/400, though some do - anyway, it's only a quarter-stop difference) at f/16 in full sun, or the equivalent (1/1000 at f/8). It helps if you understand reciprocity (the relationship between shutter speed and aperture, as you vary each equivalently) and can thus think in terms of f-stops, and have a sense of how many stops difference are required in a situation (e.g., one stop less for a super-bright beach and ocean; one stop more for dappled sun or some clouds; two stops more for open shade; three stops more for full clouds, deep shade, or a bright interior; etc.)

I know this sounds daunting, but it's not rocket science. I first learned how to estimate exposure as a kid (having grown up in a photo studio!), then became much better at it after I began regularly shooting with my Minox in 1995...

 

[KingTigerII]

Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 521/12 in 120mm and a Pre-War Kodak Retina II Type 142. Love them to death (The Retina more than the Ikonta due to shutter failures ). I'll occasionally use my Pre-War GE Light-meter as well but the App I have on my Android Smart Phone is more accurate and easy to use.

 

[FountainPenGirl]

Hi all, It's like what Dr. Strange said. I learned about shutter speeds, fstops and film speed when I was a kid. My Dad was an avid photographer as a hobby so I was around it from a young age. When you get used to doing it you don't need a light meter. You just develope an instinct for it. A light meter is a good teaching aid to get used to things but soon you'll find you aren't using it much.

 

[Marla]

A light meter is extra equipment to carry around and slows you down, too.

All the Golden Era photography books I've read are chock-full of scales for figuring out the correct exposure. You aren't supposed to memorize the scales, they are there to help get the concept across. Once you learn how to compute the correct exposure in your head you will not want to use a light meter. They're very fickle little things that are as often wrong as they are right (even the expensive ones). Once the battery starts to go down, so does the accuracy. Meanwhile, if you photograph with a specific camera and film combination enough you will get a feel for how it reacts to light.

 

[Warbaby]

I'll add another voice in support of the shooting-without-a-lightmeter school of photography. My first "real" camera was an Argus C-3 that my grandfather gave me when I was a kid back in the 50's. He taught me the basics of shutter speed and aperture, some general exposure rules of thumb, and how to judge light. From there it was just a matter of taking lots of photographs until judging exposure was something that just came naturally without really thinking about it. Later, as a grownup shooting with Leicas and Nikons, I considered light meters a bother and that people who used them didn't yet have sufficient understanding of their craft.

Now that I'm using a digital camera, I'll admit to using aperture priority automatic exposure for quick family pix and record shots, but for serious work I still set the exposure manually based on how I see the light. Still works for me.