I have always enjoyed photography.
The act of capturing special moments, beautiful light, places
or objects is something that appeals to me and many others. Since
childhood, I had cameras, ranging from 12mm back in the 70s, compact
35mm in the 80s and my first SLR in 1986 - a Yashica FX2 with
extension tubes for macro photography. I took many shell pictures
with it until I got a NIKON FM2 that I slowly stopped using after
purchasing my first digital camera, a Nikon Coolpix 950.
On my honeymoon in 1998, I visited
an antique shop in Santa Barbara, CA and bought two old cameras
to decorate my office, a Polaroid 80A and a Agfa Optima both from
the 50s. When I got divorced in 2003, I decided to change the
decoration of my apartment, so I moved the cameras there and acquired
quite a few others on ebay for display in a showcase. I carefully
cleaned each camera and tried to repair them whenever possible
(not an easy task...). I also searched the Internet to learn about
their history and tested some of them with reasonably good results.
Due to space limitations, I slowed
my purchases (a well known occurrence for many collectors) and
now I just check ebay from time to time for new ones or occasionally
receive one as a gift from friends.
English
checking by John Wolff
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