Last year I inherited my spouses' parents' cameras. They had been packed away in a closet since at least the mid-70s. Amazingly, the oldest of the cameras, the YashikaMat medium format TLR, has proven to be in near perfect working condition.
In this shot, the old Yashikamat meets the new digital SLR.
As best I can tell, the YashikaMat was purchased in Japan in the late 1940s to 1950's when the father in law was stationed in Japan. I have a series of photos and proof sheets he took with the camera as the ship he was on circumnavigated the globe. I even inherited his Gobo developing tank which I used, along with the YashikaMat, in a Black & White film class I took last semester.
The YashikaMat packing I inherited included:
We have the original leather case with engraved name-plate. We have the camera body with protective leather cover. We have a set of Rondo No. 1 and No. 2 Close-Up lenses (with the original instruction leaflets in Japanese). We have a full set of B&W filters (Kenko SR 60 2 (red); Walz WYG (green); Walz UV; and Walz WY2 (yellow)). We have the light meter which is, unfortunately, inoperable. We also have the flash set up.
I also inherited two Canonets.
We have the father's Canonet QL f1.9 with the original protective leather case, cap and instruction manual. While the meter still works on this one, the shutter is frozen.
We have the mother-in-law's Canonet. This one featured the "Electric Eye" meter system which was so successful it only lasted one model year ... you guessed it, that was the one feature on the camera that did not work. The rest of the camera remains in good operating condition.
Darin Wessel α 900
Zooms: Tamron SP AF70-200mm f2.8 Di LD Macro; Sigma 28-90mm D macro, Konica-Minolta 18-70 f3.5-5.6
Primes: Minolta 28mm f2.8; Sony 50mm f1.4
Minolta RC-1000 remote commander
The oldest camera I own (and have used a few times) is the Kiev 4 - a post WWII Soviet produced rangefinder made with the tools from the pre WWII Contax factories. I bought the camera on an auction site on the net some years ago. It functions OK - even the lightmeter - but the rangefinder patch is very pale and hard to see.
The lens is a Jupiter 8M - 50 mm f/2. A well known lens also in 39 mm screw mount (LTM), but here in the special Contax style mount without any focusing helical - that is in the house! This gives the lens a special form:
Some time after I bought the camera I also found a Jupiter R12 - 35 mm f/2.8.
This is the most scary lens to mount I know of - the rear element is very deeply recessed into the house:
The Kiev (and the old Contax'es) do not have the selectable framelines in the viewfinder as Leica does. In stead you use auxiliary finders. The top of the (1950's) pops was the russian turret finder, with 5 selectable focus lenghts (28, 35, 50, 90 and 135 mm):
The 35 mm combination in all its might:
All pictures above: Olympus EP-1, 17 mm and 14-42 mm lenses, daylight from a window, table-top tripod.
As a contrast - the EP-1 with 17 mm f/2.8 and viewfinder - almost exact same configuration as the Kiev with 35 mm and turret finder
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