Hi,
As much as I don't like DSLR I love SLRs
The good old days...

Here are some (not all) of my fav websites I follow (RSS) so anybody interested vintage cameras and lenses might find interesting:

• https://35mmc.com
  
• http://vintage-camera-lenses.com
  
• http://vintagelensreviews.com/
  
• https://www.japancamerahunter.com/articles/
  
• https://productz.com/en/cameras-and-photo
  
• https://www.cooph.com/magazine.html
  
• https://www.thephoblographer.com/
  
• https://35hunter.blog/
  
• https://emulsive.org/

Any many more chanels on Youtube ;-)

Do you have any cool websites I'm missing?

 

I get the feeling you weren't there.

 

Wrong. Maybe not in MF age but early AF user. And by "good old days" I'm saying the gear quality. No sensor race.

 

My point is that the period those sites hark back to wasn't "the good old days". I lived through it and with the rose tinted filters removed from the lens mount they were were often grey and miserable. There were such pleasures as the three day week and the miners' strike. Britain's economy collapsed in the '70s and again in the '90s throwing whole communities out of work.

Photography was less available to the general public because of the expense. Cameras were far more expensive than today in relation to peoples' income. On top of that the price of film and processing was a major barrier to many. The image quality at the lower end of the market was nothing like as good as you'll find in today's equivalent cameras. Quality of construction was often not as good as one might have wished either.

More the "bad old days" for those of us who were there. Of course other peoples' mileage no doubt varied.

 

My point was - Andrew relax before you get heart attack ;-)

Nobody is saying about traveling in time - just about about lenses like e.g. Trioplan or Biotar. I love my Minolta XD7 and on digital sold all my AF lenses after first using Mitakon Speedmaster 25mm 0.95 on Olympus Pen-F. Then I went buying an adapter an some really cool and cheap lenses like Minolta MD 50mm 1.4, CZJ Flektogon 35mm 2.4 etc.

In photography I'm not looking for perfection and definitely sharpness is overrated. Modern lenses are too clean/perfect so they lack style/imperfection.

Back to the topic. Any sites?

 

Yes, at the bottom end of the market it was "the bad old days". But then, it always is at the bottom end of the market, be it for cameras, food, motor cars...

I lived through it too. I still have cameras from the 60s and before. The 70s really weren't too bad unless you were very poor. There were plenty of jobs around; housing was far cheaper; and things that are regarded as luxuries nowadays, such as libraries, public toilets and free university education, were taken for granted. Then Maggie got in...

Cheers,

R.

 

You might find some interesting stuff on www.rogerandfrances.eu (the photography section) and www.rogerandfrances.com

And if you can find copies, you'd probably find A History of the 35mm Still Camera and Rangefinder interesting.

Cheers,

R.

 

If you really want the pre-digital experience, dare I suggest that there a lots of second photographic hardware books around too?
An 'early AF' user? Sound young to me.

 

My age is not your concern. Does it bring anything to the topic or is it just trolling?

 

Compared to myself and some Forum members, somebody who started photography in the early days of AF is young.
There some forum members who started more recently and are clearly younger than myself or you, and there are others who began in the days of glass film plate cameras who make us look young.

Your age, sex, stance on Brexit, favourite type of biscuit or other personal things are of no interest to me unless you choose to refer to them in a posting on the Forum. (Although your age in on your profile - my age is not on mine.) I had to look up the definition of trolling: if going off-topic or joking about experience and the age one probably is to have it, then reading other threads will show that many members are guilty. But don't pretend that doing these things is the same as intentional abuse. Perhaps you have suffered this elsewhere: I have rarely seen it on the AP Forum website, and it tends to get noticed very quickly. Personally, I think the biggest problem currently is Brexit because it usually isn't related to anything photographic, and is consistently boring unless enlivened by humour (other opinions are available).

 

This one? https://www.cameraquest.com/classics.htm

Or this? https://yashicasailorboy.com/