The Film Retriever

Another short review/initial impressions of a camera that unfortunately was not in working order, so I did not put any film in it. This camera was suffering from the dreaded 'Dead aperture magnets' problem, something that marred the first generation of AF cameras from Minolta. When you pick up the 9000 you immediately understand that this is a very well made camera. Although the outer shell is plastic, there is a lot of metal underneath it and fits well in my hand. It has a rubberised grip which unfortunately it suffers from deteriorating and chipping away but this does not impact on the camera's functionality. The camera accepts a motor drive but without it you have to manually advance the film after each shot. I find this quite nice really, especially if you like your camera to be quiet – and the 9000 is a quiet camera. The shutter/mirror vibration/noise is kept to a minimum. The camera offers the 4 most important (according to me at least) modes; manual, ap...

Cameras in this blog are a bit like buses – no camera for months and suddenly four in a row. Two of them were given to me as non working examples so I did not bother putting any film in them but I am happy to share my initial impressions of them. One of them is this Miranda Auto Sensorex EE. If you have not heard of Miranda before, you are not alone. Many people haven't. The thing is that Miranda cameras are exceptionally well build, with high quality optics and features which pro cameras of their time (that is 60s' and 70s) would be envious of. Take this one as an example, it comes from the very distant 1972 (before the OM-1 era) and offers: Dual light metering including spot ! Removable prism. Totally mechanical shutter. Speed priority automation. These sound like old school kind of staff but find a better equipped camera of that time. And not only that, the camera is very well build, it weights 930gr with lens on – that is Nikon F2 category – and...