In today's headlong rush into the future, people tend to leave behind great older technologies that worked beautifully for decades. The great cameras of fifty, thirty, and even just twenty years ago are sitting forgotten in closets, or turning up for a pittance at garage sales.

Still, many of these old classics are capable of wonderful results—better than ever, in fact, with today's improved films—and their splendid 20th-century designs are a welcome aesthetic break from today's nondescript plastic blobs festooned with LCD displays and tiny buttons.

There are several things to keep in mind if you're interested in buying and using old cameras, including film and battery availability, processing costs, and overall usability and reparability. Also, the majority of these cameras are mostly or fully manual, so loading film, setting the correct exposure, and sometimes even focusing, requires some smarts...but it's not rocket science, and there are loads of resources to help you out.

In the days before "miniature" 35mm film became the standard, most cameras either used individual pieces of sheet film in holders that only held two at time, or taller-than-35mm paper-backed rollfilm that made only a few shots on a roll, typically eight or twelve. If you really want to do the 1930s press-photographer thing, put on your fedora and find yourself a nice 4x5 Speed Graphic or Crown Graphic!

One of these old press cameras (as opposed to the larger, must-use-a-tripod-and-cable-release view cameras) in good condition with a decent lens can still produce stunning results because, quite simply, the bigger the negative, the better the image. Graphic's are American-made classics, incredibly well-built, plentiful on the used market, and it's hard to imagine a more recognizably iconic old camera.

Among the mulitude of old cameras that use rollfilm are some wonderful beauties. But most of the old rollfilm formats have been discontinued over the years, including such once-popular film sizes as 828, 620, 616, 127, and even the 1960s 126 Instamatic cartridges. Thus, many lovely old folding bellows cameras and little twin-lens reflexes like "baby" Rolleis and Yashica 44s are now orphans.

This is also true for the majority of old Kodak Brownie (etc.) snapshooters and many old, fantastic, folding Polaroid instant-film cameras. These cameras are still worthy collectibles, but the limited availability of film means you may not be able to take pictures with them.

The one size of rollfilm still made in a wide variety of film emulsions is 120, which the pros call medium format. Cameras using 120 film produce a 2-1/4 inch square negative, or a larger rectangular negative, which (because of the "larger negative" principle) typically produce results vastly superior to 35mm cameras.

Go for it—find yourself a way-cool folding bellows camera that takes big rectangular negatives on 120 film, one with a great lens like a Zeiss Super Ikonta, or a more humble snapshooter like a late-20s Number 1 Pocket Kodak. Or get a twin-lens reflex that gets 12 square shots on a roll, like a Rolleiflex, Rolleicord, Minolta Autocord, one of the great Mamiya C series.

You can also consider medium format SLRs like Hasseblads, Bronicas, Kowas, one of the Mamiya R series, but these typically cost much more than folding bellows cameras and TLRs. Just keep in mind that you'll have to use a pro lab for film processing, and it will be considerably more expensive than drugstore developing...but the jaw-dropping results will definitely be worth it!

35mm, King of Film Formats - Part One

Until the 1960s, the most popular cameras using 35mm film were rangefinders. In fact, it was a German-made rangefinder camera that initially demonstrated in the 1930s what double-perforated 35mm movie film could do in still cameras: the famous Leica. And it was the German-made Kodak Retina of the late 30s that introduced the standard rewindable 35mm cassette that's still in use today.

Rangefinders have separate viewfinders independent from the camera's lens allowing accurate focusing with a split-image display. The better ones (Leica, Contax, the 50s Nikons and Canons) take interchangeable lenses, and typically include integrated rangefinder displays for a variety of lenses.

35mm, King of Film Formats - Part Two

Although 35mm single-lens reflex designs had been made for years by some German manufacturers (most notably the Exakta), it took the 1959 introduction of the Japanese Nikon F to really demonstrate the value of the SLR approach. Built on top of the perfected design of the great Nikon rangefinders, these original Nikon Fs were robust cameras, incredibly tough and dependable, with superior lens optics. Photojournalists loved them at once, and began using them in place of the Rolleiflexes, Leicas, and Graphics that had documented earlier decades.

Soon, Nikon improved the camera to include through-the-lens match-needle metering in the Photomic models and provided alternate kinds of finders and focusing screens, motor drives, and an ever-increasing array of lenses. The other major camera manufacturers were soon making 35mm SLR systems to compete with Nikon, some of them very good indeed. The SLR boom was on!

For example, in 1965 Nikon introduced a no-frills "budget" camera to allow amateurs to make use of their lenses, the Nikkormat. Pros loved them too, and the late-60s Nikkormat FTn model remains a fantastic camera.

35mm, King of Film Formats - Part Two...and a Half!

Another interesting variety of 35mm cameras that's all but forgotten now is the half-frame camera. While these use standard 35mm film, they shoot two vertical 18x24mm frames in place of every standard horizontal 24x36mm frame, thus getting twice as many negatives on a roll of film.

Given the fine grain and high sharpness of today's films, this is still a big enough negative to make tack-sharp 8x10 prints. Olympus introduced their first significant half-frame "Pen" camera in 1959, and went on to produce millions, in many variations at a variety of price levels.

Nearly all of the Olympus Pen half-frame cameras are great shooters, with excellent lenses, and some with very accurate light meters. Of particular interest are the later Olympus Pen EE-2, EE-3, and EES-2 models, whose auto-exposure systems support films up to 400-speed, have hot shoes for flash, and in the case of the EES-2, feature accurate zone focusing (the EE models are fixed-focus, and can't shoot closer than about four feet).

An even more impressive design masterpiece from Olympus is the Pen F from 1963—an elegant half-frame SLR that supports a large range of interchangeable lenses and other accessories. It was followed by the Pen FT in 1966, which added an uncoupled through-the-lens light meter. Nearly all the Olympus Pens are great cameras, and their film economy—typically 55 shots on a 24-exposure roll—is extraordinary.

"Bond. James Bond."

In terms of even smaller cameras, while there have been some very interesting subminiature cameras made that use 16mm film and 110 Pocket Instamatic cassettes, they are only marginally supported now. Thus, I've left perhaps the most remarkable old camera that is still well supported until last—the Minox.

Invented in, and manufactured pretty much continuously since, the 1930s, the Minox is the familiar metal "spy camera" with the distinctive push-pull film advance that you've seen in the movies. It makes tiny 8x11mm negatives on 9.5mm-wide film in special double cassettes, and has one of the highest-resolution lenses ever used on a commercial camera. It can dependably make lovely, not-too-grainy 5x7 prints from today's 100-speed films.

Most importantly, new cameras are still being made in Germany today (though the old ones are cooler!), fresh factory-loaded film is available from the major camera stores, and a number of specialty labs around the world process and print the film. And, as I can personally attest, these outrageously small cameras are great shooters, not to mention conversation pieces.

There are many used Minox cameras floating around, and they are so well made that it's not unusual for 50s- and 60s-vintage models to work just fine without requiring any major cleaning or repair.

The most plentiful model is the Minox B, which includes a coupled light meter that doesn't require batteries and is surprisingly accurate considering its age. The only downside is that Minox film and processing are specialty items, and are somewhat expensive...but that wouldn't stop a well-equipped, debonair spy, now would it?