In your bag No: 1347, Kevin Thomas
Kevin has sone unusual cameras in his bag, one of them a bargain score from a local garage sale. See, it is not all about the most expensive gear. Whatever you can use to express your creative urges, it is all welcome here. Check it out.

My name is Kevin Thomas and I live in Austin, Texas.  I remember growing up with a camera around the house, starting with an Instamatic in the 60’s and on through a succession of point-and-shoots and Polaroids.  Then along came digital, and the convenience totally overwhelmed film.

But then a year ago my wife and I went to an estate sale in our neighborhood.  One of the family treasures for sale was a Kodak Retina IIa the father had picked up in England in the mid-50’s.  I had never seen such a lovely camera, with it’s intricate, precise workmanship, and took it home.  Researching it kindled my desire to shoot film again, and my interest in vintage cameras.  It’s been a year and I have 40 cameras ranging from a 30’s Kodak folder to a 90’s Olympus Stylus, and my goal is to shoot with as many of them as possible.  I find shooting film – especially on older cameras that make you think about the settings and process – much more fun and creative.

This bag shot shows the cameras I took to the Austin contingent of the Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk last October.  Everything except the film and the hat came from estate sales or thrift stores.

The cameras are:

Argus C-3 Matchmatic – From about 1960, this is a fun camera to use, but definitely not ergonomic.  The Matchmatic was setup to use EV numbers to set shutter speed and F stop, but the previous owner taped a handy chart with conversions to standard values on the front.  This is a double exposure monster – and it’s also the Harry Potter camera!  It’s my favorite of the 5 Argus C-3’s that have come my way.  This was loaded with Fuji Superia ISO 200 film.

Franka – This came from a thrift store.  Not sure what model, there’s not a lot of info on Franka’s and no model name on the camera.  A good example of mid-level 50’s German camera making, it’s an easy camera to use and has a good rangefinder.  This was loaded with TriX 100 ISO film.

Canon A-1 – this camera is so far my favorite SLR.  This is an early one, from 1978, but everything works great.  This camera came with the camera bag I used, the Vivitar flash, a Canon FD 50mm F1.8 lens and an RMC Tkina 35-135 mm zoom lens.  Loaded with Fuji Superia 400 ISO film.

The cleaning kit came with another camera – an Olympus OM-10 – which I didn’t take.

An extra roll of 400TX black and white, and 2 rolls of Superia.

The hat is well worn and I don’t go outside for any length of time without it.

A bottle of water and my iPhone with the handy Lightmeter Pro app aren’t shown, but were very handy.

I had a great time at the Photowalk, but I was the air there only person shooting film.  Maybe next year there will be more of us.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/136160432@N07/

Thanks for sharing your bag with us, Kevin. You are right about the Franka, it is a Franka-Kamerawerk camera from Germany, maybe the Frankarette I or II (cool name for a camera).
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Japancamerahunter