The List

If you followed my old WordPress blog or have been reading this one for a while, you have probably seen a pattern here. A baby boomer, happily shooting his way through the cameras he lusted after during his youth. The cameras that I looked at in the pages of Modern Photography magazine or occasionally got to hold when I visited the camera shop to pick up film or darkroom chemicals are mostly the subject of this blog.

In 2010, when I got back into film photography, I made a list of those "dreamed of" cameras of my youth. Since then, with much joy and few disappointments, I've worked my way through much of the list. G.A.S. or Gear Acquisition Syndrome, has not broken the bank or left me homeless either. I started with a modest investment in a couple of Nikons (FE and FE2) and sold those to finance the next camera on my list. Along the way, two 1950s era Nikon rangefinders that I really didn't like shooting much, turned into my best investments. Upon selling, the Nikons I didn't warm up to netted me enough profit to buy my first Leica.

There were a few cameras that I didn't expect to like and ended up falling in love with. I bought a Canon Populaire rangefinder on a lark and enjoyed it so much that I invested in a full on Youxin Ye CLA. If you want to shoot Leica screw mount lenses and don't want to spend oodles on a Leica body, these Canon P bodies are cheap on eBay and they are...well...just wonderful!

And there were some that weren't even on my list. My blogging friend Jim Grey wrote nice things about the Pentax MX, ME, ME Super line of cameras and gushed enough praise that I went on a hunt for one of these small-ish SLRs. The Pentax ME Super and 50mm lens I bought for next to nothing on eBay absolutely blew me away!

Leica M rangefinders are very nice cameras to shoot, so I thought that the Leica R series of SLRs would be fabulous too. Putting a Leica R6 through its paces, I found the ergonomics of the camera not well suited to my style of shooting. In addition, its shutter was loud and mirror black out time annoying. The R6 did net me almost $300 profit on an eBay auction, so all was not lost.

So, I am down to the last few cameras on my 2010 list. Next up: the Olympus OM. I'm shooting two from the series right now, an OM-4 and an OM-2n. Field notes and reviews coming on both very soon. The last camera on my list has been the most difficult to find in good condition. Can you guess what it is?