TEN Awesome 35mm Film Cameras you should look to buy. Whats yours?

I have just bought my first 35mm camera, Pentax K1000 with SMC Pentax-M 1.7 50mm lens. Found your channel and subscribed. Got my first films today, ready for the weekend 🙂 lots of learning to do now

Canon EOS 300
Shoots smooth, is dirt cheap to get and you have access to all the EF lenses out there
You can ease yourself into film photography with fully automatic modes, but you also have access to Av,Tv and fully manual. Love mine and can wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone

I like the Nikon F3 is a bit expensive but absolutely beast of a camera ($200-$400)

I won a F80 last year and I shoot B&W film with it, it’s really a joy to use & takes great pictures on manual settings and or aperture priority.

I’ve heard that batteries for the OM-1 are no longer available, anyone wishing to shoot with it would need to get it converted to a modern type.

pentax k500

Well I’m stunned, I only today sent a message to a guy who was using a 100 year old bellows and although he got there in the end, I suggested he visit Martin up north and your site, explains that you where both quite different but knew each other? And both developed film, Martin doing plate exposures.
I sit down to hear your choices and bearing in mind I think a lot of your shots are excellent, enthusiasm is infectious and knowledge is like talking to some pone who brews beer at home you’ve read the books but know that there is a life!
I was stunned with your choice especially as you numbered them, K1000 it’s a cult, but it’s not the best, I’ve just got one for £32 + £2:87 postage with a SMC Pentax M f2 50m lens selling no mirror? Mirror is stuck in up position! Lovely condition, I collect cameras, bottom plate off, after looking at curtains, spray with isopropyl and leave 15mins, then operate, bit of cleaning same as over two days amounting to about 2 hrs tops working fine, I will replace seals but stripped lens from front and all ok.
OM 10? Yeah they are cheap but, OM 1 or 1n and the 2&2n are nice, but the Pentax Supers are good, especially if film advance working, you think the OM is small these are tiny and the Takumar lenses that come with them excellent, Spotmatic got quite a few and the KM, How could you not put the Nikon F2 if you get one, you will fall in love, I know you like the rangefinder and nice Leica I don’t have, I have a Reid, Mint two lenses and case Leicester Hobson & Siegfried? Charity shop, but the Zorki 4 is lovely and Yashica MG1 a steel canon EF Canon A1 what a lovely sound when you release the shutter as is the K100O just in the middle of rearranging my collection and son lives on IOW as I did barber! Sorry in Ventnor but in interesting his bosses husband is into cameras there are old ones around the salon, tried to get my hands on some but Sam my son says, no dad they are all broken? Well that’s not always the case but that’s another story. I’ll send you a pic and I’ll check out what I’ve got in the OM see if I can let you do a video, sorry see if I’ve got one fully functioning that you could try out. How could you leave Minolta out? DG

I’ve had OM-1’s but the problem is the mercury batteries aren’t available and the meters don’t work right on modern batteries. I’d get an OM-2n. It has a virtual OM-1 inside it. Seriously. I’d also highly recommend an OM-10.

How about doing a video on folding cameras. I have 2 Kodak retinas, the 1a (35mm viewfinder) and the frankly brilliant iic rangefinder. I know you love your Nettar (I love mine) but there are so many others from super Ikontas to king penguins, shooting 35mm up to 6x9 and beyond. I would love to see your take on these overlooked beauties :)

The good thing about Spotmatic SP, Spotmatic F and also Canon EF SLRs are that they have circuits in their lightmeters that are immune to voltage differences, so they measure correctly with modern 1.5 V batteries. Pentax used the same circuit in their later K1000 and KM.
Konica stayed with the old mercury 1.35V based circuit, unfortunately.
I prefer using the smallbatterycompany's MR-44 adapter with 392 cells in their very solidly built Autoreflex models.
They have vertically travelling Copal Square shutters that are more reliable than horisontally working cloth shutters.
The Konicas and their Hexanon lenses are quite inexpensive.

Bought aa F2 about 2 year ago from Japan paid !75 US dollars for it, I also bought a Nikonus 5 as I used a one in 72 to 75 and when I was skint I sold it, easy to use and took pictures inside a cave, which was really hard to do as I had to use a flash gun, and replacing bulbs under water was very difficult, but my m8s all wanted The pictures,

I have a few dozen 35mm cameras. My faves would be Minolta XD-7, Nikon FA, Olympus M-1/OM-1, Pentax P30, Canon A-1 & Olympus Pen F, Minolta SRT 303, Nikon FE, Nikon FM & the one I can't afford Nikon F3.

My first ever 35mm was a Zenit 2M. These days I shoot an awful lot of digital, but my regular 35mm SLRs are a couple of Pentax Spotmatics, a Contax 139Q, and a couple of Ricohs, a XR-1 and a XR-1S. I've also got a bit of a love affair going with the pair of Contax G-1 rangefinders I own, one a green label, the other not. Amongst 35mm cameras I've owned over the years, but no longer have, those which gave great service were an Olympus OM-1, an Olympus OM-4, and the rather unique Rollei 3003.

I had a beautiful OM1 and I think one of OM1n and an OMf . Loved it , sadly all gone now.

I had a really nice older Pentax ME super camera. with three lenses, filters, and many other accessories. I believe it previously belonged to a professional photographer. possibly for a newspaper. I purchased it for a reasonable price. but unfortunately it was stolen. and I'm still very angry about that.

something that a person has remember is. Minolta and Pentax cameras were manufactured by the company. and shared many of the same parts and components.

Minolta must have sold one hell of a lot of DiMage model cameras. because they can be found all over the place for practically no money. their drawback now is really low MP numbers.

The AE-1 was my first camera way back in the day. Loved that thing. Progressed to the AE-1Program and then the F-1n before getting the EOS1D - and then the exodus to digital. But you've got some classics. I also owned the Nikon FE (my brother had the F5), and everyone I know seemingly learned on the K1000!

Blimey! A listing video I largely agree with!

This is such a good review. Instead of telling us "look what pictures it can shoot" "beginner friendly" etc. I finally get valuable tips like "hey this can't shoot full manual" and "this one requires extinct batteries"... I was considering some of the "cheaper" Nikons and Canons but I can now see why the Pentax K1000 is so damn popular - I thought it's just hype, but no full manual mechanical mode is absolutely sweet! I mean we're here to do analogue photography right? And that too for the price range of aperture priority battery requiring Canons and what not... Yeah... I think I'm gonna get a Pentax K1000... as expensive as it is (for me).

And also the Leica RE + tamron mount, and chinon CP7M or CP9 af (pentax), cheapest is the pentax SF7, lovely VF, hopeless meter! so good for pretending! uncle derek!

Like you I collect film slr's, however I don't use film(despite a freezer still full of 35mm) I find pleasure from pretending,
mentally remembering the exposures and the scene... So I've found the best slr's have to have the best viewfinder and good eyerelief. Nikon, contax, top end minolta's etc. Favourites are the pentax LX with the fb1/fc1 viewfinder,(better than the F3), minolta 7000i or 9xi, and surprisingly Yashica 270af!, however I won't bore you any more, wonderful toys for an old boy! cheers uncle Derek!
v/f

My K1000, AE-1 and FE (always by my side). Love shooting these to this day.

Your list has some bizarre choices but should include the Canon A-1, the Nikon F3HP, and this is just my partial list.

Minolta SRT-102 is probably one of the best. Fully manual and only needs battery for a light meter. Can shoot with no battery you just need to understand light

I have a Nikon F5 and an F6 ... both in mint condition. The 5 was used on a project with just a few film rolls while the 6 had just a test roll. Fantastic cameras though I preferred the F5. I went digital thereafter but still have my F and F2 as well the F5 and F6. All great cameras.

You should go back a bit.
Some of the earlier cameras - Leicas etc were beautifully crafted and worth much more than any of these.

Felix Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky was the founder of KGB, Soviets named the photocamera factory to his name

Pentax K1000 is essentially a Spotmatic if you ignore the bayonet. Production 1964 - 1997

I shoot a Nikon N6006 and a Nikon F100

When cameras were distinctive and photography was exciting.

I buy and sell cameras and believe me, I wouldn't touch anything on ebay. Nothing wrong with older cameras using batteries. Just carry a spare. At the end of the day, you get what you pay for so when you go cheapskate and get a lemon, suck it up. That was your choice. Also keep in mind that many film cameras either 35mm or 120mm formats were originally designed with a certain lifespan so any fully functional working camera is a bonus these days.

I had a Canon AE1 program and an A1, but my favorite film camera was my Olympus OM2n. Almost effortless to get a fantastic picture.

Contax G2? Best one out there for around $500 with three lenses.

Nikon F4.
As a retired sports photographer, I would say that.
Still have two. Both work perfectly after all these years and much heavier use than the average snapper. With regular service they will last for ever.

Just a remark -

The Nikon FE2 and the following model, the FM3 were completely different beasts to the early FE model.
While the FE was a great amateur camera, the later models were semi-pro ones. Shutter speed went up from 1/1000 to 1/4000, which was the fastest from a non professional camera back then. No similarly prised camera could do more than 1/2000. It mean that one could generally take any picture they wanted, using any film they wanted, and were not limited to lower ISO films with lit scenes. Could even take against the sun pictures using regular 100ISO film. It also had a 'mostly automated' control, on top of the Aperture-priority one. It also boasted both weighted and point light measure.

It was so good, most Nikon-professional I knew used one as a second/third camera on sight. Personally, I'll take (and did) one of those over any other manual-focus F model.

I sold my Leica's, Rollei's, Kowa's, Mamiya's& kept the old Nikons as paperweights, in storage with about $5,000.00 +worth of darkroom equipment out in my garage attic. I now shoot Canon slr digital and after 60 years in the bizness, am actually having fun printing in my digital darkroom. And I no longer have to smuggle B&W film out of third world countries to avoid X rays either. It could have been diamonds or dynamite instead of 120 film.

35mm Cameras are WORTHLESS now. Not so much because film is an inferior means for capturing high quality images, but because the ecosystem of high quality labs able to do dip-n-dunk processing and professional printing no longer exists.

I bought the Canon AE-1 in the late 70's, and used it all the way up to the Canon 10D digital. Got a great trade-in. The thing I miss, was the AE-1 had a range-finder focus in the center of TTL, and the prism was huge! All my digital have dinky view finders, but who uses them anyway these days.

Canon T90, Mamiya RB67 ProS, Canon EOS3

What about the Canon A1? As a dyed in the wool Nikon user it was one I loved using especially with the Canon 35/105 zoom. The Canon breechlock lenses are superb as well.

FM2 Nikon

Pentax MX needs to be there instead of the K1000. Smaller, and more loveble. The Nikon FE is another one that is too large and I much prefer the far more sophisticated FA.

Loved both my OM1 & OM2, could never afford the OM3, and OM4 at the time. Olympus had a brilliant advertising campaign in that era.

Still have the Minolta 505si super, Sony Alpha lenses are interchangeable

Still got my K1000 I brought brand new in 1986.

First camera I used was a 1950s Braun Paxette - a mechanical fixed lens rangefinder-style (has a separate rangefinder attachment) with a leaf shutter - which my father gave me when I was young. My first was a Chinon CP5 in the mid 80s… Both still work fine, as do the Pentax ME Super & Nikon F301 I inherited later… I think you hit upon a great point, the wide range of quality lenses available for all these relatively cheap cameras 👍

I'd be sad without my Nikon F, with the Photomic prism.

I got my Olympus OM-10 at a charity shop for £10 🤯