Old Cameras

[Lady Kett]

So, I'm doing some serious housecleaning and trying to get rid of some clutter. Challenging task for a pair of packrats, but it must be done, nonetheless!

I have thus far found 6 old cameras stashed away, one of which is a video camera. I think the oldest is a 25-ish year old Canon 35MM, and the most surprising find was an old polaroid including a package of polaroid film (it's actually a "newer model" polaroid, it's just old because it's been sitting in the closet!

Is there any market for these things or are they just trash nowadays?

[renfairephotog]

There's a polaroid market. Polaroid quit making film last year and some devoted fans started their own production. http://www.the-impossible-project.com/  I even seen people refurbishing old polaroid cameras.

Some people collect older cameras it's just find them that might be hard. I have some that I keep as keepsakes but I wouldn't go looking for for 70's camera. I got some disc film from my mother in law it's neat but I don't know if I'll keep it.

[iain robb]

Wow -- talk about timing! This past Friday evening I was cleaning out my camera closet (yes, I have a camera closet -- don't ask) and came across stuff I had completely forgotten I had. Some of it went right in the trash (yes, it belonged in the trash), but some of it just felt so right in my hands ...

I got up early Saturday morning and ran some film through an old Bronica medium format camera, and that was fun.

Sunday afternoon I took a stroll with an old Canonet rangefinder, and that was disappointing. The shutter wouldn't fire.

This morning I have a loaded (and operational) Olympus XA rangefinder within reach.

To get back on topic ... there's a market for some of the stuff, undoubtedly, but don't expect to get a lot for old cameras. There were, for example, so many 35mm Canons made 25 years ago, that the supply greatly exceeds the number of people interested in them. And if you've got something like I came across -- like a manual focus 70-210 f4 zoom from Albinar, which was next to worthless when it was new -- it may just belong in the trash.