Okay wow it’s been a really long time since I’ve written, having been busy with exam madness and post-exam madderness. Anyway, much to write about - Krabi, school, politiks - but I guess I’ll kick off summer with a little tribute to my cameras, since they’ll be keeping me company for much of the summer and beyond. I’ve been building up my collection recently, with a total of 5 film cameras joining my Canon 40D and the old Ixus. Excuse the crap lighting and dirty tabletop, I haven’t got a proper lightbox and it didn’t occur to me at the time that black on black would look….black. And I’m too lazy to retake the photos!
First up, the more compact of the lot, one of my new arrivals, the Olympus XA2. Here, Mr. Nerdy’s really just to give an idea of the size of the camera - he’s a wee little man, he really is, and he’s really sensitive about his sub-10cm height, so let’s not give him too much stick about it.
Anyway, the XA2 is truly a convenient camera - it’s compact, and has a very good lens. The flash (in picture) is easily detachable so it gets even smaller and lighter! No reason not to carry it around then. In fact, this guy and his slightly more complex brother, the XA, are known to have been the carry-around cameras of many camera enthusiasts in the past. It’s also capable of producing Lomo LC-A (ie. total ripoff) type images, but with none of the ridiculous prices that Lomo slaps on its cameras. I got this guy for US$6.01 off eBay, and the total cost with (obscene) shipping costs came up to about S$40 - I’d say I got a good deal too. I’m currently still running my first roll through it, so stay tuned for the results.
Next up, my el cheapo toy camera, the Lomo Action Sampler. Nothing much to say about it, except that it takes 4 pictures in sequence out of its crappy plastic lenses, and then you hope you get something nice out of it. It’s also really small, but I suspect this one won’t see much use after the arrival of my XA2.
My newest, and certainly most anticipated arrival is … not so small. The Contax RX is a truly advanced film SLR (or at least it was in the 90s), which uses very excellent Carl Zeiss lenses. Managed to get this off eBay for a decent price, and the lens collection for this camera will likely continue to grow.
“Where’s Mr. Nerdy,” you ask. Well he’s right there! Barely alive, yes, but still there! The RX is probably as heavy as (or heavier than) my Canon, but I really got this because I started to love film, and wanted to take that love a level up. Not sure if I’ll bring it around that much, but I certainly will try to. I suppose the above photo doesn’t quite give you an idea of what the camera really looks like, so here:
Much better I hope. Anyway this thing relies quite heavily on batteries, which tend to die a quick death in the cold, I think the next camera will definitely come in very, very useful during my exchange explorations.
The Olympus OM-1 was another true classic as far as SLR owners are concerned. It was quite revolutionary how Olympus managed to pack in everything a photographer in the 70s needed, in such a compact package. It’s a 100% manual camera, and one has to set aperture, shutter speed, ISO and focus manually - which is really quite fun sometimes. It needs a battery to operate the light meter, but still functions perfectly well without, just that the photographer has to guess at exposure values - the reason why it’ll probably be the main camera keeping me company during cold Russian winters.
Oh, the camera isn’t technically mine, since it actually belongs to Poh’s dad, who passed it to Poh, who passed it to me to take care of while he’s on exchange. But I’m sure I’ll convince him to give it to me. Pleaseeeeeee 
The last camera in this series is the one that got me started in film photography, the Yashica GSN.
I got this really cheap off a guy who had inherited the thing but had no idea what to do with it. A…weird guy, who seemed to suspect every single person around him. Odd, but he let me get the camera cheap, so what the heck.
Anyway, the GSN’s quite well known to be a real bang-for-buck camera, delivering performance far beyond what is expected from a camera in its price bracket. The 45mm f1.7 Yashinon lens is fixed and can’t be changed, but with the performance it delivers there’s little reason to want to change it.
Well, that just about covers my entire camera collection - save for the one that’s actually taking the pictures, of course. I don’t forsee the collection growing in the near future, but now that you’ve all been introduced to my small friends, at least you’ll know a little bit of what I’m talking about when I put pictures from my developed rolls up!
4 Comments
April 26, 2008 at 9:33 pm
your contax is a monster man. Don’t bully other people’s camera when you’re with them ah.
if people rob you on exchange, throw the camera at them.
April 26, 2008 at 10:30 pm
heh indeed. it turned out bigger than i imagined, though i suppose the 880gm weight on the spec sheet should’ve tipped me off. maybe in the future as my zeiss collection grows i’ll go get the aria - lighter and almost as packed with features.
or maybe start collecting zeiss glass in g-mount
April 27, 2008 at 3:51 am
wow weims, i had no idea you amassed so many different cameras in my short less-than-4-month absence. haha.
April 27, 2008 at 10:30 am
heh before you left it was 3 lah…then they started to reproduce….
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