I am apparently an avid yet skinflintish camera collector who has a penchant for Eastern European cameras. My main interest is in collecting Soviet Rangefinder and Single Lens Reflex Camera's. The main one's being Fed, Zorki, Zenit and Kiev. I also collect interesting camera I find at car boot sales. I try to use the cameras in my collection and do my own black and white developing in the kitchen sink.

Soviet Start SLR

My take on the history of the Fed camera

Primary cameras

Digital - Fujifilm E550 and S5600

Panasonic FX12 pocketable thingy.

Film - Olympus XA3, Praktica BX20 and Leica IIIC

Lens/Tripod/Flashgun etc:

For Leica Types

Leitz Elmar and Hektor

Jupiter 3 f1.5 50mm, 8 f2 50mm, 9 f2.8 85mm, 11 f4 135mm, 12 f2.8 35mm

Other Types

Loads of other more mundane lenses in 42mm and Praktica bayonet mount.

Also complete set of Contax/Kiev bayonet mount Jupiter lenses

What you like and don't like about the camera

Fujifilm E550, incredible image quality, high 12mp output and superb optical viewfinder. Some of the control ergonomically poor and a fragile feel. Cannot see back screen in bright light and sometimes horrible purple edges. RAW option hidden down sub menus. In RAW mode slow write speed. Supplied RAW software option complete crap however alternative freeware s7raw option is really good.

E550 review www.dpreview.com/reviews/fujifilme550/

Fujifilm S5600, easy to hold and looks like a DSLR. Takes very good photos however sometimes not really big or sharp enough for cropping. Control layout is very poor and electronic viewfinder is complete crap. Cannot see back screen in bright light. Still overall a good camera for the money I paid.

Olympus XA3, simple small wide angle camera. Lens not that sharp but still gets the good photos.

Praktica BX20, best damned camera I ever bought cost £5 and £1 for a Prakticar f1.4 50mm Carl Zeiss Lens - probably a DDR made Zeiss Planar. Camera body build quality suspect in contrast lens is the dogs bollocks.

Leica IIIC, classic camera look and quality feel. Bean can Film loading and separate viewfinder rangefinder can be a real pain. You have to cut a film leader to miss sprocket! Shutter runs a tad slow and mould on rangefinder mirror! Even with its faults still the Rolls Royce of camera designs.

Secondary cameras (and what you use them for)

A collection of Soviet and Eastern European made classic 35mm cameras that I try to use in the summer months - mostly junk!!!

Voightlander Bessa R stands out as being my best camera albeit I tend to use other more mundane kit

Yashica Electro 35 with its Yashinon f1.7 45mm lens for low light work albeit an ergonomic nightmare to use.

I also use some medium format cameras the main ones being: 1930's Rolleiflex, Salyut C (Soviet Hasselblad copy) and Moskva 2 and 4 (Zeiss Ikon Super Ikonta copy)

Ideal/dream camera set up

Nikon FM or any Leica M Series or Olympus XA or Soviet Drug (Leicavit copy) - all about equal in my dreams!

Previous cameras owned

Lost count but most interesting being a none working Soviet Leningrad Rangefinder.

Photo software used Mepis and Puppy Linux with dual boot Windoz XP professional - Gimp, Digikam, Photoshop 7, Paint Shop Pro XI, JAlbum, s7raw Fujifilm raw editor to name a few. I am a great believer in using free or open source software for photo editing. I recommend Gimp, Digikam ShowFoto and Picasa. For negatives I use Xsane for scanning.

www.gimp.org/

www.digikam.org/

picasa.google.com/linux/

www.xsane.org/

Computer gear/scanner:Current setup being a £20 Car Boot sale NEC Powermate 1.7ghz P4 with 384mb, scanner Epson 2480.

What kind of photos do you take

Portraits

Steam Engines

Classic Cars

Aircraft

Countryside - Mostly Trees

Building- mostly skylines

State of NHS Toilets and hospitals!!!

and anything else interesting I might see

Who are your photographic heroes

The War Photographer Robert Capa

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Capa

This photo of Pablo Picasso being I think Capas best photo

graphics8.nytimes.com/images/...ak_picasso.jpg

One of his girl friends was Ingrid Bergman!

Soviet Photographer Yevgeny Khaldei

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yevgeny_Khaldei

The photo of the Red Army soldier raising the Soviet Flag over the Reichstag is I think is Yevgeny Khaldei best photo. Also the story about the soldier holding and supporting the flag holder being a looter is a real gem. He had a wrist watch on each arm and Stalin had the final descision on the photo being released to the world press - the second watch was removed from the final press release photo - albeit on this photo link it appears to have been put back. Also there was some issue of the soldiers and photographer being involved being Jewish and names being surpressed and changed as Stalin hated them! Good story good photo!

upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...hstag_flag.jpg

Favourite photo sites

Most classic camera sites however if I have to pick one it would be Karen Nakamura site:

www.photoethnography.com/

Homepage/example of your fave pic (if applicable)

www.btinternet.com/~stowupland/

This is still a work in progress as only the Fed camera links have been completed:

sovietcamera.110mb.com/soviet/

Also done a sort of scrap book on the Soviet Start SLR:

www.btinternet.com/~stowupland/start/index.html

Created this one for my son with Kodak DX6340 for pictures and a Fujifilm E550 camera for video:

www.btinternet.com/~stowupland/niallrothery/ On youtube uk.youtube.com/profile?user=niallrothery

Highpoint of photographic career

Disgusting NHS Toilets taken with Kodak DX6340 3.1mp camera. The story and photos appeared in EADT twice and also in the Bury Free Press and guess what they have now done something about it.

www.buryfreepress.co.uk/news/...ust.1106891.jp

So my claim to photographic fame is pictures of Toilets!!!