Milsurp After Hours

I've been biding on old film cameras now and again on Ebay. When I win .. cheap price only... I take them on a film shooting adventure just to see how they do and develop the film of choice, b&w Tmax, and scan the negatives. Sometimes I get junk cameras and sometimes I do pretty well and it all kind of averages out. It's all a pig in a poke kind of thing. Part of the adventure of doing it.

Last week I saw a three camera bundle of an Olympus Stylus Zoom 140 DLX, an Olympus Infinity Zoom 80 and a Yashica 35 MF. There were no bids with two hours to go and the starting bid was .99 cents. The shipping was about $15. I wanted the Yashica so put in a bid of $5 just for the heck of it. And... I won the three for .99 cents plus the shipping. Nobody but me wanted them.

The camera's showed up. The two zoom cameras came in the original box with instruction books and the carry strings wrapped up and still unattached. The Zoom 140 came with a belt case. And.... surprise.. they all worked perfectly. The light meter on the Yashica 35 ME even worked with a new battery.. that I happened to have one of usable size in a drawer.

I took the Olympus 140DLX out for a run today. It has a 38-140 zoom. It's weather proof. Has a Panarama image option, Six flash modes, Spot meter and multi meter sample exposure and close focus of 2 feet.

I was surprised at how well it worked, how sharp the images were, and how well the auto focus and exposure worked. This is not a SLR so what you see through the viewfinder doesn't tell you what the camera is doing to the focus... however the viewer has a diopter control for individual eye sight and the viewer simulates the view as the lens moves out to 140mm.

These can be bought on Ebay any day for cheap... maybe not .99 cents cheap... but for what it is as a film camera it is terrific.

Tried out the Yashica 35MF today at the local flea market. It looks like a rangefinder but... it's basically a point and shoot with four range zone choices . It has a needle light meter that tells you and the camera what it is up to with a aperture of from 2.8 to 16 and a shutter speed from 1/60 to 1/250. 38mm lens. It has a built in flash that I should have used for fill light today a time or two but didn't. The closest focus zone is 1 meter.

The camera functioned fine. The exposure seems to be center weighted. The lens seems pretty sharp as the signs in the photos come out readable. Not bad for a camera that , with shipping cost me about $5.

I cropped one and lightened it to show a bored woman waiter at a snack stand.

Interesting stuff Robert, looks like good kit

I am taking the SX60 for a serious outing tomorrow - an afternoon at the Show Jumping in Blaye. The club has 4 passes to get members inside the ring for some close action. Hope it doesn't rain like last year

With the zoom on that camera you don't need to be close up. But... it doesn't hurt.

The last of the three for a dollar cameras is the Olympus Infinity Zoom 80. Another point and shoot from 1999 with a modest 35 to 80 zoom. It has a few auto features.. auto load, auto rewind, auto focus, auto flash. You can turn the flash off or use the red eye mode or the fill mode. It's center weighted exposure can lose the subject exposure level if the subject is not in the center of the view and if that subject is in a less lighted area. Well.... there are cameras that can take of that. , At the same time, this camera seems to expose more for the darker area in a center frame than the lighter. However.... the camera works.... and it hearkens back to a different time that is now already the "olden days" fifteen years on.

It's a lessor camera than the Olympus Stylus Zoom 140 DLX. The focus takes longer in lower light or when using a flash and won't fire unless it is ready. Sometimes when you push on the button you think something is broken but it is only thinking. . It's OK...and excellent for the try it out fun factor.