Things They Don't Tell You About Vintage Cameras

Bulky old 'Ever Ready' camera cases with their fashionably thin leather straps are what all film photographers want for their cherished vintage cameras. When it comes to the 'vintage look’ that we all (surely) desire, safe and sturdy UV resistant Nylon straps just won’t cut it. In fact true vintage status can only be achieved with a filthy, worn strip of dried out and heavily cracked tan leather, rusted rivets and buckle, and (ideally) the magic word ‘Leica’ stamped on the strap somewhere. Literally nothing else will do!

It will of course fail! Throwing your prized camera onto the very hardest of hard floors when you least expect it. All part of the authentic vintage camera experience though, a talking point amongst Shutter-Chums© in the way that athletes swap notes on career-threatening sports injuries.

Mine failed of course (right), as I knew it surely would at some point. Lucky for me the camera descended in (horrific) slow motion, bouncing first off my hip, then knee, before clonking with moderate force to the ground. Thankfully it was in it's sturdy Balda branded case and no damage appears to have been done. Phew!

I've strongly disliked this case from the day I bought it. The bottom half of the case is decent enough, flexible leather, a good look, with all the correctly located apertures for this quirky bottom winding camera. But even this fails when it comes to the screw attachment that attaches the case to the tripod mount, a substantial chunk of aluminium that prevents the camera from sitting upright in its case. It's the (thankfully removable) top half that's the truly ugly bit though, albeit it protects the camera and lens from damage heroically. A chonky box of hard plastic and aluminium in the style of a 1940's suitcase, over-engineered and oversized to protect the workings, it not only looks horrible but turns a neat compact camera into the kind of boxy lump I've tried all along to avoid having.

So the plan is to find a diminutive soft leather case that hopefully fits the camera perfectly. This could take some time I admit. But first a new strap because it's bad enough having the camera in a suitcase, I don't want to have to carry it around by hand as well.

This Kinokoo leather job looks the part for my taste, and in fact tastes the part too. A subtle Almond from the leather conditioning cream that's clearly been applied. The eventual plan is to mount the camera itself to the strap (left), but for now it'll just have to make do on the horrible vintage case.