# Vintage Camera Sightings



## ksmattfish (Jan 2, 2007)

I see vintage cameras in the strangest places...

I saw a vintage Leica on the cover of Seventeen magazine a few months back.

Today I was watching The Muppet Show on DVD with my kids.  It was the George Burns episode.  There was a reporter muppet toting a Hasselblad 500 series camera.


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## terri (Jan 2, 2007)

I remember seeing that magazine cover. I was standing in the checkout line of the grocery store and had to tilt my head and look again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.  

I watched some TV pilot (can't even remember the name of it now) a couple months back, and there was a character who was a photographer in it. His *issue* was some kind of artistic block. Ultimately, something inspired him (naturally) and he went for his camera and I remember thinking, "Oh, this oughtta be good."  But it was a Leica, too, as I recall, and he got into the darkroom and everything. Impressive! 

TV photogs are usually shown using film, probably cause the darkroom scenes look so sexy on TV. :razz:


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## Big Mike (Jan 2, 2007)

In the movie 'One Hour Photo' with Robin Williams...Connie Nielsen's character (the mom) uses a Leica.


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## ksmattfish (Jan 2, 2007)

In the movie Sky Captain & the World of Tomorrow Gwyneth Paltrow's character uses an Argus brick, although it's been digitally futurized.


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## markc (Jan 2, 2007)

I can't remember the details, but I seem to recall seeing a movie where one of the characters was using a Rollei TLR. The Foley people used a shutter/film advance sound from modern SLR for it. *cringe*


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## ksmattfish (Jan 2, 2007)

terri said:


> I remember seeing that magazine cover. I was standing in the checkout line of the grocery store and had to tilt my head and look again to make sure I wasn't hallucinating.



That's where I saw it.  I picked up the mag, and got the kid's name (can't remember it now).  He was some sort of musician, I think?  Anyway, I tried looking him up online to see if he was into photography, but I couldn't find any info suggesting that.  

I noticed that Ben Folds (musician) had some albums or songs or something (I'm not a huge fan, just aware of him) called "Sunny 16" and "Speed Graphic".  I searched online, and did find some photos of him using vintage cameras, including a 4x5 Speed Graphic, and a list of his hobbies that included photography, but not a lot of real info or examples of his photography.


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## terri (Jan 2, 2007)

Ha! I'm not a big Ben Folds fan, either, but it's hard to argue with song titles like that.  

Oh, and even though it got completely panned, the movie "Fur" shows Nicole Kidman, playing Diane Arbus, reverently upwrapping a Rollei and lifting it up like a piece of gold. I imagine that Rollei closeup was the best part of the movie.


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## Jeff Canes (Jan 2, 2007)

Ben Folds that a name you dont hear a lot. Folds along with Ben Kweller and Ben Lee made a four song album under the name The Bens, It very good. Im not fan of Folds but am of Ben Kweller. 

Back to camera talk 



markc said:


> I can't remember the details, but I seem to recall seeing a movie where one of the characters was using a Rollei TLR. The Foley people used a shutter/film advance sound from modern SLR for it. *cringe*


I recall seeing and hearing that too, also you see a lot of Leica M series in both TV and movies


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## ksmattfish (Jan 5, 2007)

terri said:


> ...playing Diane Arbus...



I heard that they loosely based the character on her, but other than that it has nothing to do with her life.  It's more like a Beauty and the Beast story.  It's been called a "fictional biography", which seems like an oxymoron to me.


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## danalec99 (Jan 6, 2007)

In 'Closer', Julia Roberts is a photographer who uses a 'blad and a Leica M6.


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## terri (Jan 6, 2007)

ksmattfish said:


> I heard that they loosely based the character on her, but other than that it has nothing to do with her life. It's more like a Beauty and the Beast story. It's been called a "fictional biography", which seems like an oxymoron to me.


heh - no doubt that's why it got panned. You hint of a Diane Arbus biography and show trailers like the one I saw, and I was ready to be entertained by at least a moderately good tale with reverence paid to Rolleis, Hasselblads and the artistry of photography in general. But it was not to be, unfortunately. It was _severely_ panned. 

Someone needs to do better! :x


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## Digital Matt (Jan 6, 2007)

This is not necessarily vintage, but I'll go on anyway.  The person who lived in our apartment before us was a mail order junkie.  We now get catalogs from stores I've never even heard of, sometimes 10 or more per week.  One of them is Sundance catalogue, ala the Sundance Film Festival, ala Robert Redford.  The catalogue has mostly clothes, rugged outdoor, mountain clothes, for women and men, and also some very overpriced leather furniture.  On the cover of the current catalogue is a woman standing in front of the theater where they show the movies.  She's holding a Seagull TLR.  I was intrigued, and opening to the first page, I find they have them for sale, for the amazingly expensive price of $295.  B&H sells them for $139. 

Another reference.  If you've ever seen Big Fish (great movie), the son's wife is a journalist and she takes some pictures of the old man (Albert Finney) with a Leica.


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## Don Simon (Jan 6, 2007)

Going even further off-topic here, but the bit about the Rollei sounding like a modern SLR reminded me of other movies and TV shows where people wander round taking shots with mechanical cameras without ever focusing or touching any other dial or button but the shutter release... and people taking rapid continous shots on cameras without a motor drive. And no-one ever seems to use fixer... you'd think people working in the film and TV industry would know a bit more about photography


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## ksmattfish (Jan 6, 2007)

I remember a lot of darkroom scenes in the old, live action Spiderman show when I was a kid.  It would be interesting to watch them again.  I wonder what camera Peter Parker uses?


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## terri (Jan 6, 2007)

I remembered another one. In "I Heart Huckabees" Lily Tomlin's character runs around with an SX-70 Land camera. 

That movie kinda sucked as I recall, but I DO remember that part.


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## Jeremy Z (Jan 9, 2007)

Digital Matt said:


> She's holding a Seagull TLR. I was intrigued, and opening to the first page, I find they have them for sale, for the amazingly expensive price of $295. B&H sells them for $139.


Yes, and even *that* is too much.  I'd pay maybe $25 for one.  They can get away with it because it is the only new TLR made these days.  I bet Yashica would make a killing if they brought back the Yashica-Mats at a reasonable price.

When I worked at Central Camera Co., we had students coming in all the time buying the damned things.  We had a whole rack full of nice Yashica-Mats and Rolleiflexes, but the worry about them needing repair, parts, and their slightly-higher price always a deal-breaker for the starving students.  These kids are spending all of their money, and some of their parents' on tuition and rent.

I tried hard to sell the proper 6x6 TLRs, but only managed to sell one for every 5 Seagulls.  It was a personal defeat for me.

The cameras don't have to be particularly good.  The mechanism is simple, the lens is cheap, probably even plastic.  The fact that the negative is 2 1/2 times bigger than a 35mm neg means better enlargements anyhow. They wouldn't hold a candle to a Yashica-Mat, but they're good enough, and will last through a 16 week course.  By golly if the Chinese didn't crack that formula.


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## montresor (Jan 27, 2007)

Regarding "Fur," didn't Arbus use a Mamiya C-series for most of her square shots? Every picture I've seen of her with a TLR, it's that big hulking C around her neck, with a flash bracket making it even bulkier. Later a Pentax 67, but that was like in the last year of her life.... Her first shots were 35mm, almost always composed vertically. Maybe there was a Rollei in there somewhere, I dunno!


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## ksmattfish (Jan 27, 2007)

montresor said:


> Regarding "Fur," didn't Arbus use a Mamiya C-series for most of her square shots? Every picture I've seen of her with a TLR, it's that big hulking C around her neck, with a flash bracket making it even bulkier. Later a Pentax 67, but that was like in the last year of her life.... Her first shots were 35mm, almost always composed vertically. Maybe there was a Rollei in there somewhere, I dunno!



She used both.  Lisette Model turned her onto the Rolleiflex, which was Arbus' first venture into medium format.  Later she also began using a Mamiya TLR.


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## montresor (Jan 28, 2007)

I stand corrected!


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## usayit (Jan 29, 2007)

Not exactly vintage but did anyone see the movie "Pecker".  Great movie with lots of screen time for a Canonet.


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## markc (Jan 29, 2007)

Hehe. Yeah, fun film.

As an aside, did you see John Waters in that recent episode of "My Name is Earl"? He played the mortician.


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## malkav41 (Feb 18, 2007)

> Originally posted by usayit
> Not exactly vintage but did anyone see the movie "Pecker". Great movie with lots of screen time for a Canonet.


It's a pretty good flick. I blame that movie for the 8 Canonet's, along with the 8 other rangefinders, and 8 SLR cameras I now own.  :blushing: :banghead:


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## montresor (Feb 18, 2007)

Just watched "The Notorious Bettie Page" last night and was amazed at the number of vintage cameras -- and alarmed at how they depicted so-called photographers using them. Speed Graphics with the bellows extended way, way past the infinity stops, as if they were getting inside three feet of the subject; a guy with a cruddy little Ansco TLR on a tripod clicking away like it had a motor drive on it; a woman using a Speed Graphic, hand-held, like a 35mm with a motor drive, not bothering to do anything with a film holder; another woman with a Crown Graphic on a tripod taking shot after shot while just yanking the dark slide in and out (okay, maybe a Grafmatic pack on there?), and some guy with a Rolleiflex who never bothered to advance the film but shot, in quick succession, way more than 12 negatives. I'm no great photographer by any stretch of the imagination, but this seemed beyond incredible.

Anyway, I only rented it because I was interested in the photography angle. Yeah, that's it!


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## malkav41 (Feb 19, 2007)

> Originally Posted By montresor: and some guy with a Rolleiflex who never bothered to advance the film but shot, in quick succession, way more than 12 negatives.


 
I find that cameras in movies have a lot in common with revolvers in westerns and gangster movies of the 30's, 40's and some of them in the 50's. You can shoot the thing waaaaay past the 6 rounds it will hold w/o reloading. Same with cameras in some movies. The things have unlimited sized rolls of film in them I guess.


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## Mitica100 (Feb 19, 2007)

In Hollywoodland I saw an Argus C44 with a tele lens being used.


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## usayit (Feb 19, 2007)

malkav41 said:


> It's a pretty good flick. I blame that movie for the 8 Canonet's, along with the 8 other rangefinders, and 8 SLR cameras I now own.  :blushing: :banghead:



Hey you pack rat.... I'm in the same boat.  I used to have 7 Canonets that I obtain for next to nothing over the years.  I cleaned them and changed their seals... worked good as new.  I ended up needing the space so I gave some of them away as gifts to my friends.  I'm down to 2 good examples... which are all mine!  2 other Yashica GSN also share the same shelf...


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## montresor (Feb 20, 2007)

Just dragged out my old C44 to have a look at it -- how they got a tele lens on it escapes me, but I bet it involved Gorilla Glue....

Sort of sad, I rather liked my C44, it was my first experience with a vintage camera. Kind of a good-looking camera. Shutter speeds seemed accurate, rangefinder clear and on, didn't mind the two-stroke advance/shutter cock, but the rewind gears were stripped and it shredded the sprocket holes on the second roll of film I tried in it. Wah! :cry:

(Of course maybe I could just shoot with it and rewind it onto a tank reel in a darkroom. Oh, who am I kidding? I can hardly get away from my job to shoot with the cameras that are working just fine.)


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## blackdoglab (Mar 11, 2007)

There's a spainish/italian film (The Witch's Mountain) in which a charecter uses a Zenit E Photosnaiper.


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## Mike_E (Mar 12, 2007)

Just in case you all really wanted to know, Spiderman used a Canon New F1.. http://imdb.com/title/tt0145487/trivia. And ye the Canonettes were great cameras!


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## blackdoglab (Mar 17, 2007)

Might I add two new sightings?  In Mermaids, Christina Ricci uses a Brownie Hawkeye Flash.  There is also an Edgar G. Ulmer film called The Naked Venus in which there are a coupla' rolleiflexes.


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## ksmattfish (Mar 18, 2007)

I was watching TV news coverage a few days ago of congressional hearings on whichever political scandal de jour we're on this week, and I spotted photojournalist David Burnett and his Speed Graphic crouched down and shooting.

http://www.davidburnett.com/gallery.html?gallery=2004 Politics

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/photo/essays/vanRiper/040226.htm

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/08/t...c5650d56297840&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://www.digitaljournalist.org/issue0402/dis_burnett.html

http://www.asmp.org/culture/bestof2006/David_Burnett/index.php

http://zonezero.com/exposiciones/fotografos/burnett/default.html

I'm inspired to do some handheld 4x5 shootin'!


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## blackdoglab (Mar 18, 2007)

There's a commercial that's been on recently (can't recall the company though) that features a Speed Graphic and a Yashica tlr.


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## montresor (Mar 22, 2007)

"It Should Happen to You," 1954, screenplay by Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin, directed by George Cukor, with the incomparable Judy Holliday, and Jack Lemmon in his first movie. Photographers with Speed Graphics with what appear to be huge Ilex shutters. You get a good look at them as they all crowd the camera for a nice POV shot. Also, Lemmon as a documentary filmmaker, with a three-lens 16mm camera in tow. No idea about the make of that one.


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## blackdoglab (Mar 22, 2007)

The Fortune Cookie has Jack Lemmon being spied on with an Arriflex ( 16mm and technicolor as one charecter says).


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## montresor (Apr 15, 2007)

Watching, with a very young relative, "Abbott & Costello Meet the Mummy" (I know, I know) -- Bud Abbott hands Lou Costello a big, folding Polaroid Model 150 to take a photograph with. Must have been very up to date in 1955!


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## blackdoglab (Apr 15, 2007)

There's a twin lens reflex (I'm thinking it's a yashica, but I'll have to look more closely) in Eegah.


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## DSLR noob (Apr 17, 2007)

There is the ever popular Leica M7 in Euro Trip. I don't think it's vintage, but it'll be a collectible if not already one.


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## DRodgers (Apr 17, 2007)

just my  2 cents I love this thread I thought i was the only one who yells out look at the camera during a show.. I now need to keep notes of the details so i can too can post up my findings..


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## danalec99 (Apr 22, 2007)

ksmattfish said:


> http://www.asmp.org/culture/bestof2006/David_Burnett/index.php


Few more images with tech info > here


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## usayit (Apr 27, 2007)

I was just watching episodes of MASH with my wife (She's a big fan).  THe episode showed Hawkeye building a monument out of tongue depressors only to blow it up in front of the military press as a demonstration of the war's senseless destruction (kinda describes our current situation).  The photographer for the military press was shooting with a Hasselblad.  

Its interesting because 35mm negative cameras were creating quite a stir during the Korean war days.  They proved to be a very practical camera in the heat of battle.  From what I read, MF still remained the primary camera for military but the field coorespondants out on the battlefield started to make the switch.


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## malkav41 (May 1, 2007)

Heck, anymore when we're watching a movie, and I see a camera, my youngest groans.


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## montresor (May 14, 2007)

Don't torture yourself by watching it, but in the made-for-TV banality "Where the Heart Is," Natallie Portman uses a Rolleicord and, later, a Rolleiflex -- CORRECTLY! What next, pigs with wings?


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## usayit (May 15, 2007)

Brad Pitt in Spy Game was just aired yesterday.  I noticed a scene of what is suppose to be Beruit shooting away with an M6 with motor.  The "click" shutter sound effect in the movie doesn't sound like an M6+motor though. 

Later in the movie he's shooting with some sort of Nikon.


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## MadisonWI (May 22, 2007)

Anybody ever notice what camera Will Smith has around his neck in the intro to Fresh Prince of Bel-Aire? It also appears in the first couple episodes, I think.

It looks old, and is in a leather-ish case. I could never tell what it was, for sure ...


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## IloveTLRs (May 22, 2007)

I was watching an episode of Cheers last night (season 1) when I saw a classic camera. Around the neck of some guy was a camera that looked like a Baldamatic. Wonder where that came from??


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## Mad_Gnome (Jun 2, 2007)

Anyone seen the movie "The Corruptor" with Mark Wahlberg and Chow Yun Fat? There's a stakeout scene where Wahlberg is using a manual-focus camera. I couldn't tell what kind. There is the distinct sound of an autowinder, then he cocks the shutter. I had to stop the movie, I was laughing so hard.


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## blackdoglab (Jun 2, 2007)

I love it when a manual wind camera has a motor sound.


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## Mitica100 (Jun 4, 2007)

Rented _Hannibal Rising_ tonite and watched it. There is a scene where one of the villains is taking pictures of one of the main characters with a rarely seen camera. It was a Mikroma made by the former Czech camera factory called Meopta. It is a subminiature acmera taking 16mm film.


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