I realised a while back that I can never justify the cost of a truly high-end SLR (either film or digital) so instead I've been building up a collection of used cameras. I say used rather than vintage because while they're all pre-owned, they're not all 'old'. My main criteria for buying a camera is, er, if I think it looks cool. I know it's a stupid reason, but when I look at a camera my first reaction is likely to be based on its aesthetic qualities, and sometimes the first thought to pop into my head is that one word - "cool". When that happens, I want that camera
Because of this I'm particularly interested in the Olympus XA series of cameras - though this is currently limited to 3 Olympus XA2s (one broken, one in mint condition and therefore never out the box) and one XA3. At some point I'd like to add the XA and XA4 to that collection, though I could easily live without ever aquiring the ugly-looking XA1.
Of course I don't just make decisions based on what the camera looks like; I tend to look at web pages and sites dedicated to specific camera types or brands. This doesn't just mean cameras with a "cult" following - I have no interest in ever owning a Lomo - but when people go to the effort of setting up and maintaining a webpage to extol the virtues of a particular camera for no reason other than that they admire its design and technical qualities (as opposed to because they have a vested interest in selling more) then you can usually tell it's a camera worth owning. Of course it helps to do proper research and discover the "small print". I bought an Olympus Mju II (Stylus Epic) cheap on
Ebay after reading overwhelmingly positive reviews; one roll of film later and I practically had nervous twitches as a result of the number of pictures ruined by forgetting that the flash must be turned off
every time you open the lens cover! :x
The novelty of aesthetically impressive P&S cameras is starting to wear off now (with the exception of the XA range) and I'm now more interested in SLRs and the occasional rangefinder. My "collection" of the latter so far only includes a Voigtlander Vito which I didn't exactly collect (it was my father's) but the quality of the camera and the photos mean I'll be on the lookout for more. SLRs are my main area of interest, and I'm mainly looking for manual focus ones. The first SLR I bought was a Minolta Dynax 404si, which is fully automatic but can be used with shutter or aperture priority, five programmed modes or fully manual. It has some impressive features, but for the everyday business of taking good quality photos it's not very good - the autofocus is quite slow and easily confused, but much worse is the fact that the viewfinder is very, very dark, so composing night-time photos is pretty much impossible. Slow autofocus is acceptable for an entry-level SLR, but having a viewfinder that dark - leaving you with a camera that can only really be used in bright natural light - is unforgiveable. After this started to bother me I turned to a manual focus Pentax P30 which I'd bought for next to nothing at an auction but forgotten about, and I soon realised it was a significantly better camera - the image in the viewfinder was no darker than the scene outside (and why should it be?), and... well yeah, it looks cool. For a start, it's all black. It's also smaller. Unlike the Minolta, it even sounds cool - it has that "clunk" which somehow just sounds right. It has only one fault, however it's a big one - no cable release! In most situations this wouldn't be a problem, but after spending ages trying to hold the camera still with a 500mm lens attached, my sanity has been stretched to breaking point.
Wow, that was an unnecessarily long post. Essentially I would collect anything that looks good, feels good and produces good results. Ideally I'd collect high-end digital and film SLRs by all the big names - Nikon, Canon, Pentax, Fuji and Olympus (maybe even Minolta if I could forgive them for the 404's viewfinder!) as well as Olympus digital P&S and various Leicas and Voigtlanders. Unfortunately however I can't afford any of that, so realistically I would (and do) continue to look for manual SLRs similar to the Pentax P30, for example the P30T, P30N and a few Vivitars. If I can pick up a better "entry-level" AF SLR I will - perhaps a Nikon F75 if I can pick one up cheap - otherwise I'm sticking with the Pentax and cameras with the same lens mount. Of course if I thought this through I would realise that with all the money I spend on cheapers cameras and lenses, I could probably buy a really good SLR like a Nikon F6 - but by spending the money in small amounts over a long period of time I can delude myself into thinking that I'm not
really wasting the student loan
