The real reason why I’m not buying any more 35mm Film Cameras...
Okay, super dramatic and we all know that’s a lie, but it sounds good, right?
Hi Film Fam!
Every single time I come back to write the next newsletter I’ve got another handful of subscribers. So if you’re new here, welcome to ‘Josie On Film’ which started out as my professional career - mainly portraiture - and now has shifted into… who knows? That’s what we’re both here to discover and find out about together!
I hope you’ve had a great few weeks. I’m currently in the middle of scanning my Grandfather’s film from the 1950’s which has been such an honor to do and I’m about halfway through them all. Early next week I’ll be testing a few of the camera’s mentioned in this newsletter and developing my latest batch of film - which means soon you’ll be the first to see them (after me of course!)
As always these newsletters tend to be quite rambly, photo heavy, and have the vibe of catching up with that one friend you haven’t seen in a while who’s just very passionate about all things film. So if that’s your kind of jam, you’re in the right place!
Grab a coffee, settle in, and let’s get into it!
How many cameras is “too many” anyways?
Anyone who knows me, or follows along on my Instagram will know I’m almost always posting about some grubby half broken camera I scored on Ebay, or at a thrift store, or just happened to know someone who was selling theirs at the right time to fill that mechanical void in my heart.
As it stands I have 15 working 35mm film cameras, and a few more I’m in the middle of repairing.
I can admit I have a problem with impulse buying cameras if I know I can lovingly bring them back to life - Ricoh’s especially - and in saying that I do in fact own three each of the KR10M and the KR-10 Super. Both original ones became a ‘daily carry’ at some point. While I was shooting portraits I would have both set up with different lenses and film stocks and juggle the two around my neck quite happily.
At the time with my ‘professional career’ taking off I really needed to purchase at least one backup body for my main cameras so it just made sense to get the same as what I was comfortable with. I didn’t really want to buy a freshly restored one because of the increased prices, so I turned to the “used/for parts” market instead. There’s just something about saving a camera that would otherwise be tossed out due to a minor repair or it being untested that hits a soft spot in me. Thanks to that soft spot I picked up and repaired a few cameras myself and couldn't be more thrilled about it!
The ironic thing as well is that I absolutely hated the second camera I ever got - the Ricoh KR-10 Super - with a fiery passion. I didn’t read the Ebay listing properly and I thought it was another KR10M (which I adored and spoke about in my first newsletter!) so I purchased it without really looking into it further. It somehow didn’t click at the time just how many similar labelled models there were in Ricoh’s range. I opened my package to this dusty crusty manual cranking camera and was not impressed at all.
I took the lens from it, slapped it on my other camera and simply packed the KR-10 Super away. I didn’t know that only a few months later I’d give it a second chance on a whim and from there, well… it didn’t leave my side.
When I started to get more seriously into film