Being in photography for more than 50 years, I’ve had the pleasure of using many cameras. For years, whenever I wanted to shoot with a twin-lens reflex camera, my camera of choice was always my Rolleiflex. Recently, a Voigtlander Superb became available to me, and the price was fantastic, so I immediately jumped on the offer.
I have a Microcord & Rolleiflex; two fully functioning Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) cameras, with one of them being ‘influenced’ rather heavily by the other. I’d like to introduce you to each of them and to highlight the differences, similarities and practical features of both.
I had purchased my Minolta Autocord CDS cameras about three months ago. The previous owner didn’t know if it was working, even after giving them some tips to check. However, I took a chance and bought it. To my surprise, when it arrived, the shutter worked great, and the aperture moved as it should. A good friend told me the focus was notorious for hanging up, but It moved smoothly and focused well. The meter didn’t have a battery, so I purchased a battery for the light meter. When I installed the battery, it took some time for it to react to light. Eventually, it did and seemed close to accurate. My wife and I planned a few days away so I was excited to take it for a test drive.
Like many of you, I’m in the habit of scanning Facebook Marketplace for interesting old cameras, with an eye towards a lose list I keep in my head. On this day, I saw one of those “Used camera lot” posts with a bad group photo of a bunch of old cameras, cases, lenses, flash units, and faded boxes of film, with an asking price of $450 for the bunch.
Gear acquisition syndrome got the best of me during this quarantine, and I found myself as the new owner of a Yashica Mat-124G on first week of May. It was pretty easy to convince myself to acquire this beauty frankly, telling myself that I bought the camera as birthday gift, even though my birthday was more than a month away.
