*sigh*

[cerealjoe]

It's no secret that I have a thing for cameras that weigh as much as a brick and where the most "automatic" thing is the lightmeter "calculator" (aka a selenium photocell linked to an arrow and a bunch of circles you can move to "calculate" the settings and then set them manually on the camera), which at the time those cameras were made was a thing of beauty. It's also no secret that I fall in love with random cameras just by seeing them once and not letting them go up until I get my hands on them. And so the camera virus has struck again. This time I've been lusting after the Olympus Trip 35 because how cool is a camera that David Bailey promoted and that has a selenium photocell! Then I fell on a Smena and some part of my brain put two and two together and figured out that it was the camera my dad had told me about previously, he had one and it's the one he used when he couldn't take the Zenit with him. I actually learnt that he had two of them and the first one (8M) had a funky mechanism where you had to remember to take multiple steps before you could shoot and then he had another one where you didn't really have to (Symbol). Oh Soviet cameras, why must you hold such a huge spot in my heart! Now I don't know which one I want, I suppose I could get both but will I really have the time to play with both? One thing at a time perhaps. I think I'll start with the Smena. We'll see. Some girls have problems with vintage shoes and clothes, I guess vintage cameras are kind up that alley too, in a way. Till then there are also Japanese bricks like the Chinon (with some Kodak 200)! The Chinon even uses a battery... totally advanced stuff! You push a lever and it turns on a lightmeter which then makes a little arrow move and it's up to you to find a good shutter speed and aperture, based on what "look" you want, to get the little arrow to be in the middle (unless you want under or overexposed stuff, sometimes it's good too). This is why I like these (almost) fully manual cameras, I've learnt from them so much more than I could have ever learnt from something more evolved. And look at the brilliant stuff they still produce!