My Vintage Camera Collection I have a small vintage camera collection. Nothing really exotic but interesting nonetheless. Modern digital cameras are nice and really convenient, but they lack that character that defined these old school mechanical cameras. Holding one of these babies, you can really feel the quality and workmanship that went into building and designing them. You know that they work as well today as they did 40 years ago, and if properly maintained, will work great in another 40 years. Besides, there is just something really satisfying about the sound of a good old fashioned mechanical click THE CAMERAS 1 | The Polaroid 250 Land Camera 2 | Braun's 'Super Paxette 3 | The Tiny Japanese 'Hit' Camera (coming next ... )

Vintage CAMERA #1 The Polaroid 250 Land Camera Feb 11|07 This week's camera, and #1 in the series, is the Polaroid 250 Land Camera This one was donated to me by Mr. and Mrs. Jobb of St. Albert (thanx guys) and is an interesting piece of instant photo history. First sold in 1967, this one is a' Bellows'-type models which folds down into a solid body, with a flip-up cover to fold over the lens assembly. It features a rangefinder style focus mechanism, The shutter must be manually cocked after every release of the shutter before another photograph can be taken. This little baby uses 100 series film. I haven't taken any pictures with this beast yet, but as soon as I do, I'll be sure to post them. Here she is, in all her vintage glory. (I really should dust . . . ) Really neat camera. has all sorts of buttons and crap on it. Pretty complicated to use actually. I won't go into detail on how to use it (mostly because I'm not really sure) nothing like the modern pont and shoot cameras. This one came complete with all the manuals, case and all the other goodies a guy could want. pictured here are the UV filter, the cable release and the little film squeegee deal. I was surprised this picture actually worked!! This is a shot through the viewfinder. If you look closely you can see the rangefinder marks at the top and left of the finder. Pretty neat little unit. The flash comes off this little mother, it uses single use disposable bulbs. And yeah, because it is a bellows camera, it can be all folded up and made into a "portable" camera. Portable by late 60's instant camera standards I guess. The thing is really quite big as you can tell, Compare the size of my hand to the flash in the picture just above.All folded out it's quite the beast. And here is is, top down of the camera looking at the lens. There's a simple 2 stage aperture setting on it. Here you can see the camera is set with it's smallest aperture, and shows you what lighting conditions are best for those settings. 75-150-300 ASA on the left, and 3000 ASA on the right. Neat Camera. I should get my hands on some film and give 'er a try.

Vintage CAMERA #2
The Braun Super Paxette Mar 24 |07

This week's camera is a really neat little 35mm Rangefinder.
Typical of German engineering, this thing is as solid (and as heavy) as a brick, and really well constructed.
It's a pretty small camera, (as you can tell by the coins in the photo) and was considered a compact camera..
The Paxette is a BTL Rangefinder, meaning the shutter is 'between the lens', and is actually encased within
the lens itself rather than in the camera's body. The advantage?, you can use a flash at any shutter speed,
since there is no 'second curtain sync' problem. The drawback?, fastest shutter speed is 1/300 sec.



I picked this guy up for a song at $20.00 at a flea market in Edmonton a couple years back.
Made in Munich, Germany, the camera boasts shutter speeds from B to 1/300th sec
and has a fairly quick 45mm f2.8 lens. Just above the hot-shoe you can see the film counter,
and the film speeds are adjusted on the coloured dial on the left.


Here you can see the controls. The focus ring is right at the very front of the lens, with the aperture just behind.
This is pretty typical of BTL Rangefinder cameras. Also, the shutter speed is adjusted on the ring nearest the body
All of the controls are quite small on this guy, but it's surprisingly easy to work with.
Sadly, the numbers were not painted on very well, and are wearing off ...



This guy has a really unique film loading system. The whole back comes off, and the spools are loaded up in the main
chassis of the camera. Then a plate is closed up over the film. It's all very precise, but a little hard to work with.



The focusing system is pretty neat. When you look through the finder, it shows you a split image inside a small
yellow area at the center of the screen. When you focus the lens, the two images come together. Similar to how
a modern SLR camera focuses. My one complaint is that the viewfinder on this camera is really really small, and
I would think that people with poor vision would have a hard time using this camera.



NEXT WEEK . . .

The amazingly small Japanese 'Hit' Camera.
And yes, this is a real camera.