What camera do I buy? / general gear talk

Borrow an Om2n, switch the tripod for a beanbag/hoodie/improvised-thing. Sorted.

If I owned a mamiya 7 I'd feel like I should use it ... but yeah I'd not feel great about flying/transporting it and the cost of 6x7 holiday $naps.

My cabin bag is my camera bag these days - laptop shoved down the back, iPad on top of it.

I'll have to learn what to do with the contents one of these days.

I don't have the Mamiya anymore - I was just borrowing it and that happened to coincide with going away :)

Basically, it's x100 and film compact or:
X100, 6D +2 lenses and maybe a film compact.

Can improvise a tripod so that doesn't have to go. It just has to point the camera upwards for 10 secs...

Picked up my Dad's old SLRs and sadly it appears they're both borked - Pentax ME Super (mechanical wind) and Pentax ZX5 (auto-wind). Both shutters won't re-open after depressing the shutter button and trying to wind on. The auto-wind on the ZX5 had a bit of a tizzy and wound a new film back into itself.
Fresh batteries in both.

They've both been stored for 15 or so years, and from internets research it appears the shutter mechanism can fail over time. Both borked, or worth trying to salvage ? The ME Super in particular I was hoping to use for sentimental reasons.

Unless they're easy to fix I guess I'll buy another ME Super body (or recommendations for Pentax bodies ?) to use the lenses with.

Robin at Harrow Technical will service the bodies (I think an ME Super was £85 last time I had one done) and at least you're starting from a known good body then. Having said that you can pick up ME Super body cheap enough so if you've got no sentimental attachment to it then you could try your hand at ebay, etc.

The Pentax K-mount has remained largely unchanged throughout it's life so you can use anything from a K1000 body through to any of the latest K model digital cameras with them.

If you want to have aperture priority then an ME Super is a decent option as it allows manual shutter speed selection as well. If you are happy with full manual operation only then a K1000 is the classic photography student's choice, built like a brick but will work forever. KX then K2 had more features and was better spec. M series bodies are a bit newer and a much more compact design, MX was the pick of the bunch. If money is no object then there's the LX which was the last manual wind pro-level body they did.

Did I buy a ME Super from you?

Yep, how'd you get on with it?

It was for my gf. She's used it quite a bit in the past couple of months. Takes some really nice pics. It's a cool little camera, has a nice smooth film advance lever.

Good stuff! Yeah the rewind lever is much nicer than the MX, they're a great bit of kit all round.

I've had a few different pentax slrs. Never the LX though ... looks noice.

If I were to buy a k mount pentax now it'd be a k1000.

The MX is my SLR of choice these days but I do keep an eye out for an LX. The only reasons I'd pick the MX over the K1000 is the smaller body size and depth of field preview. That and the prices of the K1000 seem to always be higher possibly due to them being recommended for lots of photography courses.

Thanks. I'm going to send the ME Super off to him to get it fixed. It does have sentimental value as my Dad was a keen photographer and the ME Super was his camera of choice for a long time.

I'd be grateful, as a non-photographer, for recommendations for a decent point-and-shoot camera. @Cycliste and I are off for a tour of Iceland in a few weeks, and I suspect I may want to take some photos at some point. I could just use my phone, but I'm aware of the inherent limitations with phone cameras and never that impressed with the results.

So, any recommendations? Small is good, tough (waterproof?) is also good, budget is flexible but I'd like to keep it to a maximum of around 300 pounds. I was thinking of the Sony RX-100, but I'm very open to persuasion because I know nothing about this.

rx100 as you've said or the canon g7x. I picked up the first gen verson of the canon for £280 in very good condition.

(Repost due to some error on attaching files)

I just bought a secondhand RX100 (Mk1) last week. You can get them for around £200 (LCE have a few, you can get cheaper if you're willing to hang around ebay bidding for a while).

I like it so far, it's much better for landscapes, etc than trying to catch wildlife/action shots, but haven't tried anything too testing. Picture quality even at 100% crop seems decent. The continuous autofocus is a bit annoying, the screen constantly "pulses" even if the photo is in focus which also makes it difficult to get action shots.

It seems reasonably tough but not waterproof, very compact which is a definite plus. If you're looking at truly pocketable I don't think there are many other alternatives, everything else I looked at with similar size sensors in that price range is double the depth.

The best combination of size/image quality at that price is probably going to be a secondhand Nikon D3200 and 35mm prime but that would be much more bulky.

A few shots from the RX100 when I was playing with it over the weekend:

amazon prime day deal... seems tempting!

1 Attachment

Recommendations for a budget digital compact ? Second hand for £100 or so.

Want a fixed/prime lens and viewfinder. Digital compacts at the cheaper end seem to be mostly zooms that do away with an optical viewfinder

I'm not convinced you'll find anything like that for the price range you are looking for. I'm sure by this time you might have a good idea. Let us know if you find anything. I'll keep an eye out.

The best I've found so far seems to be second hand slightly older prosumer compacts like the Nikon P7100, Fujifilm X10/20, Canon G12 etc Seem to be able to pick these up for around £150.
All have optical viewfinders, but all have zooms sadly

Fujifilm X10/20 seems to be the best option at the moment

yeah, my friend had an X10 and it seemed like a decent camera for the price. He was happy with it. I have experience with the others but they seem quite highly rated. Like you say, there aren't many compacts that come with a prime lens, particularly at the price you are looking for.

I may end up just sticking with film.

I've gone down a weird photography rabbit hole in a short space of time.
Had Praktica SLRs and various film compacts in my youth. In more recent times just used phone cameras.

Got frustrated with the 29mm focal length on the iPhone and thought I needed something with a zoom lens. Bought a second hand Nikon DSLR with a 18-55mm kit lens. Happy enough with it, although a bit bulky to carry all the time.

Also bought an Olympus Trip 35 to try film again, and what do you know, the 40mm lens on it is pretty much spot on for what I want to do. It's size means I can take it pretty much everywhere too.
Feel like I should have a digital version of the Trip for when I need more 'instant' images, but digital compacts at the lower end all have some problem or another (tiny sensors, zoom lenses and no optical viewfinder etc)

Hence sticking with film. Also helps that I've inherited my Dad's Pentax ME Super with 50mm prime lens, which feels half the size of the Nikon DSLR.
Olympus Trip 35, Pentax ME Super, iPhone when more instant images needed.

TL, DR: Why are modern budget digital compacts so bad when compared to their film predecessors

If you like the 40mm focal length and are looking for small/light then Pentax did a 40mm f/2.8 "pancake" lens that is ace: https://www.pentaxforums.com/lensreviews/SMC-Pentax-M-40mm-F2.8-Pankake-Lens.html

Makes the ME Super something that whilst still a bit big for a jeans pocket will easily go in a jacket/jersey pocket.

Cheers. The ME Super is off to Harrow Technical to get it fixed (shutter stuck after 10-15 years in storage), but I'll definately pick one of those up once the camera is back

I recently bought a Sony RX 100 and so far I'm impressed with the image quality, especially given its pocketable size.
I'm considering getting the Sony AG-R2 grip, does anyone have any experience using it with this grip? or any other grips?

Thanks,
Matt