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Film Cameras

Olympus IS-30 DLX review

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I've probably owned north of 100 film cameras just in the last ten years, and the Olympus IS-30 DLX is one of, if not thee best 35mm film camera bargain out there. This camera goes for an astonishingly low price on ebay, and picking up a decent working model will set you back about the same as a burger and fries at McDonald's.

The Olympus IS-30 has an excellent 28-110mm fixed zoom lens, along with all the conveniences and necessities that we demand today for our expensive digital cameras; such as predictive AF, TTL phase-difference detection system; TTL light metering and fuzzy logic ESP metering for back-lit scenes and ±2ev exposure compensation.  Also included are; auto advance, rewind and loading; powerful flash with high speed sync; aperture priority mode and a whole lot more.

The exposure system is first rate, and it nails slide film just as good as the Nikon 35Ti with its fancy matrix metering.  This super zoom bridge type camera focuses exceptionally fast...

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Pilot Super 6×6 75mm F/2.9 Review

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The unique (or goofy) Pilot 'Super' 6x6 SLR was only produced for a very short period of time, (between 1939-41), and is not widely known even among camera collectors.  I just happened to be perusing ebay's film camera category late one evening and came across this model in excellent condition.  One word of caution here; alcohol and ebay's 'buy it now' option don't mix well, and you might be surprised at what shows up in your parcel box or front door a few days later.

The Pilot 'Super' (not to be confused with the Michelin tire of the same name), was a big upgrade to the simple, (and earlier) Pilot '6' and was produced by KW or 'Kamera Werkstätten' out of Neidersedlitz, near Dresden Germany.  Neat features include: a cubic form, (preceding the Hassleblad design by quite a few years), single lens reflex design, a guillotine type four speed shutter, eye level finder, extinction meter and at least four lenses to choose from...

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Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 105mm Tessar F/3.5

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Our review camera for today is the Zeiss Ikon Ikonta with Tessar 105mm F/3.5 lens and Compur Rapid shutter.  This late pre-war folder is quite slim, fits in your back pocket, and takes very sharp pictures with proper technique; whether or not they're good pictures is up to you.  This is a 521/2 model, and It takes eight 2¼ x 3¼ (6x9) photos on a roll of 120 film.

This particular model is somewhat odd in that it's a less expensive Ikonta body, but has a four element tessar lens and Compur Rapid shutter normally found on higher end models of the day such as the Super Ikonta.  Likely production date for this camera is probably around 1940.

I bought this well used copy from the famed Certo6 for a mere $95 complete with a CLA, and it works great.

With the brief summary out of the way...

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Ricoh FF-3D AF Super review

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Today's review camera is the Ricoh FF-3D AF Super; did you instantly guess it's from the 1980s?  It has that quintessential 1980s point and shoot 35mm camera look, especially with a silver finish and Pontiac dashboard inspired rear LCD panel.

Although the Ricoh FF-3D AF Super is a rather typical fully automatic point and shoot camera of the day, there are a couple of nice features to point out; such as the very bright flash, a manual ISO dial, (which doubles as an exposure compensation option), and a super sharp five element lens.

For a higher end mid 1980s fixed lens camera, it has a couple of annoying quirks...

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Minolta Freedom III, AF-Z review

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Our review camera for today is the compact Minolta Freedom III; featuring a quartz date back, AF, auto loading, advance and rewind; along with a nice 35mm F/2.8 lens.  The 'Freedom' line from Minolta were wildly popular during the 1980s, and competed with the similar Canon and Nikon offerings of the day.  This camera came out in 1986 along with three other 'Freedom' models; see a goofy wild west themed period ad here.

The fully automatic Minolta Freedom III (AF-Z) was at the top of the Freedom line, and fairly expensive back in the day.  So will it still take good pictures today?  Let's find out now...

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Argus argoflex ‘Forty’ review

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The Argus argoflex Forty is one of the very best of the pseudo TLR 6x6 box cameras, and the best one I've used so far.  This little gem is from 1950, and the model production years for the "Forty" ranged from 1950-1954.  Oddly, Argus describes the camera in the owner's manual as a 'modified' twin lens type, with a 'built-in flash'---a big negatory on both claims.

The argoflex Forty has a lot of useful (and high-end) features such as; focusing lens, nine blade iris with six marked settings, four shutter speeds with bulb, tripod socket, and shutter cable release.  And the best part; it will work just fine with 120 film as long as you use a 620 take-up spool...

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Kodak Pony II review

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Today we head back to late 1950s for a review of the Crapsey designed Kodak Pony II.  This rather mundane camera has a simple one speed shutter, zone focusing, multiple apertures to choose from, a good Kodak Anastar four element lens, (supposedly loaded with radioactive thorium dioxide), and uses commonly available 135 type film, so it should be an easy camera to get good pictures from, even in poor shape.

The little black plastic Pony II was produced from 1957-1962 and was one of the simplest and least expensive 'Pony' cameras in the series.  A couple of odd features on this version include a tripod socket, even though it has a single speed shutter and no bulb or long exposure modes; and of course the camera uses the dreaded 'Exposure Value' system, (popular back then), in which you set the aperture using information from an exposure card on the back of the camera that matches your film type.  It was a confusing way to figure out the proper exposure, but it did work if you followed the instructions.  A step up from the 'II' version is the 'IV,' which features a four speed shutter with bulb mode, traditional F/stop markings, and an accessory shoe.

The Kodak Pony II cameras are plentiful and relatively inexpensive on ebay, and also at garage sales and flea markets.  The review model here is in excellent condition and working order, so let's take some snaps and see what happens!

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Minolta Freedom Zoom 160 Date Review

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Minolta produced some really nice film cameras back in the day, and the Freedom Zoom 160 is no exception.  This camera is surprisingly small and lightweight for having such a large zoom range, which makes is very pocketable, and close to being as tiny as the Olympus XA!  Main features include a zoom range of 37.5-160mm, earth shattering high tech auto focus, (really, read the next paragraph!), auto loading, film advance, rewind, self timer, flash, auto parallax correction, and even a +1.5 exposure compensation setting!

The Minolta Freedom Zoom 160 came out near the end of the film camera era, (around 2001), so it had a lot of sophisticated features that we take for granted today.  In fact, Minolta claimed in a 2001 business ad the camera had: the world's largest AF area in a film camera -- the world's first film camera with subject detection -- the world's first compact camera with matrix AF indication...

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