Worst camera you ever owned?

[DancesWithWife]

I have been a photographer since I was about 10 or so. I was the school newspaper photographer. I went on to work for several camera stores. During that time I have seen some pretty bad cameras in all formats come out. The worst one I had was a screw mount lens camera, I can't even remember the name. Some of the worst ones I ever seen were #1 The Kodak Disc camera series. #2 Nikon EM. #3. Mamiya NC-1000 #4 Pentax 110 SLR #5 The Kodak Handle.

 

The disc camera was too small to take good photos. The Nikon EM was poorly built and an embarrassment to Nikon. The Mamiya NC-1000 was one of the worst ones as it's entire line was defective. I worked in Olympia and every one I sold was bad. When I moved to Billings that dealer was selling them too. I refused to sell them and predicted they would all come back. They did! The Pentax SLR was a cool small camera, sadly it was still 110 quality, making it very overpriced. And lastly, the Kodak Handle. What made it bad was it blatantly thought it could use Polaroid technology without their permission. They lost a big lawsuit over it. And with that Kodak was out of the instant photo business. 

 

I love cameras and photography. If I had more room I would have room full of old cameras. And yes, I do have a Kodak Disc 6000 camera as a paperweight!

[Qapla]

Not sure what the worst camera I owned was ... I guess maybe it would have been the Kodak cardboard onetime use camera. It had a small, preset shutter size and speed and one roll of film. (I think they still sell these throw away cameras)

 

Twi notable cameras I had was a Voitlander 35mm with a shoe-mount parallax viewfinder. One of the things that made this camera notable was that it was "Made in Germany". That means the camera predated WWII, since, after the war, they were made in "West Germany". I do not know what happened to that camera as I have not seen it in many years.

 

I also owned a Canon AE-1. Back when I got mine they were considered state-of-the-art and cutting edge. The AE-1 is a historically significant SLR, both because it was the first microprocessor-equipped SLR and because of its sales: backed by a major advertising campaign, the AE-1 sold over 5.7 million units, which made it an unprecedented success in the SLR market.

 

I just use my phone and webcams these days.

 

[DancesWithWife]

36 minutes ago, Qapla said:

I also owned a Canon AE-1

The Canon AE-1 made it easier to take photos. It was further changed to be the AE-1 Program. Great camera. A camera that was similar to the Canon AE-1 was the Konica cameras that were similar but also had a built in autowinder and used triple AAA batteries and later the Konica FT-1 would use AA batteries with a bigger grip. I always liked that feature as sometimes the batteries for a Canon AE-1 could be hard to come by.  

[Witness1970]

14 hours ago, Qapla said:

Not sure what the worst camera I owned was ... I guess maybe it would have been the Kodak cardboard onetime use camera. It had a small, preset shutter size and speed and one roll of film. (I think they still sell these throw away cameras)

I had one of those cardboard cameras also.  Maybe more than one.

 

One camera that surprised me was a Fisher Price camera.  Fisher Price made toys for children.  The camera didn't have any complicated settings since it was for children.  I was surprised that it actually made good pictures, being as cheap as it was.

[Lance]

Well I have been shooting for 60 years .. the worst camera is no camera…. How many times I wish I had my camera with me…1000’s.

As for garbage cameras .. the 110’s were such a small film format…

The Kodak 126 film format was pretty good for cheap cameras 

I had Mamiya 220 which I liked..

The Pentax 645 was beautiful I loved the glass…

The day digital came out my quality of keepers went up 1000%  to be able to see what you shot instantly… and then to recompose and tweak … it was like having a darkroom where ever you went.

 

Now I have 3 systems Canon.. Fuji.. IPhone 12…

Getting rid of my Canon equipment… now  mostly on Fuji for serious stuff..  would love to try the Fuji GFX .. 

 

Edited October 3, 2023 by Lance

[New World Explorer]

I was shooting on Zenit when I was young, also had my own darkroom. 

I never had bad camera, simply I accepted limitations of each model. 

Currently I own Fujifilm S-10, Canon 6D mark 2, and Sony 6000 and RX model. 

I like Canon the best, despite limited DR.