Best & Worst Camera Experiences?

[Dallas]

Simple question; what have been your best and worst camera experiences (whether you owned it or just borrowed it)? 

 

I think my best was the Olympus E-M1X I used on the 2019 Fotozones safari. It's huge, but the amount of features and thought that has gone into that camera make it so versatile that it's really hard to find fault with it. 

 

My worst? Definitely my first DSLR, the Canon EOS D30. What a piece of rubbish that was! 

[crowecg]

I tend to hang on to my cameras so long that the overall experience with a new camera is generally positive.  

[Hugh_3170]

My worst was definitely the Panasonic G3 (M43) camera.  No contest!  I fought that dammed thing all the way.  A blind one armed paper hanger could not have designed a worse layout or control system if he/she had tried!  The 20mm f/2.0 and 14-75mm zoom lenses were excellent however.

 

The best one for me is harder.  The Nikon film cameras were all OK, my last being an F100.  My D700 ticked all boxes when I got it, and the D850 and Z6/7 that I have used at different times have all been great, but my own Olympus OMD E-M1 MkII is the camera that I have mainly used over the last few years and I love the thing.  It just works, it fits my hand well, has good functionality, good battery life, not too heavy (with a kit of lenses),  and updates still come along from time to time even though it is now getting on in age.  I still have the Mk1 version as my back-up camera.

[Dallas]

I sold one of my E-M1's last month to help me pay for the 35-100/2.8 Lumix lens. The other one is like new as it had the shutter replaced, as well as all the top parts and rubbers. I use it mostly on electronic shutter now so it should in theory last forever as I also have an a/c power supply for it. In reality that camera is closing in on 10 years of active service as I received it in December of 2013, so quite a significant worker! 

 

Another weird camera that I had the use of for over a year was the Epson R-D1, the world's first digital rangefinder with a Leica M mount. It was very unusual to use, but it did render some interesting images, even with its mere 6MP sensor. At one point I thought that the people who loaned it to me (local Epson crowd) had forgotten about it, but one of their agents remembered that I had reviewed it and wanted to try it out himself, so they came sniffing it out over a year after they sent it to me. 

[Alan7140]

Best experience? Hands-down my purchase of a Nikon F4 outfit and five AF-D lenses, if only for the fact that aside from fulfilling every task I asked of it as the events workhorse alongside my "serious" Hasselblad outfit, it remained up to task with everything I asked of it from 1993-2008. It never broke down, never missed a beat, never needed a service and (I thought at the time) welded me to Nikon gear for life. Although previous outfits of Minolta SRT-101 and Olympus OM-1 served their purpose, neither quite matched the bullet-proof nature of that F4. So confident was I in its reliability that it took me a decade before I bought a second-hand FE2 as a "just-in-case" backup, and which I never used. As far as I know that F4 is still working just fine in the hands of the guy I gave it to, even if at a much more sedentary pace.

 

My worst experience? Hands-down a Nikon D600 which I bought mainly for its 24MP sensor to gain double the resolution of my then-workhorse D3s, but which barely passed 300 shots before I sent it back when oil spots appeared on the sensor, even though the camera was touted as the "improved" D600 that Nikon had 'fixed the dust problem" with by re-engineering the shutter.

It was returned to me about six weeks later with an NPS service note claiming that the "dust" problem was rectified and the sensor had been cleaned "best as possible". Some trial photos of a blank sky then taken with the 70-300mm AF-D tele lens stopped down to f/22 showed the sensor to still have a spray of oil spots covering it, most of which coincided with spots that had been there when I sent the camera to NPS on a warranty claim the first time. Research on the serial number of D600 had it originally delivered to Spain some 9 months previously, after which it had been returned to Nikon and then obviously repackaged as a "kit" and palmed off to be sold as a new camera in Australia.

On return for the second time, Nikon's response took another six weeks, and that was along the lines of avoiding to photograph plain backgrounds and not to use such a small f-stop, which beggared a question as to why the brand-new 70-300mm lens that came as a "kit" with a 24-85mm lens along with that D600 had the capability to stop down to f22 at all.

It finally took an intervention by my dealer to get a full refund on that D600 piece of garbage, but I lost close to AUD$1,000 on the lenses that came with the kit when I traded them in on my initial Fuji X-T1 camera which, after a successful year-long run with my first X-Pro 1 had confirmed me as a Fuji X-system owner, also having sworn off Nikon for life.

The D600 fiasco was only part of the story - when I switched to digital in 2008 as my operating outfit I first used a D2x body with my old AF-D lenses plus a couple of DX wide angle lenses I bought new; that was followed by a D3 and yet more lenses to suit FX AF-S use, and that was replaced by a D3s when the D3 suffered a total-loss accident (courtesy Manfrotto's lousy hex-plate tripod attachment).

Each of those Nikon Pro digital cameras had at least one major repair visit to NPS in their lifetime, and each had one of their visits directly involve a failure of the stupid 10-pin plug socket (which had to be used with any remote release of the camera, and which was so poorly fastened - just one internal grub screw requiring a complete strip-down to repair - that even a gentle accidental tug on a connected cable would rotate the socket and short out the camera as a result. The repairs each ran in excess of AUD S600). So my glowing experience with the F4 was comprehensively trashed by Nikon's digital garbage, and hell would freeze over before I went anywhere near that brand again. Well-done, Nikon!

Meanwhile my Fuji X outfit soldiers along flawlessly and reliably (now with X-T2 as primary and X-T1 as back-up, even though, much like myself, it is mostly in retirement these days). Good as it is, it still hasn't gained the depth of trust I had in that venerable Nikon F4 body and the AF-D lenses that it used.

[Dallas]

4 hours ago, Alan7140 said:

Nikon's response took another six weeks, and that was along the lines of avoiding to photograph plain backgrounds and not to use such a small f-stop,

 

Good grief. You have to wonder whether the "brains" behind whoever penned that advice was more than a couple of years out of high school! 

 

Which version of the F4 did you have? I once owned an F4s and yes, that thing was about a solid as cameras can get. Actually I seem to recall that it was the only Nikon SLR capable of working (and metering) with every Nikkor lens ever made, including the non-AI lenses of the early 35mm era. There was a little spring on the AI-tab that allowed you to move it out of the way when a non-AI lens was mounted. 

 

I also recall a conversation I had with a local newspaper PJ who was taking our staff portraits with his F4 when I still worked at the bank. At the time I was swooning over the F5 and he said that he had bought one but it was still in the box because it was too complicated when compared to his trusty F4. 

[Alan7140]

13 hours ago, Dallas said:

 

Which version of the F4 did you have? I once owned an F4s and yes, that thing was about a solid as cameras can get. Actually I seem to recall that it was the only Nikon SLR capable of working (and metering) with every Nikkor lens ever made, including the non-AI lenses of the early 35mm era. There was a little spring on the AI-tab that allowed you to move it out of the way when a non-AI lens was mounted. 

 

 

 I just bought the standard F4.

 

The extra bulk of the battery holder on the F4s dissuaded me, as did the harbinger of Nikon Pro digital camera bodies with bulky fixed battery compartments with the the F5 when it introduced us to all the things hateful in the upcoming D* bodies - bulk, that bloody 10-pin plug, LCD screens etc. At least the F5 still had an interchangeable prism, having a waist level finder for my F4 owing to its removable prism was absolutely my most-used accessory for that camera, both for low-angle shots as well as convenience in copy-stand use. As far as batteries went with the F4, I simply carried a dozen or so AA rechargeable batteries with me, even though I rarely had to make one change of the four camera batteries on any one job, weddings included. I do remember being most concerned about the lack of a manual film advance lever when I bought it, though, but as things panned out the auto advance never failed me in the entire time I used the camera.

[danielm]

Dear Dallas,
That will be a very popular topic among us! 😉 
During my analog years (and as payed photographer), the Nikon 35mm photo system was our basic gear. The Nikon F3 HP and F4, F4s were the ones which I have preferred to work even after a brief essay with the newest F5. All Nikon Nikkor AI-S lenses were interesting to use, in particular, the 24mm, the 35mm, the 55mm Micro, the 105mm f2.5 and the 300mm F4.5. The AF-D different versions seems to be a bit downplayed in terms of quality of construction. For personal pleasure, I have also owned Leica M4P, M6 and R4 alongside mostly Summicron lenses with a strong appreciation of their material and optical qualities and their outstanding picture outputs.
The digital era was another affair. Comparing Fujifilm, Panasonic and Olympus (OM System) was a difficult task but my heart always return to the beloved Micro Four Third (MFT) format for its obvious compactness. The OM-D E-M1s and 5s as for my little favorite Pen-F got my preference although the Pan Lumix G85 was almost a gem in its part. So many cameras that I loved and still today...***
 
*** Usually I don't keep very long camera and lens models that I don't feel comfortable to use them. But it is a matter of personal taste more than a general judgement about their usabilities and their particular capabilities. It is very rare (but it happens sometimes!) that a photo gear is really total failure.

[Dallas]

I remember my dalliance with Leica. My first was an M3, which I followed up with an M6. Along the way I also acquired an R4, along with the 35mm and if I recall correctly a 175mm Leica R lens. For the M system I had 50mm, 90mm and 135mm. Loved those cameras, especially the M3. 

[danielm]

59 minutes ago, Dallas said:

"  Loved those cameras, especially the M3." - Dallas 

I am sure that you will agree that ergonomic have improved a lot since those weighty 35mm rangefinder models! 😉 

But good memories stay... good memories!

[blurmagic]

I won't bore you with my best and worst of film cameras.  As for digital cameras...

 

Worst  -  Never much cared for any of the Nikon or Canon DSLRs.

 

Best  -  Nikon Z6, best camera ever for my adapted lenses.  Great feel and terrific ergonomics!

Edited 22 January, 2022 by blurmagic