Having learned photography in college on an SLR Nikon FM2 in the late 80s and early 90s, then jumping into digital as early as 1999, I never experimented with medium format or shot twin lens reflex cameras until recently—and I honestly don’t really like to use them. They’re bulky, the flipped image is difficult for …
5 Frames with a Tower Reflex 30 and a Kodak Polafilter Hood Read More
It was love at first sight, so I bid too much and won an Agfa CLACK 120 film 6X9 format box camera. The shutter wasn’t working exactly right, but this camera is so basic that it’s simple to take apart and fix. The fact that it uses 120 film is a huge advantage over many other box cameras (mostly Kodak) that often have fiddly 620 film spools that require either re-spooling or purchasing a re-spooled film from a limited selection of stocks at a premium— like double the price or more.
I recently fell for analog cameras, especially vintage ones. It feels like a rabbit hole much of the time, chasing that elusive, cosmetically beautiful, functionally accurate, 60+ year-old technology (and expecting magic when I find it).
Although I learned photography in journalism school around 1990 and shot for the local paper, I largely stayed within my comfort zone with my trusty Nikon FM2 and a few cheap lenses. I first adopted digital in 1999, and was fully digital by 2002 as a corporate art director and photographer, with professional state-of-the-art digital Nikons (think DCS 760, D1-X). So, knowing next to nothing about this quirky world of aging treasures, I embarked on a buying binge.
And now I own a lot of old broken cameras. But like any treasure hunt, sometimes you find gold or a diamond in the rough. Such was the case with this Kodak Retina IIIC (Big C)
