Once I get a camera back, I open it up, inspect the mechanics and play with it. I focus and refocus the rangefinder on subjects near and far, both inside and out. I set and reset lens apertures. I cock the shutter, press the release, set a new speed and repeat! To me, the sound these German mechanical masterpieces produce is solid, amazing! The Leica “thunk” and Contax slow speed “whir”. As I hold the camera in my hands and up to my eye, I wonder where the camera has been, what scenes it has recorded and the previous owners who used them. This is even more true with prewar and wartime cameras.

On the flip side, I use my cameras too, but not near as much as I would like. I’ve found though, that each time I take one of these jewels out to shoot, I’m invariably stopped and asked about it; the most common questions being, “What kind of camera is that?”, or “Is film still available?” and “Where do you get film developed”, (I develop my own btw which people find amazing!). I spend more time answering the scores of questions asked and allowing others to hold the camera and experience the heft than I do taking photos. In a world of modern, digital wonder-cameras which rarely evoke any comments or attention, it’s the classic Barnack or Contax that people are interested in!

Thanks for a great article!

I’m a long-time fan of Arbus and recently figured it’d be interesting to have a camera around like the one she used in the mid-late sixties. A week or so ago bid on a Mamiya C3 TLR (sold ‘as is’) and was surprised when my very low bid won – hers was the slightly later C33 model BTW. The rival bidders, probably hard up newbie-to-film photographers/students, would most likely have wanted it to make pictures out in the world with it, and I had the odd feeling I’d be putting a bird in a cage instead.

I wouldn’t call myself a collector, but I did gather a small number of interesting cameras along the last couple years, which I mostly ended up trading or selling off due to not really using them. I kept my Nikon FM2, FM3 and FG bodies, a few lenses and my Canonet, but since cleaning up, even more interesting cameras have found their way to me, like a free hand me down Minolta XD with a 50mm 1.4 Rokkor, a Ricoh Singlex with a couple Pentax M42 lenses, and a very dirty, but very functional L35AF for what amounts to 3.57 dollars in local currency. I’m not sure what to do with them, and I’m not sure I’ll even be using them much, but I’ve taken them in for service, and it’s nice just holding them, cranking them and listening to the noises they make. Brazil still has so many great cameras being sold for affordable prices or lying forgotten in people’s attics, it’d be a crime no to rescue them….