Yesterday was one of the best camera buying days ever.  I bought 11 cameras of variable quality for $5.77.  I hit up two thrift stores in the area, both of them St. Vincent DePaul Thrift Stores.  The first St. Vinnie’s had a “1/2 off everything in the store” sale.  They had a good number of cameras, but only two of them forced me into buying them the BG Helioflex and the Ricoh AF-7.  I had to have the BG because I absolutely love the cheap plastic cameras that are designed to mimic what most people consider a proper camera, an SLR.  Most of them that I’ve shot do actually take fairly decent pictures.  The Ricoh AF-7 was necessary because the brick shaped “electronic” cameras of the 80′s really do it for me, they’re ackwardly beautiful.

The second St. Vinnie’s proved to be the jackpot.  They didn’t have any sales going on, but apparently their cameras are always 50 cents plus tax, yes fifty cents!  I felt like a kid with ten cents standing in front of a penny candy machine.  They had all of their cameras piled inside of a laundry basket.  I had to dig through them to get to the bottom.  I ended up buying 9 of them. I had to pick up all the Bell+Howell point and shoots as they’re so easy to manipulate and modify, remember my tutorial from last Spring?  I also had to get the Instamatics.  Whenever I find instamatics at a great price I buy them, I’ve got a small collection of them and I love each and everyone.  They’re great shelf pieces, as they don’t really resemble the cameras people usually display proudly in their living rooms.  I bought the Kodak Pleaser Instant Camera because I didn’t have an instant Kodak in my collection.  It looks crazy and fun and I’ll never be able to use it.

I had to have the Canon SureShot WP-1, it’s water proof (unless I prove otherwise) and I’ve never gotten the chance to play with an underwater camera before, not even a disposable one.  I live four blocks from Lake Superior this will give me a reason to get in.  I’ve got a few ideas, if only the water temperature would rise a few degrees.

A view inside. It does actually look water tight.

There a quite a few reasons for buying the Fuji DL-50.  The primary reason was because it looks and feels like a big 110 camera.  It folds up like some of the 110 cameras I’ve played with.  It’s fully electronic and the photographer doesn’t have to spool the film you drop it in and it takes care of the rest.  I’ve not used it or even loaded batteries into it, so we’ll see whether or not it works.

Over the past few months I’ve picked a couple of other cameras as well.  Most of the thrift store cameras here in Marquette cost between $1 and $8.  I do my best to only buy the $1 cameras.  Occasionally the thrift stores will make mistakes and price a camera incorrectly.  The camera below on the right hand side is a Bratz Movie 35mm plastic still camera.  It’s one of the most poorly made cameras in my collection.  The door does not stay closed well, it’s nearly impossible to spool film and it’s definitely not light tight.  To top it all off, the flash is fake.  It’s there purely for aesthetic mimicry.  The other camera will look familiar to most toy camera die-hards.  It’s one of TIME cameras produced in the 80′s and 90′s.  This one is one of the latter models made, probably from the late 80′s or early 90′s.  TIME gave these away to people who bought a magazine subscription.  The flash did not come with camera.  I bought that at another thrift store for $3.  I had to tape four layers of plastic shopping bag to it to mute it down; it was so harsh.

I recently bought these cameras from St. Vinnie’s as well.  There is a Fujica Compact Deluxe, an Olympus 35RC, and a Konica C35.  The Fujica was bought from an ebay seller, it came in a huge box of photography odds and ends.  It’s nearly mint, as good as a used camera can be.  There was half shot roll of Kodak in it.  I had it processed and I got a couple of shots from the roll.  Two of the photos are perfect and were great additions to my collection of pictures of the past shot by other people.

The Olympus and Konica were both bought for a $1 each.  I just about crapped when I saw them on the shelf for $1 each I was so excited.  They’re nearly perfect and gorgeous.

Last week I went thrifting and found this guy at St. Vinnies.  It’s an absolutely gorgeous SX-70 Alpha 1 Land Camera.  It was priced at 25 cents.  I had to buy it.  If there hadn’t been some unused nasty film inside the camera I would have never guessed that it had ever been used.  The metal has no scratches anywhere and the leatherette is absolutely perfect.  Definitely a great buy.

Share this Article

Tags: bell + howell, BG Helioflex, BG helioflex 3000T, Bratz Movie Camera, Canon, Canon Sure Shot, Canon SureShot, Canon WP-1, Fuji DL-50, Fujica Compact Deluxe, Instamatic X-15, Instamatic X-15F, Kodak Instant Camera, Kodak Pleaser, Konica C35, Land Camera, Olympus 35RC, Photoflex MX-35, polaroid, Polaroid SX-70, Ricoh AF-7, SX-70 Alpha 1, TIME Camera

This entry was posted on 24 July 2009 at 7:12 pm and is filed under Sean's Work. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.