The mirrorless design thread seems to be morphing into a discussion of classic cameras, so it might be nice to have a thread for the subject.
I love classic cameras. To be clear, I'm not going to try and claim classic film cameras are better, and I'm certainly not going to pretend I want to return to film photography other than as an occasional indulgence. I love digital photography and my personal opinion is that the advantages are so compelling it would be crazy to even have the argument. But, what I will say is I love classic film cameras and although I am under no illusions over what is better I like classic cameras more than digital I guess it's like an automotive enthusiast recognizing that something like a Tesla 3 blows classic cars apart in every way except styling but still wanting something like an E-Type, classic Mustang, Lamborghini Miura, Ferrari 275 etc. I love the tactile feel, I love the sense of mechanical precision and I just find something wonderful, especially truly mechanical cameras like the Nikon FM, Olympus OM-1, CONTAX S2 etc. My 35mm system was CONTAX, and I've never owned anything which came close to the sense of pure quality exuded by the RTS iii.
So in case anyone shares my love of old things (and please, I'm not trying to start an argument that old film cameras are better - they're not) here is my top 5:
1. CONTAX RTS iii - this one is not so classic as it was a 1990's design and with the exception of being manual focus was a very advanced design and fully featured. It had a vacuum film plate, a fast built in motor-drive, mirror lock up, spot meter, built in vertical grip, data back and a wonderful viewfinder. The real selling points though were the Carl Zeiss lenses and the build quality and tactile feel, it had a sense of absolute quality of a sort which is very rare.
2. Olympus OM-1, the Olympus OM system was a true design classic. Very compact, lightweight and with wonderful build and handling. Putting the shutter speed selection around the lens mount was one of those ideas that after I'd used it I couldn't help wondering why nobody else did it as it worked really well. The matching Zuiko lenses were superb and the OM system was extremely comprehensive. The OM-1 was a true mechanical camera, the lightmeter was battery powered but if the battery died the rest of the camera was unaffected. The OM-1 wasn't the best of the OM line (I'd say that was the OM-4) but as the daddy of the line and as a classic design it is probably my favourite. The only criticism I have is the plastic flash hot shoe which after a while goes brittle and breaks apart from tightening. As an aside, the OM-1 was originally the Olympus M-1 but Leica weren't happy about them calling it the M system.
3. Nikon FM/FM2, probably the ultimate 35mm SLR cliché as it was a camera that survived in the Nikon catalogue as the original FM and later FM2 for years and even had a final hurrah as a mechanical - electronic hybrid FM3. Nikon never bettered the industrial design in my opinion, the things were pretty much bomb proof, the elegant simplicity was just perfect and of course it was supported by an immense system. A story, in my youth I worked for British Antarctic Survey and the Nikon FM2 was their standard camera as experience had led them to value its utter dependability in extremely challenging conditions. It was the only camera body they had any confidence in, which interestingly included the more expensive Nikon F professional series bodies. Someone once started a rumour that Nikon had ended production (prematurely) and they rushed out to buy any FM2's in stock in the local camera stores so they'd have a plentiful supply for many years into the future.
4. Pentax LX, this one is a bit of an odd one as the LX was the great forgotten high end 35mm camera. The LX was Pentax's contender in a market segment dominated by the Nikon F2/F3, Canon F1/new F1 and with the Olympus OM-1/2 then OM-3/4 enjoying a fair bit of acclaim. The LX shared the exchangeable prism feature with the Nikon F family and Canon F1 but was a much smaller, lighter camera and was closer to the slim and light OM family than the battlecruiser like Nikon and Canon bodies. Despite being compact and light it lost nothing to Nikon and Canon in terms of build quality and durability (if anything I always thought the Pentax was the benchmark against the others should have been assessed). While Pentax enjoyed a high profile in the medium format professional segment their 35mm contender was always seen as the poor relation of more successful rivals.
5. Olympus OM-3, this was the mechanical sister camera to the OM-4 and the claim to fame of these cameras was what was for the time an extremely advanced light metering system with multi-spot metering and highlight/shadow functions. It all sounds a bit primitive today, but at the time it was transformational and if people are willing to make the effort to learn how to use multi-spot metering it remains a superb system. As with older OM cameras the OM-3 was compact, superbly built and a joy to hold. This is my personal preference, if looked at logically the OM-4 was the better camera but I like the mechanical OM-3.
I offer an honorable mention, the CONTAX AX. The AX is unique, I know the word "unique" is devalued by overuse and most things touted as unique are anything but, the CONTAX AX really was something special. As AF took over the market Zeiss wouldn't build AF lenses for Yashica/CONTAX despite Japan being desperate to move CONTAX into AF. Without the Zeiss lenses CONTAX was stuck (Yashica developed its own AF SLR, the 230). Thinking laterally, CONTAX questioned whether if they couldn't use the lens to auto-focus, could they move the film plane instead, the result was the AX. The precision needed to make such a system work speaks volumes for the precision and production quality standard that CONTAX worked to, it offered AF using manual focus lenses. The body was pretty similar to the RTS iii (though it lost some of the higher end features of the RTS iii) but the extra depth needed to accomodate a moving film plane made it a bulky body. The AF couldn't match competing Canon EOS or Nikon AF bodies but it did function, and the focusing was much quicker and more accurate than I would ever get close to focusing manual. The CONTAX AX was a truly remarkable achievement and one of those things that if looked at logically was a futile attempt to re-invent a wheel which didn't need to be re-invented (AF), but which was glorious. Sadly, Zeiss's refusal to make AF lenses until it was far too late with the CONTAX N system left the brand up the proverbial without a paddle.
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