Vintage Camera Collection

the15th

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Paddy
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Hi all,

I've recently started collecting vintage photography items as photography is a great hobby of mine.

It would be great if anyone could share any information on any of the cameras as I'm eager to learn (I've been researching each on Google already.

 
First thing i do is go here to Mike Butkus' site and see if he has a manual for the camera.

What do you specifically want to know?
1) Ricoh KR-10 Super: Pentax K mount i believe, pretty standard auto-exposure/manual focus SLR from the 1980's, nothing special, ton of these type of cameras going for next to nothing. The lens on it looks like it might be good, the Vivitar 70-210mm lenses are quite highly regarded, particularly the Series 1 versions.

2) Pentax ME Super: own one of these myself, along with the Olympus OM series, the M series Pentax cameras are among the smallest 35mm SLR's ever made. This camera is widely loved for it's size and features, some people hate the electrical nature of it and go for the MX though. It's of its era really, auto-exposure with a manual mode, manual focus lenses (Pentax M glass is great, tack sharp, that 50mm f/1.7 is considered one of the sharpest of the 50mm Pentax lenses), feels great to use, nice and solid with a brilliant viewfinder, looking down the finder of a lower end DSLR after this is like looking down a tunnel. Cameras does have issues, light seal foam is usually dust like most cameras from this era, film advance can get ruined from over-zealous winding, electrics can go kaput like other cameras of the era. Still a great camera overall though, worth having in any collection.

3) I've heard this described as the cutest SLR ever made, and probably one of the smallest, though not very light. It's basically a Zorki C with a reflex housing, i sometimes think it's the direction Leica could have gone in a another universe if they abandoned rangefinders. Uses a 39mm screw mount like the soviet and leica rangefinders of the that era (1950's), but the register difference is much longer so you can't use rangefinder lenses on it properly, not many SLR lenses were made in the M39 mount so can be hard to make this a workable system if you want to use it. Wouldn't mind owning one myself, nice little camera.

4-6) These are pretty standard consumer cameras of their respective eras, i tend to think of them as box cameras regardless of the form they are, TLR, folder etc. because of the basic shutter/aperture settings. Nothing special really, cheap and common, should still be able to get film for all of them though. Can be quite fun to use and a learning experience if you are used to auto-everything cameras, really forces you think and work around the cameras limitations.

Not sure what else you wanted to know, i collect cameras when i'm in the mood, here's my flickr collection/sets for most of them if you want to look.
 
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The Pentax ME-Super was a very popular camera back in it's day (early to mid-1980's) and was an aperture-priority & manual camera like the Ricoh KR-10 Super. I had an MX myself back then as I prefered a manual-only camera and wasn't particularly keen on the push button shutter speed selector on the ME-Super, however they were still very good SLR's.

The good thing with the Ricoh is it shares the same lens mount as your Pentax, which is referred to as Pentax KM, so if you have other lenses with this fitting, you can use them on either body. The Pentax 50mm f/1.7 lens was very sharp particularly when stopped down to f/5.6 and f/8. The Vivitar doesn't look like the Series 1, as I'm pretty sure this had a wider maximum aperture than the one you have on the picture, but they are good lenses nonetheless.
 
that's some fantastic information there guys, thanks so much.

I've taken the pentax out for a walk and I can't wait to get the first roll processed.

I'll have a read up on the links you've provided, but I must agree the 50mm 1.7 is fantastically sharp.
 
I've taken the pentax out for a walk and I can't wait to get the first roll processed.

If it has that effect on you then you know you will have a great deal of fun with it, you should try and take a different camera out every week :D
 
I'm sure you've already found this pdf on the Zenith S (C pronounced S in russian)
 
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